Ivermectin has a surprisingly interesting origin, it was discovered in soil near a Japanese golf course and developed from a bacterium that kills parasites. It went on to treat diseases like river blindness and became widely used in both human and veterinary medicine. Despite all that, it’s definitely not some miracle drug or cure-all like some would have you believe. Though that didn’t stop my grandpa from stockpiling it after watching too many Fox News ads.

I wonder how many years it will take for the emotional response to the word “ivermectin” to subside so that every mention of it doesn’t erupt into a two minute hate. I worry that the unintended consequence of these marketing campaigns, whether well intentioned or not, is going to be a growing list of trigger words that send people into deep mental anguish. As there seems to be a new outrage every few months, I would think there has to be some kind of real damage that accumulates from a lifetime of this.

> It has now been shown to reduce malaria transmission by killing the mosquitoes that feed on treated individuals.

That seems like it will interfere with careless randomized controlled trial design. If the drug kills mosquitos, it could easily do less well at preventing the user from getting infected by a mosquito, but it could potentially prevent an infected patient from spreading an infection via mosquito or even kill a mosquito that would otherwise subsequently spread an infection between two other people.

In any case, here’s a better article. It seems the authors are very much aware of this issue, and they randomized entire clusters of people:

https://www.science.org/content/article/well-known-drug-coul...

The discoverers of ivermectin shared a Nobel Prize in 2015 [0] with a discoverer of a novel malaria treatment. Interesting coincidence.

[0] https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/2015/press-releas...

Ivermectin: much more than you wanted to know

https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/ivermectin-much-more-than-y...

Spoiler: this finding fits

Well something needs to be done about malaria. Since there is no hope in solving Climate Change, seems malaria and other disease are slowing heading north.

I remember reading some nasty mosquito diseases already landed in Florida and Southern Texas. And seems malaria use to be as far north as NH.

So, if work does not start soon, malaria could cover a decent area of the US. Of course we know the politicians will completely ignore this threat and some may even say it is no worse than the common cold. Just look at the progress on Climate Change, if decent work was done on that 30+ years ago, it would have solved lots of potential issues.

https://www.medpagetoday.com/special-reports/features/116436

> Four states -- Tennessee, Arkansas, Idaho, and Louisiana -- have passed OTC ivermectin laws

> [Nine] other states have bills moving through their legislatures

This paper seems misleading to me because ivermectin was dosed only once a month at about a standard dose. Based on the drug's pharmacology, there is no way in which it could maintain any effectiveness over a week.

If the paper is legitimate, then the effect could be better with weekly dosing and much better with twice-a-week dosing.

it doesnt stop you from being infected, it is administered, in such dosage as to make the blood toxic to mosquitoes.

the reduction of infection is by reduction of mosquito population.

We all know that Ivermectin is a miracle cure, now we just need to find something it is a miracle cure for.

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