During the current Covid-19 pandemic pharmacutical giants have been rapidly researching and developing vaccines as a the best way to reduce hospitalisations and serious illness. It is believed by some that there is already a cheap and effective treatment for Covid-19 which has been overlooked by many.
Could it be that the pharmacutical giants are not interested in using Ivermectin as a treatment because it is so cheap and they will not profit from its use?
Vaccines may need to be 'tweaked' every year for new strains of Covid-19, therefore the use of vaccines could become very lucrative for the pharmacutical industry.
I would like to think that the intentions for producing vaccines are for the benefit of the wider society, though sometimes, with the vast sums of money involved I do wonder.
My investigations into the ‘wonder drug’ Ivermectin
Note:
None of this should be regarded as medical advice, it is purely my own research on the topic.
Always do your own research and consult your doctor before using any treatment, be aware also that many medicines brought online may be fake or even dangerous.
The other day I saw two news stories about the ‘wonder drug’ Ivermectin, which is being used in some countries to treat Covid-19 patients. The first one was reporting how the Chairman of the Japanese Medical Association had recommended that all doctors in Japan should immediately start to treat Covid-19 patients with Ivermectin.
The second one I read was about a Covid-19 patient whose relatives had (successfully) gone to court to get an order that the hospital treating him must provide him with Ivermectin while in hospital.
Jeffery Smith had already been on a ventilator for a period of 19 days before his wife reached out to a Dr who pescribed Ivermectin. The hospital however refused to administer the treatment, so she took the matter to court which ruled in her favour.
Judge Gregory Howard wrote to Drs treating the 51 year old patient Jeffery Smith ordering them to administer a course of Ivermectin for a period of three weeks.
Here’s a link to the full article:
I also found out that there is also a great deal of negative press regarding Ivermectin, many articles describing Ivermectin as a ‘horse drug’, telling people it was dangerous for humans and advising people to avoid using it.
That intrigued me, and I decided to find out why so many countries now seemed to be wanting to use it, and why there was such vocal opposition to it in some quarters. Here’s what I found out.
Not long after I started searching for answers, I found a fascinating video which took me to the heart of the story. It was a video of a speech made to Trinity College Dublin eight years ago, by the person who basically invented it, and named it, Professor William Campbell. The video is titled, appropriately, “Professor William Campbell: The Story of Ivermectin”, and if you want see the whole 43-minute video you can do so here.
In his lecture, Campbell explains that he was a biologist, specialising in microbiology. During the 1970s, Campbell, who worked for the pharmaceutical giant, Merck, began to be interested in ‘micro-organisms’ - things, he said, that “can make all sorts of weird and wonderful chemical structures”.
He told his audience: “The soil all around us is absolutely loaded with micro-organisms, some known, some not known”. He said these micro-organisms were the sources of valuable microbial cultures.
So he began to collect soil samples, finding all kinds of different micro-organisms, and growing them in a nutrient-rich liquid.
Using his many contacts with universities and microbiological research establishments around the world, he patiently collected thousands of soil samples, testing them one by one in the hope of finding a treatment for various diseases caused by parasites, especially in Africa and Central and South America. One of the diseases that most concerned Merck and Campbell was ‘river-blindness’, caused by parasitic worms that invade the cornea of the eye and could eventually make people blind.
Campbell developed and perfected a new method of fermentation of his soil samples, so that he got a really good fermentation going. He did so in conjunction with Japanese microbiologist Satoshi Ōmura from Kitosato University, Japan. Both were isolating and culturing many varieties of natural, soil-based bacteria. from the group Streptomyces.
Their main goal was to develop effective medicines for treating parasitic diseases in domestic and farm animals.
The breakthrough came in 1978, when Campbell opened a drawer containing a soil sample from Japan that had lain in one of his drawers, untested, for over a year. The soil sample contained a new micro-organism. After months of experimentation, combining the fermented samples with a variety of chemicals - and then testing each modification on mice – he realised he had found an effective treatment against parasitic worms in horses.
The result, he said, was “a new species of bacterium - ‘Filamentis bacterium’ (multiple bacteria) - with ‘billions of bacteria’ within it”. It was described as “a derivative of great potency and toxicity”.
In fact, his new medicine did not actually kill the worms. It simply paralysed them. Paralysed, they could no longer do any damage. They could no longer breed. Horses affected by these parasitic worms quickly recovered when treated with the new medicine.
So, his treatment was effective “against worms”. The world of medicine uses Latin names a lot. The Latin for ‘against’ is ‘a’, and Latin for worm is ‘vermis’ (it’s also the origin of our word ‘vermin’). So Campbell called his micro-organism, ‘Streptomyces a-verm- itilis’. The substance that he produced to treat worm infections horses was called ‘macrocyclic lactone’, but given the generic name Ivermectin. It was first marketed under the brand name Mectizan. Ivermectin’s official definition is: “A semi-synthetic derivative of avermectrin, an antibiotic containing a macrocytic lactone obtained from Streptomyces avermitilis”.
So, yes, Ivermectin was originally used as a ‘horse de-wormer’, which is what some people like to call it. But that was only the beginning of the story. I found out a great deal about what has happened since then. Here’s a very short summary.
Campbell rapidly realised that his ‘horse de-wormer’ might be adapted for use in humans. By 1981, Merck was already carrying out successful ‘Phase I’ treatment trials of Ivermectin (taken in oral formulation) in Senegal and France on river-blindness cases. Ivermectin was also found to be effective in treating the nasty parasitic disease, elephantiasis, which causes swollen limbs.
The treatment against river-blindness – the fist time that Ivermectin was officially licensed for human use - was launched in 1987 It soon proved to be so effective that soon the whole world wanted it. The World Health Organisation tried to organise the world-wide distribution of it.
The problem was that river-blindness was prevalent in poorer countries who could not afford to pay for it. Merck tried to find various charities and NGOs involved in third world poverty relief to buy up supplies of Mectizan, who would then distribute it to people. That idea also failed.
And so it was that in 1987, Merck took the unprecedented decision to donate Mectizan to the world entirely FREE OF CHARGE to developing countries. A drug company actually providing its expensively-produce drug - free! Yes, it actually happened!
By 2001, 33 countries in Africa and Latin America were using Ivermectin against river-blindness. In 2013, the independent Carter Centre reported that the disease had already been eliminated in Mexico, Colombia and Ecuador.
In 2015, Campbell and his colleague Satoshi Ōmura were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2015 “for their discoveries concerning a novel therapy against infections caused by roundworm parasites”.
By today, Ivermectin has been used for over 1.4 billion treatments, while a further 12 billion treatments have used the related medicine Albendazole, made by Glaxo Smithkline.
It is now used to treat a variety of internal infections in humans, including malaria, lice and mite infestations, whipworm and roundworm.
Does it have any serious side effects? From what I could find out, no it doesn’t, although constipation, diarrhoea, dizziness and vertigo are sometimes reported.
So why has Ivermectin become the subject of such heated debate today? Its advocates report great success in treating Covid-19 and similar ’flu-like illnesses. Its opponents say it’s ineffective at best, and could even be dangerous.
What are the relevant facts? What is the truth?
The following article describes Ivermectin as astonishingly safe for human use, with minimal side effects and can be easily administered even by non medical staff, in rural communities provided that they have had basic and appropriate training.
You can read the article here.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3043740/
I haven’t come across any site which says it is dangerous to take Ivermectin, unless it is taken in too high doses, or when people mistakenly order the Ivermectin treatments for animals from the internet, instead of the human version.
Demand for Ivermectin as a Covid-19 preventative has surged in many South American countries. In Bolivia, healthcare workers distributed 350,000 doses, while in Peru, much of the population is already using the drug without prescription. That’s because Ivermectin has for a long time been ‘out of patent’ - that is, any manufacturer can produce it - and so it is now very cheap. It can be ordered off the internet, but you need to be careful because, as with many things, there are scammers out there taking advantage of Ivermectin’s increasing popularity worldwide.
What does the World Health Organisation now say about the use of Ivermectin in the prevention and treatment of Covid-19?
The World Health Organisation states that the evidence on the use of Ivermectin to treat Covid-19 patients is inconclusive.
They also say that until more data is available they recommend that the drug only be used within clinical trials.
This recommendation, which applies to patients with Covid-19 of any disease severity, is now part of WHO’s guidelines on Covid-19 treatments
The panel did not however look at the use of Ivermectin to prevent Covid-19, which is outside of scope of the current guidelines”.
If you want to find out more about the current use of Ivermectin I have posted some links below.
Here are three of their videos you might want to watch:
“Ivermectin success in India: home medicine kits”
“CATalyst | Ivermectin: Indian Bar Association Serve Legal Notice on WHO's Chief Scientist”, which features Ivermectin advocate Dr Pierre Kory MD
If you want to see Dr Pierre Kory challenged by a doctor who doesn’t recommend Ivermectin, then try this video: “Ivermectin: Pros vs Cons. Dr. Luis Garegnani and Dr. Pierre Kory Debate The Issue”
Israel is a country to watch. They currently have one of the highest vaccination rates in the world, with many vaccinated people now having a third ‘shot’, with the Israeli government telling everybody that they will shortly need a fourth shot.
Israel has a strong vaccination programme, but despite all that, infections and hospitalisations remain among the vaccinated remain high, so Israel is now turning turning to alternative treatments like Ivermectin. Here’s an interesting new study from Israel: “New Sheba Study Indicates That Ivermectin Can Reduce the Length of Covid-19 Infection”, Link
I wonder what you think, are vaccines the way out of this pandemic or should we be looking at alternatives treatments such as Ivermectin.
Can we trust big pharma to tell us the truth or are they more concerned with making profit for themselves?
Disclaimer: This is not medical advice or a recommendation for any treatment. Always speak to your Doctor and do your own research, and be aware that many medicines offered online may be fake or dangerous.
I hope you enjoyed my article, if you wish you can check out some more here.
https://read.cash/@onlymythoughts
Article is my own.
Pictures courtesy of pixabay.
Videos from YouTube.
You did a thorough research on the subject. If it can be ethically administered then it would be worth it a try I think.