Slashdot is powered by your submissions, so send in your scoop

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×
Medicine

High Ivermectin Overdosages Caused 1,143 Calls to America's Poison Control Centers This Year (npr.org) 440

America's poison control centers are getting more calls this year from people who tried self-medicating with ivermectin, NPR reports — with at least 592 calls coming since July 1: According to the National Poison Data System, which collects information from the nation's 55 poison control centers, there was a 245% jump in reported exposure cases from July to August — from 133 to 459. Meanwhile, emergency rooms across the country are treating more patients who have taken the drug... Most patients are overdosing on a [high-concentration] version of the drug that is formulated to treat parasites in cows and horses... The National Poison Data System says 1,143 ivermectin exposure cases were reported between Jan. 1 and Aug. 31. That marks an increase of 163% over the same period last year...

Minnesota's Poison Control System is dealing with the same problem. According to the department, only one ivermectin exposure case was reported in July, but in August, the figure jumped to nine. Kentucky has seen similar increases. Thirteen misuse calls have been reported this year, Ashley Webb, director of the Kentucky Poison Control Center, told the Louisville Courier-Journal. "Of the calls, 75% were from people who bought ivermectin from a feed store or farm supply store and treated themselves with the animal product," Webb said. The other 25% were people who had a prescription, she added.

"You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y'all. Stop it," the FDA said in a renewed warning late last month.

Those with a prescription from a health care provider should only fill it "through a legitimate source such as a pharmacy, and take it exactly as prescribed," the agency instructs. It also cautioned that large doses of the drug are "dangerous and can cause serious harm" and said that doses of ivermectin produced for animals could contain ingredients harmful to humans. The agency added: "Even the levels of ivermectin for approved human uses can interact with other medications, like blood-thinners. You can also overdose on ivermectin, which can cause nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, hypotension (low blood pressure), allergic reactions (itching and hives), dizziness, ataxia (problems with balance), seizures, coma and even death."

At least two more states — Louisiana and Washington — have also "issued alerts after an uptick in calls to poison control centers," according to a health writer for the Associated Press: By mid-August U.S. pharmacies were filling 88,000 weekly prescriptions for the medication, a 24-fold increase from pre-COVID levels, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Meanwhile, U.S. poison control centers have seen a five-fold increase in emergency calls related to the drug, with some incidents requiring hospitalization.

This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

High Ivermectin Overdosages Caused 1,143 Calls to America's Poison Control Centers This Year

Comments Filter:
  • by jellomizer ( 103300 ) on Sunday September 05, 2021 @02:46PM (#61766371)

    We have a Vaccine, which by now has been distributed to millions/billions of people around the world. With mostly minor short term effects. That in the United States is freely distributed (yes, yes I know our tax money is paying for it.) Which is also proven to be working well, including over a 90% efficiency rate with the current mutation.

    While people decide to pay for a drug that isn't designed for humans, nor tested or dosed for humans, which also isn't a vaccine.

    I know their echo chambers are telling everyone over and over again to not trust the government, don't trust the scientist.
    Because whenever there is something very complex the Scientist and Experts try to explain it. then they get all angry, because they don't understand such a complex idea, so they simplify it down, this goes on for a few iterations to a point where the Science give a very rudimentary explanation to the problem that the dummies kinda finally get, but then start going crazy poking holes in such a simple explanation.

    It like I am trying to save a trapped animal, but because they are trying to attack me, I cannot save them and they die anyways.

    • by Entrope ( 68843 )

      Ivermectin has a pretty good track record of doing nothing for COVID-19, but it absolutely has been tested, has doses developed, and prescriptions written for humans. There are very good reasons for people to not take animal formulations of it, and to get advice from a good doctor so that they don't take a drug that won't help them, but "a drug that isn't designed for humans, nor tested [] for humans, which also isn't a vaccine" covers none of them.

      • Exactly. Fit for animal consumption - is not a very high bar to meet. Theres a reason I dont eat dog and cat food also. I bet some of these people probably buy organic food at the grocery. Forget the extremely high dose of ivermectin, formulated for a 900lb cow, what about all the other filler crap? They arent concerned with the cow getting cancer in 5 years. Its going to be sitting on the kroger meat counter fairly soon.
    • I know their echo chambers are telling everyone over and over again to not trust the government, don't trust the scientist.

      When was the last time Slashdot told US not to trust authority? You shouldn't even need to dig deep or go very far. It's practically a tenet around here. And yes some of you are hard on scientists as well. It's easy to talk about "they" when our own pig-pen stinks.

    • I don't get it either. I just use them to prolong my home office for as long as I can. Because as long as infection numbers stay up, I can continue working from home. And they are basically the only ones pulling that weight now that everyone else is vaccinated and their chances to keep those numbers high enough are rather low,

      So I'm all for them taking bleach, or horse medicine, or whatever the miracle cure du jour is, as long as they still get infected and keep those numbers going, I'm fine with that.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by fermion ( 181285 )
      Also of note is that Mississippi doctors write almost 80 opioid prescriptions per 100 residents. Mississippi, like so many places, love thier drugs. And they donâ(TM)t care if they die. They do not care if other people suffer so they can get high and play. Almost 50,000 people die of overdoses in the state.
    • For their inability to separate fact from fiction when we have a significant portion of our press and body politic pushing that fiction. For example you will find virtually all of the mega pastors and preachers are saying bad things about the vaccine and attacking mask wearing.

      There's also the matter of mutations and breakthrough infections.

      Finally you have the Black and Latino communities who's low vaccination rates can be traced back to a general distrust of modern medicine. That distrust can be t
    • by Darinbob ( 1142669 ) on Sunday September 05, 2021 @05:45PM (#61766947)

      The thing that makes a lot of dumb people really really mad is to tell them to do something different. Oh boy, that sets them off! Next thing they're off marching and parading and holding up banners against doing whatever common sense thing is that they were asked to change. Change is the big evil to them. Wear a mask, take a vaccine, vote a different way, stop using a derogatory term, stop living in flood plains or in thick dry timber, etc. Since is bad because science changes it's mind, and anything that changes its mind is inherently evil. Unlike the Bible which has been in English for longer than English has been a language.

  • by hdyoung ( 5182939 ) on Sunday September 05, 2021 @02:59PM (#61766413)
    To take more and huff a little bit of bleach just to make sure the covid is dead. Just a little bit mind you. Our savior president said so.

    I used to be nicer, but Ive concluded that we need to let natural selection take its course and encourage the idiots to follow their chosen path into oblivion. Preferably before they reproduce.

    Now get off my lawn.
    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Opportunist ( 166417 )

      I used to quietly enjoy them, until I notice that, hey, I can tell them to their face that they're risking their life just for my comfort and they won't stop, ponder and think, and maybe even stop their behaviour. If anything, they double down on it!

      I love these idiots. You can outright TELL them that they're morons who risk and lose their life so you can stay home, and they just redouble their effort.

  • Let them die. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by DrunkenTerror ( 561616 ) on Sunday September 05, 2021 @03:00PM (#61766423) Homepage Journal

    At this point, hospitals that are near capacity should consider denying admission to explicit vaccine-refusers, and save their resources for those who are willing and able to follow the best path to general health for the greater good. Exceptions should be made those who are unable to get the jab for valid, documented medical reasons.

  • by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Sunday September 05, 2021 @03:15PM (#61766467)

    Afterward, none of these people had worms.

  • Some of those what work forces
    Want the paste that's for horses.
    Shitting in the name of...

  • Perspective (Score:5, Interesting)

    by markdavis ( 642305 ) on Sunday September 05, 2021 @03:26PM (#61766499)

    >"High Ivermectin Overdosages Caused 1,143 Calls to America's Poison Control Centers This Year"

    Just to put it into perspective in a country with 350 million people. Calls In 2019 to poison control:

    109,465 calls due to cosmetics
    100,830 for cleaning agents
    [...]
    39,122 for vitamins
    [...]
    26,417 for plants

    19% were intentional use/application/ingestion.
    https://www.poison.org/poison-... [poison.org]

    • by sinij ( 911942 )
      More so, actual overdoses are extremely unlikely.

      Safety, tolerability, and pharmacokinetics of escalating high doses of ivermectin in healthy adult subjects. [nih.gov]

      Ivermectin was generally well tolerated, with no indication of associated CNS toxicity for doses up to 10 times the highest FDA-approved dose of 200 microg/kg.

    • Perspective says that the overwhelming majority of those are accidental poisonings, not a fucking moron going and taking a horse dewormer because they think the vaccine would give them 5G microchips.

      Perspective also says that not everyone jumping on an experimental drug bandwagon is stupid enough to take an entire horse's dose worth. In summary there's more than 1143 morons in the USA. Actually based on the current vaccination rate the number is closer to 150million morons.

    • Bear in mind that the 1,143 calls were made in just one month (July), whereas the number you cite are for the whole year of 2019.
      Extrapolated, the 1,143 calls would correspond to 13,716 calls per year, which is completely ridiculous for such a silly auto-medication based on nothing but made-up lies.
    • is that the federal government (the same one recently scaring Americans away from Ivermectin by referring to it as a drug used on livestock) gives Ivermectin to refugees headed to the USA (including the new batch arriving from Afghanistan) who are presumably human (one presumes the federal government is not calling these people "livestock") and is doing it at the recommendation of the CDC [cdc.gov] (read page 3 of the PDF). Now, to be clear: the feds are giving it to refugees for its anti-parasite properties, rather

    • by tomhath ( 637240 )
      Twice as many people were shot in Chicago so far this year than there were cases of ivermectin poisoning nationwide. But NPR doesn't want you to think about that.
  • ...fix for stupid. These people are fucking dense. I have conservative relatives, and talking with them just leaves my forehead red. It would be easier to herd cats on catnip.

    • Im not sure there is one specific demographic that this fits. The ivermectin shit baffles me beyond belief. Im half convinced the people saying this shit know better and just trying to get people killed to pacify their own sadistic needs. Its like those assholes that talk teenagers into killing themselves for kicks.
    • by Dusanyu ( 675778 )
      funny all the conservative members of my family are vaccinated because they believe in being reopenable members of society you get vaccinated to protect the people around you as much as it is to protect yourself. Smallpox ended the debate on if vaccination works the people who are debating this fact are idiots and they can be found on both sides of the isle being idiots about various things. My Political beliefs are Moderate to conservatives if I can help my community and nation by doing something as sill
  • by wickerprints ( 1094741 ) on Sunday September 05, 2021 @03:43PM (#61766559)

    There has always been a distrust of science in the less educated segments of American society, a sort of arrogant suspicion of evidence-based reasoning that is supplanted by a mode of thought motivated by fear, superstition, dogma, and spite. The use of specific terms and catchphrases meant to denigrate rational thought, such as "(liberal) elites," is a reflection of a deep-seated cultural hatred and resentment of science that is perceived as something that is force-fed to the American public. Anything that dares to contradict their worldview is demonized, yet their small and menial lives rely upon and are constantly enriched and empowered by thousands of years of hard-fought scientific and technological advancement.

    These same people who deny vaccines and poison themselves with veterinary antihelminthics solely because they have been told that this "left-wing" segment of society has shown vaccines work, yet will rush to the hospital begging to be saved from their own stupidity, are the predictable and inevitable consequence of generations of deliberate educational sabotage and right-wing corporate/political media propaganda specifically designed to engender distrust of science and prevent teaching of critical thinking, so that the wealthy ruling class can have access to cheap, abundant, unquestioning slave labor, and the politicians they buy can more easily manipulate and disenfranchise the public.

    COVID is not the disease that is rotting American society. The pandemic, at least as it has unfolded within US borders, is merely a symptom of the underlying cancer of scientific illiteracy and the failure to teach scientific skepticism, as Carl Sagan had explained in his book "The Demon-Haunted World: Science As a Candle In the Dark." Each successive generation of Americans has become increasingly less able to reason logically; to the point now that large numbers of people are eating horse paste. And the internet, which delivers information but not wisdom, only serves to increase the rate at which disinformation spreads.

    Even if COVID goes away, there will be another catastrophe. Maybe it is climate change, or maybe another disease. If Americans refuse to learn, they will suffer the consequences.

    • by f00zbll ( 526151 )
      Most of the evidence I see suggests america has already lost. As a culture, we no longer value education. Just go into any middle class high school and see for yourself. Even in expensive private schools, they aren't teaching analytical thinking and problem solving.
  • Denial is easy. Unqualified, but articulate fools with zero caring for science and investigating truth are easier believed than any statistics. Especially when society has hit you over the head a few times, you are going to listen to the guy making money off controversy when he tells you "elites" are bad. Nevermind the guy telling you that is the actual elite.

  • by jeti ( 105266 ) on Sunday September 05, 2021 @03:57PM (#61766609)
    Ivermectin has known side effects:

    We observed significant reduction in the sperm counts and sperm motility of the patients tested. On the morphology there was significant increase in the number of abnormal sperm cells. This took the forms of two heads, double tails, white (albino) sperms and extraordinarily large heads.

    Source [scholarsre...ibrary.com]

    • Interesting, and worth following up. But... N=37, which isn't great.

      And those 37 were drawn from a population of 385. Those rejected were rejected because their sperm wasn't normal. The motivation to do the study was that 85% of men getting a similar treatment had abnormal sperm.

      Since 85% isn't much different from 90%, it would be very interesting to see if that 85% was getting treatment for the same thing or something different.

  • The gene-pool will profit.

  • I chose the free vaccine. I am not a horse.

"You can have my Unix system when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers." -- Cal Keegan

Working...