‘It’s amazing to me’: Kansas, Missouri health leaders slam ivermectin as COVID cure
Kansas health officials on Wednesday joined a chorus of others warning people not to take the animal deworming medication ivermectin to treat or prevent COVID-19.
People across the country are buying out the medication at livestock stores because it has been hyped as a cure for COVID, leading to a worrisome rise in calls to poison control centers and emergency room visits.
“Kansans should avoid taking medications that are intended for animals and should only take ivermectin as prescribed by their physician,” Dr. Lee Norman, secretary of the Kansas health department, said in a statement. “These highly concentrated doses can cause severe illness and even death in humans.”
The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, which has received reports of Missourians using ivermectin to prevent COVID infection, has issued a similar warning.
Used as an anti-parasite medicine in livestock, ivermectin is given to big animals, such as horses and cows, in highly concentrated doses that can be toxic to humans.
It is federally approved for some human use. With a prescription, tablets in specific doses can be used to treat some parasitic worms, and topical treatments can be used for head lice and skin conditions including rosacea, the Food and Drug Administration says.
But it is not used for treating viruses and has not been approved or authorized by the FDA to treat or prevent COVID-19, federal officials caution, though several clinical trials are evaluating that use.
The National Institutes of Health is conducting a large trial to find whether ivermectin can reduce symptoms of non-hospitalized patients with mild to moderate COVID-19. But the NIH recently concluded there is insufficient evidence and data to recommend it for treating COVID, Missouri health officials said in their warning.
The World Health Organization has recommended it only be used in clinical trials.
In the meantime, some livestock stores are cracking down on customers wanting to self-medicate. One store in Las Vegas will only let customers purchase the dewormer if they show a picture of themselves — with their horse.
The FDA issued a public warning about humans using animal medications that included this cheeky tweet: “You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y’all. Stop it.”
“COVID-19. We’ve been living with it for what sometimes seems like forever. Given the number of deaths that have occurred from the disease, it’s perhaps not surprising that some consumers are looking at unconventional treatments, not approved or authorized by the FDA,” the agency said on its website.
Facebook recently flagged a post about ivermectin by Lake Ozark Mayor Dennis Newberry for potentially spreading false information about COVID-19 treatment.
In a post no longer publicly available, Newberry wrote that he wanted to bring one of his hospitalized friends some ivermectin to treat a case of severe COVID-19.
Misconceptions about ivermectin spread when a non-peer-reviewed paper said it could lower COVID-19 death rates by more than 90%, McClatchy News reported. The study was withdrawn from the website due to reports of plagiarism and alleged data manipulation.
People still want it, though. An Ohio judge recently ordered a hospital to prescribe it for a COVID-19 patient. The drug had been prescribed by the founder of the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance, which touts ivermectin as a treatment for COVID, but the hospital had refused to administer it.
Doctors at the University of Kansas Health System, who have spent months battling misconceptions and myths about COVID-19, have also warned people away from ivermectin. The health system’s Poison Control Center is routinely receiving calls about the medication, KU doctors said.
“People don’t want to get a vaccine because they may get a headache or feel bad for a day or two, but if you take ivermectin in the wrong way or if you take too much, you can certainly get toxicity from it, including central nervous system toxicity and things like that,” Dr. Dana Hawkinson, the health system’s medical director of infection prevention and control, said during a recent briefing.
“So there are much more and worse side effects with ivermectin. And it’s amazing to me people would still like to do this.”
Overdosing on ivermectin will cause gastrointestinal problems such as nausea, vomiting and diarrhea, Kansas health officials warned.
Overdoses are also associated with a drop in blood pressure and neurologic effects such as decreased consciousness, confusion, hallucinations, seizures, coma and death. And it can intensify the effects of other drugs, such as barbiturates, that cause central nervous system depression.
Shelly Smith, a sales associate at the Las Vegas feed store that posted a warning about ivermectin, told KTNV about a man who wanted it in spite of side effects he already suffered.
“I had a gentleman come in, and he was an older gentleman. He told me that his wife wanted him to be on the ivermectin plan,” she said. “I immediately brought him over here, because at that time I had this sign hung up, and I told him this isn’t safe for you to take.
“And he says, ‘Well, we’ve been taking it and my only side effect is I can’t see in the morning.’ That’s a big side effect, so you probably shouldn’t take it.”
Nothing has changed about the best way to keep COVID at bay.
“The COVID-19 vaccine remains the most effective way to prevent COVID-19,” said Norman.
You can find a vaccine near you at vaccines.gov.
This story was originally published September 1, 2021 at 2:25 PM.
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