People are taking the horse formulation because most pharmacists won't even fill an off-label prescription for the drug, which - even if it has no effect on COVID - is safe and taken by a quarter billion people every year.
Let people take it. It's not harmful.
Or, make a big huge deal about people taking it and, well, then it becomes a big huge deal.
Administration of a P450 inhibitor will cause the levels of other medications in a person's blood to rise, and will cause some prodrugs to be ineffective due to reduced metabolism.
I can't even walk into a doctors' office and get prescribed Singulair, an allergy medication, without giving them a reason to believe that I need it. And if I was a doctor, I'd err on the side of caution, as well, when it comes to prescribing things I don't think my hypothetical patients need. Not only is it a question of ethics, it's also a question of legal liability and keeping a license to practice.
But I also don't know the dosage schedule doctors who are prescribing Ivermectin are using. They're probably using one from a research paper that they believe justifies its use to treat or prevent COVID. Those dosage schedules are afaict similar to how it's used to treat on-label conditions - take one dose every three months, or whatever.
It's pure speculation that doctors are out there writing prescriptions for dangerous dosages of Ivermectin.
However one thing for sure is that in lieu of a prescription, people are more likely to self-medicate with a dangerous formulation and dosage, ex: horse paste.
Usually yearly or bi-yearly. Not bi-weekly. There is much less safety data on doses that frequent.
You can say the same thing about COVID boosters.
So why are people going for something without any data?
The point is that if this drug did help people make it through covid (like the vaccines do) then it would be worth the risk of these horrible things happening - if they were rare (they are). But unfortunately it looks like this is not true, so people are taking a risk of having a horrid side effect with no chance of the pill working.
On the other hand if you take the pill to avoid river blindness then the risk of the side effect seems well worth taking to me. But not for covid - 0 benefit for 0.001 risk is not good trade.
Not the pharmacist. Not the FDA.
They have a legal and moral obligation to understand how those drugs are going to be used and whether the patient is at risk for taking them.
> Not the pharmacist. Not the FDA.
In case you don't know,the FDA is the US regulatory body whose mission is to " [protect] the public health by ensuring the safety, efficacy, and security of human and veterinary drugs, biological products, and medical devices;"
In the US, doctors only prescribe drugs that have been verified by the FDA, and pharmacists only distribute drugs approved by the FDA.
If not the FDA, who do you think is responsible in the US to ensure a drug works and is safe?
The FDA is pretty much the US instition devoted to anti-quackery and anti-fraud. Why is this a problem?
He was only planning to take small doses here or there as he's a teacher and around sick kids all the time, as if it were like Zinc to hopefully help reduce the severity of Covid-19 if he does get it, but despite going through the effort and succeeding in finding a doctor willing to prescribe it (and my friend even signed a document saying he understands it's an experimental treatment and will assume any risks), his local CVS is refusing to fill it.
My opinion is if you can get a proper doctor to prescribe it (by proper doctor I mean none of this "I got a medical exemption for wearing a mask from my Chiropractor" bullshit like is going on in Florida), a pharmacy shouldn't be allowed to decide not to fill it, as if they know better than your doctor.
It sounds like you have a pretty misguided idea of how pharmacies and pharmacists worked before Covid. You’re describing a situation where pharmacists act at the behest of doctors who know best, when in reality pharmacists have always had some level of independent authority over what drugs get dispensed to whom thanks to their expertise. It’s part of the pharmacists job to watch out for bad prescriptions, both in terms of abuse (e.g. opioids) improper dosages, and unintended side effects and interactions between drugs. In some states pharmacists have their own ability to prescribe medicine on their own.
I’m not sure exactly how much control a pharmacist should have over whether a valid prescription is filled, but the idea that they’re only expected to blindly fulfill the order of your doctor is not correct, and never was. In fact, they probably know more about the drugs you’re prescribed than your doctor does, as that’s their entire speciality. (Especially given the long and sordid history of doctors pushing drugs on the basis of pharmaceutical sales reps, doctors often actually know very little about what they prescribe).
And we make fun of the Chinese using rhino horn for erectile disfunction...
They are legally required to make decisions about whether or not to fill it.
They are not just some supermarket cashier.
When taken in dosages that have been determined based on extensive studies and research.
This doesn't apply to COVID so it is completely responsible for them not to supply it.
