CITY COVID MONOPOLY HOLDER TOUTED DANGEROUS DRUG

(Ed.'s Note: Remember this? For some time, Brownsville P.A. Eder Hernandez was treating people who tested positive for covid with ivermectin, a livestock deworming and head lice drug and praised its effectiveness. Now we have learned that poison control centers have reported an upsurge in poisoning cases involving the drug when used for treating covid. For months after the covid outbreak, Hernandez was given a virtual monopoly on testing as well as treatment and he claimed in numerous postings in social media that ivermectin was a wonder drug that he had used "with success." He also touted nicotine patches, another treatment that has been found to be useless in dealing with the virus. A P.A. (physician's assistant) has to work under a doctor's supervision. Did a doctor approve of this? And this put Brownsville in the "forefront"?)  

By Alyssa Lukpat

New York Times

September 26, 2021

A wave of misinformation touting the deworming drug ivermectin as a Covid treatment appears to be showing no signs of abating, with calls about the drug to poison control centers surging, and officials in New Mexico saying misuse of the medication contributed to at least two deaths.

Federal health authorities have repeatedly warned Covid patients not to take the drug, which is an anti-parasite medication most commonly used in the United States on livestock and, in smaller doses, to treat head lice in people. But those warnings have done little to curb the drug’s popularity in parts of the United States.

The American Association of Poison Control Centers reported 1,440 cases of ivermectin poisoning this year through Sept. 20, which is more than triple the number during the same period in 2019 and 2020. 

A majority of this year’s reports came over the summer as people sought prescriptions after false claims about the drug's effectiveness in Covid patients started to circulate on social media, podcasts and talk radio. Joe Rogan, the podcasting giant, and Alex Jones, the conspiracy theorist, have both promoted the drug.

States across the country are reporting a staggering number of calls about the drug to poison control centers. 

The health authorities in Mississippi reported last month that 70 percent of recent calls were about ivermectin. 

In Oregon, 25 people reported ivermectin poisoning between Aug. 1 and Sept. 14, Oregon Health & Science University reported. Five of those people were hospitalized, including two who were admitted to an intensive care unit.