That’s because ivermectin is most commonly used to deworm horses. It’s also the go-to in treating onchocerciasis, or river blindness, a parasitic infection most commonly contracted from the disease-carrying black flies found in rivers in tropical environments. The anti-paralytic drug, which can be found in an injectable single dose composed for horses at tractor supply stores, and in an oral tablet for human consumption with a doctor’s prescription, will make its way to restricted over-the-counter status if Abbott signs House Bill 25, which is headed his way after a 20-6 Senate vote on Aug. 27.
The spontaneous inclusion of the oddball medicine doesn’t come as a surprise to anyone who has a keen eye on the questionable medical recommendations that have come from the Republican Party since the height of COVID-19, when people were detoxing their systems with bleach and boosting their immune systems with colloidal silver. At the peak of the pandemic, ivermectin emerged as a purported treatment for patients with respiratory disease, and prescriptions for the drug increased by 989% between March 2019 and April 2021.
According to a report cited by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), Texas was dispensing the most ivermectin during the pandemic of any state, at 151.8 prescriptions per 100,000 people. We’d like to hope there were a large number of people breaking COVID regulations and taking secret trips to tube down the Amazon River without bug spray and not unnecessarily taking a paralytic flushing agent to treat a respiratory disease instead of getting vaccinated, in a lesser of two evils situation.
Dan Patrick Believes in Treating COVID with Ivermectin, Sort Of
COVID-19 levels are once again surging, and the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F Kennedy Jr., is offering no help, restricting booster eligibility to those over 65 and those classified as high-risk, leaving the rest of us to sheepishly, if not momentarily, consider placing a call to our nearest livestock vet.The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) does not approve ivermectin for treating COVID-19, and the CDC advises against its use for ailments not caused by worms. In 2021, the American Medical Association, the American Pharmacists Association, and the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists released a joint statement advising against the use of ivermectin.
“Veterinary forms of this medication are highly concentrated for large animals and pose a significant toxicity risk for humans,” the trio of medical professional associations wrote. “...Calls to poison control centers due to ivermectin ingestion have increased five-fold from their pre-pandemic baseline.”
There were so many people taking livestock intended to give ivermectin to the FDA had to tweet about it.
“You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y’all. Stop it,” said the since-deleted tweet that lives in screenshot heaven.
Few people advocate for the widespread use and increased accessibility of ivermectin, save for Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who celebrated the Senate passage of the bill. Patrick did not suggest ivermectin as a treatment for the disease, but he did put “COVID-19” and “increased medical freedom” in the first sentence of his press release.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has emphasized the need for increased medical freedom in Texas,” Patrick wrote. “Today, the Texas Senate passed HB 25 to make Ivermectin available over the counter in our state, with emphasis on rural areas… The Texas Senate is committed to increasing medical freedom and ensuring Texans have access to the medical drugs they need.”
Getting your hands on the pills won’t be as easy as buying cough drops. You’ll have to ask a pharmacist for them. It’s more behind-the-counter than over the counter, but it beats overnighting them from horse.com.
They Pissed Off The Horse Girls
While ivermectin remains a valuable drug for treating parasites in humans and horses, the continued spread of misinformation linking the antiparasitic to COVID-19 unnerves the horse-owning community, which has already experienced one ivermectin shortage.“In 2021, there was a period of time where I would order pickup from Tractor Supply, and just had the hardest time,” said Kacie Hammonds, a horse mother to four steeds, and a former micro-influencer with a TikTok account dedicated to her herd. “It would be out of stock, and then I would try to order it, and then I would never get my order. I had to get really creative.”
Hammonds has ample access to the drugs now. Still, she’s never considered a self-prick, but she’s surely heard of people who have.
“I heard stories,” she said. “I never personally tried it, but that was something [I heard] whenever supply ran thin. When I talked to the Tractor Supply associates, they said they were getting some clientele buying ivermectin that were outside of the usual type.”
Hammonds notes that in horses with a suspected heavy parasitic load, a half-dose of ivermectin is recommended to avoid colic. So she has some serious questions and a general wellness inquiry for people who were taking the entire dose formulated for a 1,500-pound animal. But at the end of the day, she may turn the other cheek and be grateful for the reduced competition within the ivermectin market.
“You know, maybe it’s a good thing folks can get ivermectin over the counter,” she said. “Now, my horses won’t have to put off their spring gut cleanse.”
While we at the Observer are not qualified to offer medical advice, we think of all the livestock medicines to choose from, ketamine sounds like way more fun.
