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Spike in calls to poison control as livestock drug sought to treat COVID


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Ivermectin, a commonly used livestock de-wormer has been flying off of shelves across the country. It’s being widely sought as a COVID-19 treatment.

Now health officials are speaking out against using it to treat the virus.

“This is made for animals that weigh a thousand pounds, so it is a very concentrated formulation,” said Dr. Shawn Varney, Medical Director for the South Texas Poison Center.

The South Texas Poison Center is reporting 260 calls for human exposure so far this year. Dr. Varney says the numbers have spiked.

“If it continues at this rate, which it likely will, we anticipate about 390 cases. So clearly more than double what we've seen the previous two years. It’s undeniably noticeable.”

Symptoms can range from mild to severe if the product is ingested by humans.

“It can get to the point where you can actually have seizures, coma, and other neurologic findings,” said Dr. Varney.

Dr. Pierre Kory is the President and CEO of the Frontline COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance. Kory has been leading the national push to make Ivermectin a mainstream alternative to vaccines.

News 4 San Antonio asked Dr. Kory where he is getting his information and which scientific journals he was referencing to back up his claims about Ivermectin.

“I think we should be clear that I'm probably one of the foremost clinical experts on the use of Ivermectin and COVID-19. So, I have published one of the definitive review papers, that's actually was based on data from January,” said Dr. Kory.

The Food and Drug Administration has publicly pushed back against using Ivermectin to treat COVID-19. Issuing a tweet reading, “You are not a horse, you are not a cow, Seriously y’all, stop it.” The World Health Organization has also publicly recommend against the use of Ivermectin to treat COVID.

Dr. Stephen Ramirez, of Stone Oak Family Practice in San Antonio strongly encourages people not to ingest the livestock medication.

“Ivermectin is not used to treat viruses,” he said. “We have medicines that are used to treat viruses, medicines that are used to treat parasites and medicines are used to treat bacteria. This is not an antiviral medicine.”

While there may be some research underway to see if Ivermectin can be used as a future treatment for COVID-19, there is no conclusive proof that it works.

“It does not hold up to what we call the standard of care in medicine,” said Dr. Ramirez. “At this point. It's causing much more harm than good.”

News 4 San Antonio contacted four different livestock feed businesses in the area, all of them were completely sold out Ivermectin.

Dr. Kory says he does not endorse people using the livestock version of Ivermectin, and says it should be prescribed by a doctor.

“We agree with the FDA that people should not be using animal products,” said Dr. Kory. “We've never said that. Our entire expertise and guidance has been on trying to get the agencies to provide guidance for human use, not for animals.”

When asked which doctors locally were prescribing the medication to treat COVID locally, Dr. Ramirez says he was unaware of any credible physicians.

“That would not be necessarily a doctor that I would trust,” said Dr. Ramirez. “I would also tell you that we've been with this pandemic long enough to know that whenever we hear the term Miracle Cure, that we should be suspicious.”

Meanwhile, calls into the South Texas Poison Center are only anticipated to grow in the coming months as Ivermectin gains more popularity on controversial websites and alternative news sites.

Dr. Varney says there are two classes of people who are calling to report poisoning. “The first group would be people who are trying to prevent getting COVID,” he said.

And the other group, are people who are already infected and sick with COVID.

“You have somebody who's already compromised, perhaps even short of breath, needing oxygen and needing to go to the emergency department,” said Dr. Varney.

He cautions and highly discourages people from taking the livestock de-wormer as an alternative to a COVID-19 vaccine.

“When it comes to a formulation of a medicine that was intended for very large animals like 1000 pounds, there's no way you're going to get a dose correct.”

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