Saturday 22 May 2021

Ivermectin

I must confess to having avoided taking much interest in Ivermectin as a treatment and prophylactic for Covid-19. My reasoning was that paying attention to drug treatments only lent more credibility to the belief that Covid-19 was a dangerous pathogen. However, with the push to vaccinate, the effectiveness of Ivermectin becomes an important issue. If the drug's effectiveness can be confirmed, then the emergency use of the vaccines cannot be justified because there is an alternative therapy. This would cost the vaccine makers billions of dollars and so it's no surprise that calls to utilise this drug in the treatment of the virus have fallen on deaf ears. The major medical journals refuse to publish studies on the positive effects of Ivermectin but will happily publish publish studies that fail to confirm its effectiveness. Health authorities remain silent and social media actively removes any references to the drug's benefits.

This of course is not surprising. However, it was interesting to learn of this drugs history and its long time use in the treatment of parasitical diseases in both animals and humans. This February 2011 academic paper titled Ivermectin, ‘Wonder drug’ from Japan: the human use perspective is quite informative. Here is the abstract:

Discovered in the late-1970s, the pioneering drug ivermectin, a dihydro derivative of avermectin—originating solely from a single microorganism isolated at the Kitasato Intitute, Tokyo, Japan from Japanese soil—has had an immeasurably beneficial impact in improving the lives and welfare of billions of people throughout the world. Originally introduced as a veterinary drug, it kills a wide range of internal and external parasites in commercial livestock and companion animals. It was quickly discovered to be ideal in combating two of the world’s most devastating and disfiguring diseases which have plagued the world’s poor throughout the tropics for centuries. It is now being used free-of-charge as the sole tool in campaigns to eliminate both diseases globally. It has also been used to successfully overcome several other human diseases and new uses for it are continually being found. This paper looks in depth at the events surrounding ivermectin’s passage from being a huge success in Animal Health into its widespread use in humans, a development which has led many to describe it as a “wonder” drug.

For the pharmaceutical industry, such a wonder drug is not welcome in the treatment of Covid-19 even though the industry had been instrumental is rolling it out as a treatment for parasitical diseases. The effectiveness of Invermectin in the treatment of Covid-19 was first discovered in 2020 in third world countries with limited health resources. When doctors in these countries tried to communicate their findings to the rest of the world, global health authorities and Big Pharma quickly took notice because the drug threatened to derail their plans for a vaccine rollout of unprecedented proportions. Ivermectin needed to demonised and quickly. 

In this article on the Covid Blog we read:

There are currently at least 93 studies, with 54 being peer-reviewed (as of May 15, 2021), showing that Ivermectin is highly effective in treating COVID-19 in early stages and as prophylaxis (preventative measure). View the data and studies here. Also watch Congressional testimony from Dr. Pierre Kory about Ivermectin.

The video on the site is well worth watching as we watch poor Dr. Kory vainly plead his case for the acceptance of Ivermectin as a treatment for Covid-19. 

Another video featuring Dr. Tess Lawrie is quite powerful in conveying the extent of the obstruction surrounding Ivermectin's acceptance. Figure 1 shows the safety profile for Ivermectin. Here is some information about the doctor who is interviewed in it:


Figure 1

Dr. Tess Lawrie is a Medical Doctor as well as a Researcher from Bath, UK. She is funder and Head of a Company that does Evidence Synthesis on Medical Research to establish the evidence for Regulatory Guidelines to be issued for Treatment options. Her Company has been working for the World Health Organisation as well as the National Health Service in the United Kingdom. Early in 2021 Dr. Lawrie ran a Systematic Review on the Evidence of Ivermectin as Treatment for Covid-19 - and found the Data was strongly suggesting Ivermectin is both safe and effective.

This interview covers details on Ivermectin, it's track record as an essential medicine of the WHO with more than 3,5 billion doses administered to patients all across the world, how Ivermectin compares to other well-known drugs in terms of adverse events registered, and about censorship in Science as well as n Social Media of information of life-saving medications.

More on Dr. Lawrie and the British Ivermectin Recommendation Development Group: https://bird-group.org

Dr. Lawrie blames Big Pharma and its pursuit of profit as the main reason for the rejection of Ivermectin as a treatment for Covid-19.

Thursday 6 May 2021

The Show Must Go On

It's best not to think of the mainstream media as providing any form of balanced information. It's more a show designed to capture the fragile attention span of the mindless masses and subject them to whatever propaganda campaign is being promoted at the time. Figure 1 shows the opening page of the BBC's website for May 6th 2021:


Figure 1

There is a photo in the centre of the page showing a woman being subjected to the nasal swab, with everybody else dutifully masked. Propaganda point being to remind us to keep our masks on and that testing is essential in determining who is infected. On the right, a very focused health care professional is drawing vaccine from a vial into a syringe for administration to a patient. Propaganda point being to remind us that getting vaccinated is the only way to contain the spread of the virus. The phrase "Covid surge" emphasises that the virus is not just spreading, it is surging. The term "double mutant" indicates that the virus is not standing still, it is mutating and it will be a battle to contain these mutant varieties.

The BBC could have chosen any number of stories for its opening page but it chose the surge of double mutant strains of Covid in India. It wants this "news" to be the first to catch the attention of regular and random visitors. Even if the visitor then clicks on the sports section of the site, the takeaway is that COVID is out of control in India, it has mutated and things could get like that where you are if you don't get tested and have the vaccine as soon as its available. Other countries are using India as an example of what can go wrong if citizens don't take the virus seriously. This is not news, its theatre.


The Urban Dictionary puts it succinctly in this definition of fear porn:


There are quite a few choice definitions to be found in this dictionary:


A few hours after starting this post, India is still "front page" news with a new centre photo but the vaccine man is still there on the right. See Figure 2.


Figure 2

It's still panic stations of course as international aid is apparently not arriving quickly enough. Here is a link to a video that examines the media hype surrounding Covid in India (round about the 12:20 to 21:20 minute mark of a 32 minute video. The creators of the video have a channel on Odysee that I've subscribed to. See Figure 3. I've only watched this one video so far.


Figure 3