Tuesday open thread: Hey, do you have any dewormer?
We thought it was bad when the former guy was pimping injecting bleach or shoving a UV light up your nether orifices in order to combat COVID. We thought it was bad when he started to pimp a malaria drug which had no effect on the virus. It couldn't possibly get worse than that. Right? Well, no.
The latest craze among the great unvaxxed, as this tweet from the FDA shows, is to take ivermectin. What is ivermectin?
Ivermectin tablets are approved by the FDA to treat people with intestinal strongyloidiasis and onchocerciasis, two conditions caused by parasitic worms. In addition, some topical (on the skin) forms of ivermectin are approved to treat external parasites like head lice and for skin conditions such as rosacea.
Some forms of ivermectin are used in animals to prevent heartworm disease and certain internal and external parasites. It’s important to note that these products are different from the ones for people, and safe when used as prescribed for animals, only.
Now, there are two forms of the drug: one for humans, one for animals. One would think that the great unvaxxed would at least take the one meant for people. But, that's a prescription drug, and no doctor will give it to you unless you actually have the condition for which it's intended. So those who don't trust modern medicine but do trust their veterinarian are ingesting the one meant for animals. Why is this bad?
[A]nimal drugs are often highly concentrated because they are used for large animals like horses and cows, which can weigh a lot more than we do—a ton or more. Such high doses can be highly toxic in humans.
America is a strange creature. On the one hand it is a place of intense intellectual activity. Nobel prize winners and world-changing artists call this country home. However, ever since the Republic's founding, there has been a strong, virulent strain of utter anti-intellectualism. A brief political movement in the 19th Century was known as the "Know Nothing Party". Their descendants are with us still, hawking snake oil and scams, doing so by appealing to our modern know-nothings, telling them that they, in fact, are ahead of the curve, and are better than the sheep who just ingest what mainstream science tells them is safe.
Every country has this distrust of intellectuals to one degree or another. But in the West, only in America is willful ignorance held up as a valid life choice. And we see the result of this in our politics. You don't see the French ingesting animal dewormers. And you don't see the Germans electing an orange carnival barker as chancellor.
This country has many problems. But one of the greatest, one which underpins many others, is the idea that your unlettered opinion is as valid as that of a subject expert who has literally spent her entire life studying her subject. ThunderCock8675309's views on COVID are as valid as Anthony Fauci's. And this, my friends, leads us to where we are now. But this culture is designed to elevate Mr. Cock's views as the "voice of the common man", when in any other civilized society he'd be, at the least, studiously ignored.
Don't take a horse dewormer. Wear a mask. Get vaccinated. And stop listening to stupid people.