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Tag: ivermectin
Greene Touts Her 'Common Ground' With Anti-Semite Farrakhan

Greene Touts Her 'Common Ground' With Anti-Semite Farrakhan

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who repeatedly has used Nazi and Holocaust rhetoric and has been labeled antisemitic on Monday declared she has found "common ground" with the hate group Nation of Islam, founded by the far right wing extremist, anti-LGBTQ activist, and anti-semite Louis Farrakhan.

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Why Modern Americans Are Behaving Like Medieval Peasants

Why Modern Americans Are Behaving Like Medieval Peasants

Americans are currently experiencing one of the most peculiar public episodes of my lifetime. Amid a deadly worldwide disease epidemic, many people are behaving like medieval peasants: alternately denying the existence of the plague, blaming an assortment of imaginary villains, or running around seeking chimerical miracle cures.

Feed store Ivermectin? I've administered it to horses, cows and dogs. But to my wife? No thank you. It says right on the label that it's not for human consumption. But at least you won't die of heartworm.

Donald Trump's idea of injecting bleach somehow never caught on, although one Florida family (where else?) was prosecuted for fraud after making a bundle peddling the stuff as medicine through their church. The charges were Federal. I'm only surprised Florida's governor didn't award them a medal.

Incapable of dealing with reality, too many exist in an odd state of denial. In essence, as a friend observed recently, "millions of Americans are engaged in a deeply weird suicide lottery."

Strangest of all, of course, is that a genuine miracle cure does exist. A scientific miracle that is: vaccines with the capacity to bring the pandemic to an end. Shackled by ignorance and paralyzed by fear, however, millions of our fellow citizens have refused to take it.

Propagandized by opportunists and madmen, and at war with everything known about communicable diseases since the life of Louis Pasteur (1822-95), many have taken refuge in humanity's most basic pre-rational instinct: tribalism.

And the tribe most Covid Fraidy Cats have chosen is Trumpist Republicanism.

Not all Republicans, of course. But far too many.

"No vaccine for us, we're Republicans." Anything to "own the Libs." Propagandized by the (fully-vaccinated) gang at Fox News—Tucker, Laura, Sean and the rest are all immunized as a condition of employment—millions of self-declared "conservatives" appear determined to defy reason, science and basic common sense to the end.

Even Trump himself took the shot, although when he mentioned it to an Alabama crowd, they booed, and he's since shut up about it.

As a direct consequence, the United States leads the developed world in Covid-19 deaths by astonishing amounts. America's daily Covid mortality rate is three times greater than the United Kingdom's, and four times that of France. As for the rest of the NATO countries, Canada, Germany and Italy currently have Covid death rates a bit lower than one per million of total population. The United States rate is fully SIX TIMES higher, and rising sharply.

In short, it's a self-inflicted wound.

Remember when we Americans prided ourselves upon our common sense practicality, our can-do ability to solve problems together?

That was then. As for now, well…

CNN's Jake Tapper gave Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves a hard time recently about the fact that his state not only leads the nation in Covid mortality, but damn near leads the world. Only Peru among the world's nations has a higher per capita death rate than Mississippi.

Needless to say, the state also has among the lowest vaccination rates. Not for nothing have Arkansans long said "Thank God for Mississippi," on the grounds that whatever embarrasses us here is worse over there.

Tapper asked Reeves what he planned to do about it.

"Deaths unfortunately are a lagging indicator," Reeves said, an unresponsive non-sequitur. He appeared no more capable of being embarrassed than a cow. He recently boasted that Mississippians don't fear death because they believe in the afterlife.

The Mississippi governor was stung because of something President Biden said recently about his fierce opposition to his mandating OSHA to require that workers in large companies get vaccinated as a matter of public safety.

"In Mississippi, children are required to be vaccinated against measles, mumps, rubella, chickenpox, hepatitis B, polio, tetanus, and more," the president pointed out. "These are state requirements. But in the midst of a pandemic that has already taken over 660,000 lives, I propose a requirement for COVID vaccines and the governor of that state calls it 'a tyrannical-type move'?"

He repeated himself for emphasis: "A tyrannical-type move?!"

Partly, vaccine resistance stems from sheer ignorance. On Fox News and elsewhere, people have been duped by opportunists to think vaccines can kill you, make you sterile, implant microchips in your blood, alter your DNA, or even turn your body into a large magnet. It appears that when people are frightened, no lie is too crazy to find believers.

This stuff isn't just irrational; it's anti-rational.

Of course, few actually believe that stuff. It's more a matter of who's making the argument. If Joe Biden, a known Democrat, is behind it, then the Red Tribe's against it. Even if it means risking death.

Yours, and of more interest to an "elitist" like me, mine.

Republicans invoke "state's rights," which is what they always say when their position is indefensible.

Sometimes, an element of force is required.

Howard Stern

Fuming Howard Stern Calls Out Joe Rogan And Anti-Vax ‘Idiots’

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

Right-wing libertarian comedian/podcast host Joe Rogan recently became infected with COVID-19 after refusing to take a vaccine, and he is now crediting the drug Ivermectin with his recovery. But veteran shock jock Howard Stern is saying that Rogan should have received a COVID-19 vaccine in the first place.

Although Ivermectin is primarily used as an anti-parasitic drug for animals, conspiracy theorists have been claiming that animal-grade Ivermectin should be used to prevent or treat COVID-19. But medical experts, including immunologist Dr. Anthony Fauci, have been warning that taking animal-grade Ivermectin could be dangerous; in fact, Fauci strongly advises against it. But the 54-year-old Rogan is claiming that Ivermectin was beneficial for him after he was infected with COVID-19.

Mediaite's Ken Meyer explains, "Upon his recovery, Rogan lashed out at CNN and other critics who called out his promotions of an unproven COVID remedy. This was noticed by Stern, who remarked that Rogan could have also gotten a vaccine — which Stern heralded as a 'cure' — and skipped the whole ordeal."

On his show, Stern — whose program airs on SiriusXM — told long-time co-host Robin Quivers, "I heard Joe Rogan was saying, 'What are you busting my balls (for)? I took horse dewormer, and a doctor gave it to me.' Well, a doctor would also give you a vaccine; so, why take horse-dewormer?"

Stern was vehemently critical of anti-vaxxers during the broadcast, slamming them as "idiots" who are "anti-science."

The 67-year-old shock jock told Quivers, "There's never been one that said, 'I'm so glad I refused. I'm so happy that I can't breathe. This is a wonderful way to die. It was worth it because I didn't take the vaccine.'"

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 75 percent of U.S.-based adults have been at least partially vaccinated for the COVID-19 coronavirus. Nonetheless, many U.S. hospitals are being overwhelmed by unvaccinated COVID-19 patients, and Stern obviously no patience with anti-vaxxers at this point.

"We have no time for idiots in this country anymore," Stern angrily told Quivers. "We don't want you. We want you to all, either go to the hospital, and stay home, die there with your COVID. Don't take the cure, but don't clog up our hospitals with your COVID when you finally get it. Stay home, don't bother with science, it's too late. Go fuck yourself — we just don't have time for you."

Debate Over Ivermectin Obscures Biggest Pandemic Problem

Debate Over Ivermectin Obscures Biggest Pandemic Problem

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters

Several national news outlets stepped on a rake over the weekend by credulously parroting an Oklahoma TV news station's apparently bogus report that the state's rural hospitals were flooded with people who overdosed while taking the veterinary form of the anti-parasite drug ivermectin as a COVID-19 treatment. After the story was debunked, conversation on Twitter quickly turned to the practices of mainstream journalists, as well as to whether mocking conservatives for taking so-called "horse paste" is effective or counterproductive in getting them to take COVID-19 vaccines.

I think journalists should be much more skeptical about thinly sourced news stories and try to report them independently rather than simply accepting the accounts as true. But these debates also strike me as tangential to an issue that is more directly driving public health outcomes: Influential conservative media figures have spent much of this year assailing the effort to vaccinate Americans while falsely suggesting that COVID-19 vaccines are unsafe and ineffective, and their sabotage has been very successful in convincing Republicans not to get shots of potentially lifesaving drugs.

In this particular case, those influential conservatives have been touting ivermectin to their audiences as a COVID-19 treatment they could take instead of the vaccines, even as the relevant health agencies and the drug's manufacturer say there's no evidence that it works. Last month, the Food and Drug Administration issued a warning following reports that some people had overdosed while taking the more-concentrated version of the drug intended for horses, rather than the formulation prescribed by doctors for humans.

Who's been talking up ivermectin as a COVID-19 treatment? An incomplete list includes Fox hosts Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Maria Bartiromo, Brian Kilmeade, Greg Gutfeld, and Will Cain, along with regular network guests Drs. Harvey Risch, George Fareed, and Ramin Oskoui; influential podcasters Joe Rogan and Bret Weinstein; an array of personalities on One America News Network; and PragerU founder Dennis Prager. Discussions of the drug are also rampant on social media platforms including Facebook.

Others on the right are spending their energy developing anti-anti-ivermectin positions. They may not be explicitly defending its use as a COVID-19 treatment, but they are focusing their fire on its critics.

All of these people have vastly more influence with right-wing vaccine skeptics than anyone on Twitter, in the mainstream press, or in the public health community does. The result of their commentary is a strong correlation between partisanship and interest in ivermectin, one that mirrors the correlation between partisanship and rejection of vaccination.

And the right-wing campaign against vaccination is ongoing.

Fox hosts have now turned to decrying the media's coverage of the Oklahoma ivermectin story -- while also continuing to promote the drug's use as a COVID-19 treatment.

"Ivermectin, by the way -- however it turns out, whatever you decide to do -- was developed and awarded a Nobel Prize back in 2015," Kilmeade said while guest-hosting Tucker Carlson Tonight on Tuesday. "It combats river blindness and tropical maladies. Sometimes drugs worked for different things. For some people, they chose to try it. It wasn't out there to make a mockery of."

We know what it looks like when Fox and its ilk go all-in on promoting a drug to their viewers -- it's the same 24/7 shilling that the network gave to the antimalarial medicine hydroxychloroquine last spring. But confronted with the existence of vaccines with near-miraculous effectiveness against COVID-19, they haven't done that. Instead, they've thrown up a host of objections to the vaccines and the campaign to get people to take them while instead promoting drugs like ivermectin that lack a fraction of the evidence in their favor.

It's worth contemplating the best possible way to reach unvaccinated conservatives. But we should be realistic about the potential impact even a maximally effective message might have on a group that gets information from sources within a near-seamless right-wing information bubble.

The people who are most skilled at influencing that audience don't seem to want them to get vaccinated. Until and unless right-wing media personalities decide they care as much about whether their viewers die lonely, painful deaths as they do about "critical race theory" or the availability of Dr. Seuss books, it will be an uphill fight.