Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

In Las Vegas, warning against use of livestock drug to treat COVID goes ignored

ivermectin

Denis Farrell / AP

The anti-parasitic drug Ivermectin is available for both animals and humans by prescription or over the counter, but not FDA-approved for COVID-19. When formulated for animals, it can be dangerous for humans.

Health officials in Nevada are warning residents against using ivermectin — an anti-parasitic deworming drug used on animals — to treat COVID-19.

This comes as local poison control officials say they’ve fielded calls from residents who have ingested the drug and were experiencing side effects of itching and hives, dizziness, headache, nausea, diarrhea and muscle pain.

“It is understandable that after more than a year of responding to the pandemic people are looking for additional, and unconventional tools and treatments that may help stop the spread of COVID-19,” the Southern Nevada Health District said in a statement this week. “Unfortunately, people are turning to untested, unauthorized, and in many cases unsafe treatments for COVID-19.”

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved ivermectin for human uses at “very specific doses” in tablet form for parasitic intestinal worms and as a cream or lotion for skin conditions including head lice, scabies and rosacea, the agency said on one of its pages dedicated to the drug. 

Ivermectin is available for both animals and humans by prescription or over the counter, but not FDA-approved for COVID-19. When formulated for animals, including in concentrations for farm animals that can weigh half a ton or more, it can be dangerous for humans.

“The FDA has received multiple reports of patients who have required medical support and been hospitalized after self-medicating with ivermectin intended for horses,” the agency wrote.

Or to be blunt, as the FDA was last week with this real, viral Tweet: “You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y’all. Stop it.”

But Las Vegans haven't been quick to receive the message.

Equestrian supply store V&V Tack and Feed in northwest Las Vegas fields multiple calls daily about whether it has ivermectin in stock and now requires customers to show proof that they own horses to buy it, KTNV Channel 13 reported.

Store associate Shelley Smith told the TV station that people coming into the store have told her they were taking the drug for coronavirus and experiencing side effects including loss of vision.

“You should not be taking this product. This is not for humans to take. This is to treat parasites in horses,” Smith said.

The problem isn’t limited to Nevada as some conservative figures are putting their weight behind the drug despite the many federal warnings.

Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin was suspended from YouTube for a week this summer for promoting ivermectin. Some Republican legislators in Tennessee called for a hearing to discuss the drug. The organization America’s Frontline Doctors promotes ivermectin on its website; the group’s founder was arrested during the attempted insurrection on Jan. 6. Popular right-wing media hosts have talked up the drug.

At least two people in Mississippi have been hospitalized for ivermectin toxicity. A jail doctor in Arkansas is under investigation for prescribing the drug to patients, including inmates, for COVID-19. Texas has seen 55 calls to its poison control center just this month over ivermectin, according to local media reports.

Shireen Banerji, a pharmacist, toxicologist and director of the Nevada Poison Center, said the center has received four calls from Nevada so far this year about ivermectin “exposures” in humans. From January 2019 to late August 2019 — the most recent comparable time frame pre-pandemic — there were none.

Banerji said three of the four calls this year were “for the purpose of ‘intentional misuse,’ meaning using a product against the way it was intended to be used.”

That can mean using a drug without a prescription, taking it off-label, or using an animal version for human consumption. 

The FDA has been responding to the interest in ivermectin as a COVID-19 mediation since early in the pandemic. In April 2020, the agency’s director of veterinary medicine issued a cautionary letter after a study was released describing the effect of ivermectin on the virus that causes COVID-19 in petri dishes in a laboratory setting — not with human or animal test subjects, and not as part of a clinical trial.

The FDA says ivermectin can interact with blood thinners and human overdoses can cause nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, low blood pressure, itching and hives, dizziness, problems with balance, liver damage, seizures, coma and even death. Inactive ingredients in the animal versions can also be unsafe for humans and in some cases, regulators don’t know how those ingredients can affect the human body.

The Southern Nevada Health District recommends the usual protective measures against COVID-19: masks, hand-washing, staying home if you’re sick, getting tested if you have symptoms or were in contact with a confirmed or possible case, and getting vaccinated.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.