by Pa Rock
Believer in Science
Over the past couple of years there have been so many cases of celebrities and other well known individuals who have garnered attention and notoriety by denying the existence or dangers of COVID - and who were then brought down by the deadly virus - that they hardly even merit a mention in the historical context of the pandemic. They all seemed to know more than the rest of us, and they were so very much smarter than the researchers and the doctors - and so much more honest than politicians, governments, and international health organizations.
The COVID deniers who are now pushing up daisies have become so commonplace that they barely continue to qualify as examples of irony and are instead just part of a sad footnote to the pandemic.
Earlier this month a promoter of a non-standard treatment for COVID appears to have fallen victim to his own controversial treatment. Danny Lemoi, a self-described "ivermectin influencer" on Telegram, died unexpectedly from a known side effect of taking veterinary grade ivermectin, a medicine whose most common usage is to rid large farm animals of parasites. The "influencer" claimed had he been taking a daily dose of the version of ivermectin designed for animals since 2012 when he had been diagnosed with Lyme disease. He also said that he quit all other treatments after five months of taking ivermectin because he believed that the veterinary medicine had "regenerated" his heart muscle.
Lemoi, a heavy equipment operator from Rhode Island, had been promoting the use of ivermectin for fighting COVID on his popular Telelgram channel, "Dirt Road Discussions," since 2021 as the use of the veterinary medicine was becoming popular as an unofficial treatment for COVID. His Telegram channel, which has over 140,000 followers, even contained instructions on how to administer ivermectin to children.
There is a version of ivermectin designed for human use that treats some seriousness illnesses such as river blindness, but it has been repeatedly shown not to be effective in fighting COVID. The Missouri Poison Center warns that ingesting large doses of veterinary grade ivermectin has a long list of side effects including seizures, coma, lung issues, and heart problems. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has warned that high doses of ivermectin that is concentrated for use in large animals can be toxic in humans.
Just before 7:00 a.m. on March 3rd Danny Lemoi posted the following on his Telegram channel:
"HAPPY FRIDAY ALL YOU POISONOUS HORSE PASTE EATING SURVIVORS!!!"
Little did he realize that would be his final message to his followers. Lemoi died a few hours later of what the administrators on his channel referred to as "heart problems," which, as mentioned above, is a known side effect of taking veterinary grade ivermectin.
1 comment:
Ivermectin is the primary medication used to treat and prevent river blindness (onchocerciasis), an infection caused by the parasitic worm Onchocerca volvulus and transmitted by blackflies. Because the disease primarily ravaged impoverished, remote rural communities in sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America, the heavily impacted populations could not afford the medication. In 1987, Merck established the Mectizan Donation Program (MDP), pledging to donate the drug "as much as needed, for as long as needed," completely free of charge. Because human-grade Stromectol requires a prescription, people turned to over-the-counter animal formulations prompting warnings from health agencies due to the risk of high-dose toxic poisoning. STROMECTOL* (Ivermectin) is a semisynthetic, anthelmintic agent for oral administration. Ivermectin is derived from the avermectins, a class of highly active broad-spectrum, anti-parasitic agents isolated from the fermentation products of Streptomyces avermitilis. Because parasitic worms and malignant tumors face the same fundamental challenge—how to rapidly proliferate, migrate, and survive inside a hostile host organism—they rely on overlapping biochemical pathways. Both helminths living in the oxygen-depleted human gut and cancer cells buried deep within a poorly vascularized tumor mass must survive under extreme hypoxia (low oxygen) and glucose starvation. As established with cancer, many anthelmintics (like benzimidazoles or ivermectin) alter cellular infrastructure—specifically microtubules and importin proteins.
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