Ivermectin is the new hydroxychloroquine, a drug repurposed for COVID-19 that almost certainly doesn’t work but is still being touted as a “miracle cure” by quacks, grifters, and political ideologues. Are the data supporting it all fraudulent and/or biased? The answer, increasingly, appears to be yes.
Ben Garrison, whose fame comes from his QAnon-invoking and Trump-supporting cartoons, has COVID-19 and is treating it with ivermectin. Because of course he is. Orac’s schadenfreude is tempered by the knowledge that when Garrison recovers he’ll attribute his good fortune to the quackery he’s using.
“Dumpster diving” is a term used to describe studies using data from the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System database by authors, almost always antivaxxers, who don’t understand its limitations. Last week, non-antivax doctors who should know better fell into this trap when they promoted their study suggesting that COVID-19 mRNA vaccines are more dangerous to children than the disease.
There have always been “reasonable” apologists for the antivaccine movement. Thanks to COVID-19 their prominence has increased as they mistakenly conflate “antivaccine” with “vaccine hesitant.”
The Federation of State Medical Boards issued a statement that doctors spreading COVID-19 misinformation should be disciplined. It’s toothless, of course, as evidenced by the rarity of a state medical board taking action against such doctors.
