How did the Ivermectin crisis become so widespread?

Well, you can blame the right-wing pundits for some of the problem, but the full answer must include Deep Throat’s advice to “follow the money.” You can make a lot of dough selling snake oil.

McGill University has a pretty good mythbusting group that took a look at the science, or lack of it, behind the snake-oil cures in the COVID crisis.

Seth Meyers took “a closer look” at the Ivermectin phenomenon:

23 thoughts on “How did the Ivermectin crisis become so widespread?

  1. They cover a wide range of topics, but a good radio program (podcast) on psychology, sociology and neurology is the Australian Broadcast Company Radio National program All in the Mind.

    1. For instance, this episode aired on February 23, 2020

      Suckers for pseudoscience

      When it comes to pseudoscience you might consider yourself to be a sceptic, but don’t give yourself too much credit because we’re all vulnerable to believing dubious claims. This is because of powerful cognitive biases in the brain — and we could actually be satisfied with quite shallow explanations for things — and for being suckers for pseudoscience.

      1. Absolutely. This is not exactly pseudoscience, but I was completely inclined to believe Mary Trump’s claim that Donald paid somebody to take his SATs, until a friend reminded me that her story makes no sense at all, and I had to go back and re-read Mary’s assertions. In my defense, it was Trump. There are not many things beneath his moral standards, so I could believe almost anything. Most “skeptical” liberal intellectuals still believe that canard because they really, really want to, and it seems like something Trump would do.

        I’m sure I must have been taken in elsewhere, on many subjects.

        1. It’s a good episode worth listening to if you have the time. It’s only 30 minutes long. All in the Mind is one of my favorite public broadcast programs.

          One ironic thing that I would have liked the interviewer to take up. At one point the guest, not surprisingly says, ‘nobody can know about everything so we all have to take the word of people who call themselves experts and seem to know what they’re talking about. So, people who use scientific terms or terms that sound scientific can be easily believed even if it’s nonsense.

          An example he then uses is the supposedly crazier behavior people display during full moons. He then says people point out accurately that the moon has an impact on tides, and point out accurately that the body is mostly water. So, the idea that a full moon impacts water in the body makes some sense on the surface. What they leave out is that the moon has the same impact on a human body at all times, full moon.

          Anyway, I thought it would have been interesting had the host asked “I appreciate what your saying, but you’re also claiming to be an expert, and I have to take your word for that, how do I know what you’re telling me isn’t also bullshit?”

        1. It’s not “allowing” so much as being “forced to by court order” obtained by the patient’s daughter. Jeebus. I am speechless.

  2. Caleb Wallace, anti mask protester in Texas who died recently, took ivermectin.

    There’s one clinical trial down. Anyone else want to volunteer?

  3. The rage and divisiveness in this country has been carefully manufactured by the ruling class. Your commenter says, “Let them drink bleach.” What is wrong with our country? Is it just fear, or is the result of purposefully divisive social networks. I’m no doctor, I’m vaccinated, and I’ve had covid. But just a cursory search brought up this article from the NIH about the effectiveness of Ivermectin. I don’t know if this has been since repudiated, but to call people “rubes” for thinking Ivermectin might work seems more like class bigotry than thoughtful dialogue.

    1. Dr. Kory’s paper has been widely criticized for several reasons, including but not limited to the fact that one of the studies he cites was highly questionable (to word it kindly). Here is a more recent, more measured meta-analysis. While ivermectin’s efficacy is not statistically proven, neither is it clearly ruled out.

      I will stand by my earlier comments on this subject, summarized as follows:

      • Ivermectin has been determined to be effective against the virus in vitro.
      • But the concentrations used in vitro are enormous – up to 100 times the recommended human dosage when the drug is prescribed as an anti-parasitic.
      • It is not yet known whether the drug is effective against COVID in vivo, either in the dosage formerly prescribed for other purposes or in larger doses.
      • While the current prescription dosage is not believed to have significant side effects, nobody yet knows the effect of larger doses on the human body.

      It is possible that clinical trials may someday show that there is some dosage of ivermectin that is both effective against COVID and safe. It is also possible that will not happen. Whatever the evidence may eventually uncover, it should go without saying that one should not, on one’s own authority, take doses of anything in a size intended for animals weighing a thousand pounds or more. Anybody doing that is, in fact, a rube.

    2. The good offer goodness from the secret of their heart. The perverse offer perversity from the secret of their heart. That which is expressed is what overflows from the heart.

    3. Bo Darville said: “The rage and divisiveness in this country has been carefully manufactured by the ruling class.”

      If by the ruling class you mean the people who own the Republican Party body and soul, which is to say most of America’s billionaires and those who control its greatest banks and other corporations, than I agree with you.

      About the divisiness, that is. When it comes to ivermectin, all I can say is that whoever is so in thrall to right wing propaganda that they believe it’s good for Covid deserves whatever they get if they take it.

      And they are rubes in the con man sense of the word; not rural or uneducated people, but people who have fallen for a con. Better yet, these rubes refuse to turn on the con men, but instead reserve their anger for those who point out they have been conned.

      Helped along by people like you, I guess.

  4. Why object? Let them. Let them drink bleach. Let’s be rid of these pathetic creatures. Hope they didn’t breed to much. The world can no longer afford such stupidity

    1. I’m not sure, but I think it’s because we are supposed to be better than that. And because we hope human beings are salvageable. And maybe a near-death experience is something they will actually learn from?

      I want to agree with you, though. That is what the Trump election, presidency, and attempted coup has done to me. But I think I should not. I think not agreeing with you is something a real Christian would do, but I can’t speak for them, not being one myself.

      But boy, do I know where you’re coming from.

  5. It’s honestly difficult to believe that this many people are this incredibly stupid. It’s like reading a Kafka novel.

    Idiocracy was, if anything, far too optimistic.

    1. These people are not realy stupid. Instead, they believe deeply in a dream, a delusion that they crave deeply. They are capitivated by an idea, and that makes them fanatical and dangerous. And willing to believe almost anything the fabricators of that dream tell them.

      The dream allows them to think of themselves as true heroes, the saviors of America. It allows them to believe what they want, and dismiss as lies anything they don’t want. People have done great things and terrible things in service to such dreams.

      I have no idea what is going to happen here. If they could swallow believing Trump was a good and great man, and still believe it after four years of proof to the contrary, they are capable of anything.

      1. Well, killing yourself to own the libs may be the main course, but nothing prevents it coming with a side-order of stupid.

      2. There are people who believe that the earth is flat. They dismiss all contradictory evidence as having been concocted by the controlling powers.

        There are many people who believe the earth is 6000 years old. They dismiss some contradictory evidence as the work of satan. (Dinosaur bones have been planted by satan to test our faith.) They dismiss other evidence as the work of God – He altered the speed of light during creation so we can see all those stars that are more than 6000 light-years away. And so forth.

        There are people who preach that the end times are here. When the rapture doesn’t arrive, they say they calculated the date wrong – and simply postpone it, their belief unshaken.

        The point is this – once an article of faith has been assumed to be incontrovertible, no amount of evidence or logic is sufficient to contradict it. Because the fact is assumed a priori, all contradictory evidence has to be dismissed in some way. The contradictions must be false, because the a priori assumption must be true.

        I think all of that is obvious. What I never can figure out is the motivation of those who lead those flocks. Are they just the most eloquent of the conned, or are they using the con to advance their own agenda for wealth or power?

        Even after all the years of Trump’s public utterances, I still don’t know whether he is the the conned or the con man; whether he really believes the foolish things he says, or says them because a large number of people believe them and he can exploit that. I used to think the latter, that he was just using the masses to feed his hunger for recognition, praise and power. Over the years I have come over toward the other side, to think that maybe his pathological narcissism is such an advanced case that he truly believes (for example) that he won the election and will soon be reinstated.

        Whether The Donald believes that or not, millions of his followers do believe it, and there is no chance that they will waver in their belief. That is their scripture, their a priori assumption, and like all other articles of faith, it must be true, and therefore any contradiction, no matter how ostensibly correct, must actually be false. It is therefore incumbent upon them solely to determine HOW the contradiction is false. It has to be false, but HOW? This is how the whole Pandora’s Box of crazy gets opened, and out come the Illuminati, Soros, the Jews, Pizzagate, the Chinese, Dominion Systems, Crowd Strike … etc.

        I have to admit I was surprised recently when his audience booed Trump for saying they need to get vaccinated. Their articles of faith are so strong that even their prophet isn’t allowed to dissent. Trumpism is much more than Trump. It is based on their notion of Trump rather than his reality.

        Similarly, I suppose they would boo the original Jesus if he actually came back and said, “Genesis is just a convenient metaphor used to help us explain existence, because humans are so psychologically complex that they need meaning, they need a past and future, they need more than their day-to-day subsistence, and they love stories. Given human psychology and the knowledge available three millennia ago, the creation myth was a way to explain the origin of life in a way that deeply touched people, that got them to respect nature and to stand in awe of the great power and mystery of existence. If My Heavenly Father spoke to the prophets today, he would explain the origin of life differently to humans who now have much more knowledge about the vast universe around them. You knew all that, right?”

        Yup. He would get booed.

        Because Christianity is much more than Christ. It is based on their notion of Christ rather than his reality.

        Boy, am I rambling. Sorry about that.

          1. I’m not sure that true belief is a matter of either mental health or intelligence. It seems to exist in another part of the brain that requires certainty or something. I don’t know enough about psychology or brain function to put my finger on it.

            Throughout human history vast numbers of people have killed and have been killed, based on their certainty of something that eludes certainty by its very nature. Catholics and Protestants have killed each other and Jews. Both have killed Muslims and have been slain by them

            People have even died and killed for believing without doubt or hesitation in things which seem utterly evil to any outside observer, like slavery or racial supremacy. Millions fought for the Confederacy or Nazi Germany. People seem to attain some kind of certainty about those ideas that seems incomprehensible to me. I don’t think we can call it batshit crazy when it affects so many humans. “Crazy” kind of presumes abnormality, but these things have been normal, typical human behavior throughout our history.

            So were those people assaulting the Capitol batshit crazy? It seems to me they were just demonstrating one of the greatest of human foibles – a willingness to fight and die for a delusion that they feel to be a certainty.

            Yeah, and some of them are probably batshit crazy.

          2. As UncleScoopy’s examples of the Southern Confederacy and Nazi Germany show, this is not a new phenomenon, but a recurrence of an old one. Weren’t there some books written about this in the 1950’s, in the aftermath of WWII and the Holocaust? The name Erich Fromm comes to mind. Excuse me while I Google.

            Wow, his book “Escape from Freedom” is apparently right on target and was published in 1941.

            But the guy I was actually thinking of was Eric Hoffer, author of “The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements”. It was apparently published in the 1950’s, because Ike mentioned it in a press conference. It would probably be illuminating today.

            I think I vaguely recall these books because they were popular when I was in college in the mid-1970’s. Maybe some people were reading them as “how-to” guides instead of cautionary tales. I could see Roger Stone doing that back then.

          3. One thing I recall from reading The True Believer in college is that the need to believe is more important than the actual belief. I saw the proof of this in my classmates. Some of the most completely convinced and radical right-wing Goldwater Republicans from 1964 became some of the most radicalized left-wing members of the SDS by 1968, going from one absolutist system to the opposite one. Some of the most devoted religious zealots become die-hard atheists. They just need to have passion for an all-encompassing, nuance-free cause.

            This leads me to think that human nature abhors the gray zone, avoids nuances. We really like everything to conform to our tribe’s belief system. The big social media providers on the internet and the diversity of cable news have really allowed us to stay entirely in our comfort zone, haven’t they? Once you look at a right-wing or left-wing post, Facebook’s algorithms start to shove that in your face. If you take the bait, their formulas become more and more certain that you want that, and feed you more and more of it. If you reinforce that by only watching only righty or lefty cable news, all possible nuance is stripped away from your brain.

            There are so few exceptions. Matt and Trey, the South Park guys, ridicule both sides. Bill Maher, while liberal by inclination, is critical of the loonies on both sides. I appreciate that. But those exceptions are lonely and insignificant voices, barely heard in the media cacophony, and most of us don’t want really want balance. We don’t want to listen to people who consider our side’s ideas and leaders to be just as susceptible to criticism and ridicule as the other side’s. We prefer to retreat into our bubble.

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