Harmful Effects of Ivermectin?

As Ivermectin starts to take center stage in countries such as Japan who recently held a press conference 8-26-21 proposing the use of Ivermectin for Covid, the US CDC on 8-26-21 releases an emergency warning article I encourage you to read, “Rapid Increase in Ivermectin Prescriptions and Report of Severe Illness Associated with the Use of Products Containing Ivermectin to Prevent or Treat Covid-19.” *

 

 

This article states “in 2021, poison control centers across the US received a 3-fold increase in the number of calls for human exposures to Ivermectin in January 2021 compared to the pre-pandemic baseline.  In July 2021 Ivermectin calls continued to sharply increase, to a 5-fold increase from baseline.  These reports are also associated with increased frequency of adverse effects and emergency department/hospital visits”.  They do not reference any problems using Ivermectin in accepted dosing.  The way in which this article was written promoted people to call me in fear Ivermectin was harmful to people and prompted me to write this blog. 

The CDC gave examples of two isolated events of injecting veterinary Ivermectin and someone taking Ivermectin tablets bought through the internet.  The doses taken nor other aspects of the patient’s medical history, medications, and drug and alcohol use were not disclosed to the public. There are no research articles or actual data accompanying the article.

The CDC states multiple times,

• “Signs and symptoms of ivermectin toxicity include gastrointestinal effects (nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, and diarrhea), headache, blurred vision, dizziness, tachycardia, hypotension, visual hallucinations, altered mental status, confusion, loss of coordination and balance, central nervous system depression, and seizures.
• Ivermectin may increase sedative effects of other medications such as benzodiazepines and barbiturates…
• Severe nervous system effects have been reported, including tremors, seizures, hallucinations, confusion, loss of coordination and balance, decreased alertness, and coma….
• Clinical effects of ivermectin overdose include gastrointestinal symptoms such as nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea.
• Overdoses are associated with hypotension and neurologic effects such as decreased consciousness, confusion, hallucinations, seizures, coma, and death.

However, the CNS side effects listed in Drugs.com, state,

• “Nervous system side effects have included dizziness, headache, somnolence, vertigo, and tremor. Serious or fatal encephalopathy has been reported rarely in patients with onchocerciases, and heavily infected with Loa loa, either spontaneously or after treatment with ivermectin. 
• Seizures have been reported during postmarketing experience.” 

Hence, rare deaths occurred only in patients heavily infected with specific parasites known to cause CNS symptoms and death. I found no reference to the actual number of deaths of patients with parasites that were given Ivermectin.  Since over 3.5 billion doses of Ivermectin have been given before the pandemic, and there are no references to the actual number of deaths, one can assume it is extremely rare, if at all. I encourage you to search for yourself.

When researching seizures and Ivermectin, references concerning patients with Onchocerciasis parasite (river blindness) known to cause seizures, states Ivermectin decreased the incidence of seizures caused by the parasite Onchocerciasis.

Next week, the blog will address the article written by the FDA, 3-5-21, ‘Why You Should Not Use Ivermectin to Treat or Prevent Covid-19’ and go over the pharmacokinetics and dosing of Ivermectin.

Have an awesome day.  Dr. D