Lubbock Store Warns Customers to Not Treat COVID With Animal Heartworm Medicine

This is interesting on many levels.

My dad and his family were country folks from Union, Texas. It's a blip near Brownfield, which people might say is a blip near Lubbock. When my dad would get sick, he'd go get pig antibiotics from the feed store, and apparently, they worked. I also can't say for sure whether the family had or had not given me one and the same when I was young. I'm not hating on anybody taking the "country shortcut" towards being healthy.

Now people are hitting up the feed stores for doses of Ivermectin, which is meant for animals. Apparently, it was such a problem that a sign was put up locally with a warning about the dangers of doing this. There have been multiple cases of people having to be hospitalized because they're taking heartworm medicine for horses (or doses fit for them).

The problem seems to be that any possible upside is negated by some really bad side effects, like destroying your liver. I'm not going to lie, the medical journal The Lancet says that the drug deserves further testing, but basically concludes that you have to have such high doses that it may be worse than any benefit the drug could provide.

What is insane about all of this is people won't take a vaccine that millions upon millions have taken with no ill effects, then treat themselves with a heartworm and head lice treatment.  It's just full-on bonkers out there.

I'm going to keep it simple. If Ivermectin cured COVID-19, don't you think the makers would be cashing in right now? Don't you think we'd all have an emergency pill in our medicine cabinets? Why do you suspect shots to prevent COVID-19 are free, but curing it costs money?

After reading many articles, it appears to me that anti-parasite drugs may be a tool in a doctor's toolbox against COVID-19, but it's probably way too dangerous to self-medicate with. If you're going to bet on something "experimental," it's probably best to stick with the vaccines and not something you find next to the chicken feed.