Thread by @Laurie_Garrett

OK, ENOUGH ALREADY.
Here's the #Ivermectin saga, people.
1.) In the 1960s Japan's Satoshi Omura did chemistry work, trying to find a medicine to kill helminth worms in livestock.
2.) In the '70s he joined forces with Max Tischler at Wesleyan in USA.
3.) They brought...
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https://twitter.com/WSJ/status/1434905505114247177

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...@Merck & @Kitasato pharma companies on board.
4.) Omura discovered a bacterium that emitted a powerful anti-helminth chemical.
5.) William Campbell @Merck tested it. Using synthetic chemistry, they made "ivermectin" -- 25Xs stronger than the bacterial chemical.
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5.) The @Merck & Kitasato companies were thrilled to discover it cured a long list of livestock worm & parasitic diseases & a huge veterinary market opened.
6.) In 1981 Bangladeshi Mohamad Aziz showed that #Ivermectin could cure River Blindness, a terrible disease...
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...caused by a West African fly that lands on human eyes and passes tiny worms into eye fluids. The worms drill down & eventually blind the victim.
7.) For that human use the drug was repackaged and named #Mectizan in 1987.
8.) In a landmark deal, @Merck gave...
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...#Mectizan for free to @WHO to eliminate Africa's #1 cause of blindness.
8.) Ex-#POTUS #JimmyCarter joined forces, raising $ & logistics to get 2B dose to remote pts of Africa, curing blindness.
9.) In 2015 Omura and Campbell were awarded #NobelPrize in Chemistry.
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10.) The generous precedent set by @Merck -- donating human #Mectizan for human use, while profiting from livestock #Ivermectin use -- was used in '90s by AIDS activists to argue for discounted anti-#HIV meds for poor countries.
11.) In early 2000s the drug was...
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..shown to kill some other human parasites, including scabies & head lice.
12.) Wide use of #Ivermectin to treat lice ensued in Latin America -- so much so, that people started treating it like aspirin, for everything. Despite no evidence it worked for other uses.
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13.) Recently it was found that treating certain mites with #Ivermectin made rosacea disappear -- linking the skin inflammation to the parasites. @US_FDA approved that use in 2017.
14.) During the 2015-16 #Zika epidemic in So America the drug was used widely. And..
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...despite lab studies that indicated #Ivermectin blocked virus entry into cells, no clinical use showed benefit.
15.) The same was seen with #dengue #YellowFever #Chikungunya & other insect-carried viruses: seemed to work in vitro, not in vivo.
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Key review, anti-virus: "The activity of #Ivermectin in cell culture has not reproduced in mouse infection models against many of the viruses and has not been clinically proven either, in spite of ivermectin being available globally."
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nature.com/articles/s4142…

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16.) On Aug 27, 2021 @US_FDA warned large doses of #Ivermectin cause “nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, stomach pain, facial or limb swelling, neurologic adverse events, sudden drop in blood pressure, severe skin rash potentially requiring hospitalization & liver injury.”
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17.) In 2017 researchers in West Africa non-River Blindness uses of #Ivermectin was dangerous. Of 1668 off-label uses:
- 25% had pruritus
- 14% severe headaches
- 7.5% dizziness/vertigo
And 156 had "serious neurological disorders."
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P…
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18.) A 2021 W Africa survey found the same neurological problems with #Ivermectin overuse or incorrect use, as well as, "Serious post-ivermectin encephalopathies," -- brain injuries. journals.plos.org/plosntds/artic…
19.) A hallmark of the drug: it can get into the brain.
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20.) At this point every major medical and public health organization in the US & Europe has denounced use of #Ivermectin to "treat" #COVID19 . It is the #hydroxychloroquine of 2021.
21.) In February @Merck -- which stands to profit from wider use of the drug --
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... said NO, stop it. This is not an appropriate anti-#COVID19 drug. Period. merck.com/news/merck-sta…
It is inconceivable that a for-profit company would said, "don't buy this" unless it was 100% certain #Ivermectin didn't work for COVID & might be risky.
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22.) Meanwhile, 100s of millions of people worldwide have taken #COVID19 #vaccines, with very few side effects. They have been far more rigorously tested than has #Ivermectin use to treat the disease. vaers.hhs.gov
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References:
merck.com/news/merck-sta…
and
journals.plos.org/plosntds/artic…
and
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P…
and
nature.com/articles/s4142…
and
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26954318/
and
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17877878/
and
acs.org/content/dam/ac…
and
jstage.jst.go.jp/article/pjab/8…
and
merck.com/stories/mectiz…