AUGUST 11 — I joined the “lost family members to Covid” club this week. Granted these were distant cousins but the news was still disheartening.
What was unpleasant was finding out at the same time another of my cousins was ranting about the deaths, saying the government and pro-vaxxers were covering up the reasons behind their demise.
Grief takes many forms; I guess it was easier for my cousin to blame Big Pharma and the government than something he could only see under a microscope.
Save us from anti-vaxxers
My cousin is just one of many people who does not see vaccines as lifesavers but instead as life-destroyers.
What is galling to me right now is seeing people insist that our last great hope is a deworming pill.
Yes, I’m talking about Ivermectin, the next drug to be talked up much the way hydroxychloroquine was in the early days of the pandemic.
I had hoped the ivermectin advocacy would die out but the cult is spreading despite the paper most cited to prove its effectiveness being retracted.
Just last weekend a friend’s friend confessed to handing out Ivermectin to eight of his family members who had caught Covid-19, claiming that it was the best defence against the disease.
A poison is not a cure
Ivermectin was meant to work against parasites so the logical leap needed to believe it would work against viruses is just mind-boggling.
While it doesn’t kill trematode or cestode parasites (examples being flatworms and tapeworms, respectively) it does kill other intestinal parasites including mites, heartworms and developing larvae.
In large enough amounts, Ivermectin can be neurotoxic to the animals it is supposed to save and in certain dog breeds such as the collie, it could severely harm or kill them whatever the dose.
There is scant evidence Ivermectin will be a useful antiviral drug and instead, people have suffered from kidney failure and gone blind.
Ivermectin is far more dangerous than vaccines are, so it is puzzling that many pro-ivermectin proponents say we have been brainwashed by Big Pharma who just do not want to be undercut by a cheap alternative.
I truly believe if ivermectin was the miracle drug it was, Covid-19 wouldn’t be the problem it is now.
There is fear driving the desperation and I empathise with that.
This is helplessness we all feel is natural and normal during a pandemic but trying to seize control by eating worm poison isn’t the answer.
I understand your fear and I feel your grief, that ever-present mourning that seeps into my bones whenever I remember all my past plans and find it hard to make new ones.
Whatever salvation lies out there for us, it does not lie in an unproven treatment.
Please take the vaccine if you can, find comfort and solace in a way that does not threaten the safety of your organs, and take heart if right now you are alive enough to be reading this.
Choose life, not organ failure.
* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
