Many in the media last week regurgitated a @CDC_Gov “health advisory” on ivermectin.
CDC said poison control saw a “3-fold increase" in IVM calls over the “pre-pandemic baseline.” But what was baseline? Nobody reported that. @AApcc kindly provided me the data.
Let’s dissect. 1
Calls for ivermectin did see a “rapid increase” – up 184% from Jan-Aug 2019 to Jan-Aug 2021.
But does the CDC claim of “reports of severe illness” hold up?
There were:
--No deaths
--11 major effects (1% of total)
--91 moderate and 148 minor
That’s 22% who had ANY effect
2
The vast majority of reports - 78% - go in the category of no problem or not sure:
--754 were “no effect,” “non-toxic,” “minimal.”
--137 more were potentially toxic, no follow-up.
*Note: numbers rounded based on %ages.
3
Now some context.
IVM prescriptions have soared.
Scrips rose from 3,600/wk pre-COVID to 88,000/wk ending Aug. 13, 2021.
That’s an increase of 2344%.
Timeframes differ in scrip rise and poison control uptick in calls, which was 184%. But a hike would be normal.
4
More context…
Poison control also fielded lots of hand-sanitizer calls from “pre-pandemic baseline.”
Those rose 58% from Jan-Aug 2019 to Jan-Aug 2021.
3,230 of them were major, moderate or minor effects.
FDA/CDC have vilified IVM by association with animal products, such as horse paste.
The 88,000 IVM scrips in the last week of August were MD-prescribed, non-animal, non-mail-order ivermectin. In other words, the stuff taken under medical supervision, as it should be.
6
Two years ago, Linda Bonvie and I exposed The Big Lie in the most popular FDA tweet ever. In court recently, FDA lied again. Its 'not a horse' tweet wasn't medical advice against IVM, it said; it was just info.
Said the court, "Horseshit." See more... 🧵
FDA's Janet Woodcock chortled about the post's 24 million views within two days. The rub? FDA relied on reports saying 70% of calls to the Mississippi poison control center were on IVM harm (an idea its website pushed). The true number was 2%-6 calls in all, 4 on horse paste. 🧵2
The FDA tweet, shared by @TODAYshow and by millions on SM, came as legal ivermectin prescriptions for Covid soared 24-fold from the year before. Imagine how many lives might have been saved if FDA has not usurped doctors. Per one judge: "FDA is not a physician." 🧵3
I contacted @nytimes & they corrected 8/25 ivermectin article. "This article misstated the percentage of recent calls to the Mississippi poison control center related to ivermectin. It was 2 percent, not 70 percent," says appended note. Sentence removed.
Poof.
But damage done.
@nytimes Here's the link. Correction way at the bottom. Wrong original sentence disappeared. It's something, I guess. nytimes.com/2021/08/30/hea…
I thanked @nytimes but needed to say something more. Here’s my emailed response to the correcting editor.