Poison center advises against high-demand livestock drug
Local feed and tack stores are seeing a huge bump in sales of ivermectin — an anti-parasitic medication commonly used for livestock — mirroring an alarming nationwide demand for the drug as an unapproved coronavirus treatment.
Ivermectin sales at Cook Feed & Outdoor stores in central Oklahoma have been so high, they’ve had difficulty keeping up with the demand.
“We’ve started selling out left and right,” said owner Steve Cook. “It tends to happen whenever a surge like this goes on.”
Cook owns horse feed and hay stores in Oklahoma City, Yukon and Norman. Staff at the Oklahoma City location said it is not the first time they’ve seen a heightened interest in ivermectin.
“This seems like the second goaround,” said C.J. Brewer, an employee at the Oklahoma City store. “The last month, we saw a huge jump in sales of (ivermectin). We were running out of it for a while, but (the manufacturers) sent us a lot of it now because we’ve been selling so much of it.”
“We don’t really ask them why they’re buying it, but with a lot of people you can kind of tell because they’re a little secretive about it,” Manager Chris Reece said. “Unless you have 20 horses, you don’t need 20 boxes of dewormer.”
Reece said he’s talked with management at the Norman and Yukon locations and realized sales at those stores are higher than his own.
“The injectable ivermectin is the one you can’t find on the shelves,” Reece said. “I don’t know if people are taking it orally, but that’s definitely been the most popular one. This is really Year 2 of people taking ivermectin for themselves. I definitely wouldn’t suggest it, though. I wouldn’t do it.”
Brewer and Reece are uncertain whether the most recent sellout of ivermectin is because of surging delta variant COVID-19 fears, the beginning of the horse racing season nearby, or a combination of the two.
“You hear a lot of anecdotal stories,” Reece said. “You’ll see something like, ‘They were on a ventilator, they had a really bad case of COVID, but then they took ivermectin, and then they were just fine and walked right out of the hospital!’ I’ve seen a lot of those stories. One person tells that to other people, who then tell other people, and they start taking (ivermectin) as a preventive thing.”
‘Never use medications intended for animals on yourself’
Ivermectin is mostly used to treat heartworms and other parasites in livestock, although the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has also approved it for some human uses in treatment of parasitic worms, head lice and the skin condition called rosacea. Human use of ivermectin is only suggested if prescribed by a doctor.
During a briefing with OU Health on Thursday, Scott Schaeffer, managing director at the Oklahoma Center for Poison and Drug Information, said online misinformation might be contributing to increased attention on ivermectin as a coronavirus treatment.
“COVID is scary and we’ve been locked up in our homes and wearing masks for over a year now,” Schaeffer said. “We all would like to get past this. It’s very tempting when somebody comes online, for example, on the Internet and puts up a very official-looking website, with referrals to medical literature. It can be very tempting to take that advice. Unfortunately, when you look at it in detail, it kind of falls apart under scrutiny.”
Nationwide trend
The Oklahoma Center for Poison and Drug Information is reminding residents not to use ivermectin for unapproved treatment. Since May 1, Oklahoma’s poison control center has received 11 reports of human exposure to ivermectin. One call was in May, three calls came in July, and six calls reported a total of seven patients in August. Most people developed only minor symptoms like vomiting and diarrhea, and there have been no reported fatalities.
Schaeffer said more serious side effects such as low blood pressure and seizures are still possible if too much of the drug is taken, or if it interacts with other medications. Cases in which ivermectin has been used as an unproven treatment for COVID-19 have been reported around the U.S. in recent weeks.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, poison control centers nationwide saw a threefold increase of human-exposed ivermectin calls during January 2021. By July 2021, the number of calls had increased fivefold.
“Never use medications intended for animals on yourself,” Schaeffer said. “Many animal drugs are available in different concentrations than those used for humans, and are often available in much larger quantities because they are intended for use in large animals like horses and cows. As a result, there is the potential for an excessive dose to cause toxic effects.”
Merck, a drug company manufacturing ivermectin, issued a statement Feb. 4 stating there is “no scientific basis for a potential therapeutic effect (of ivermectin) against COVID-19 from pre-clinical studies” and “no meaningful evidence for clinical activity or clinical efficacy in patients with COVID-19.”
“To date, the most effective things that we’ve seen are vaccinations and masks,” Schaeffer said. “Anything else that might be a cure or preventive is way, way down on the list as far as effectiveness and also as far as proof.”
‘Don’t try and wing it on your own’
Health experts advise following the recommendations of primary care physicians and medical professionals when it comes to COVID-19 treatment and ivermectin or any other medication.
“Recent analyses by the National Institutes of Health and by the United Kingdom have shown that there’s no clear evidence that it’s helpful,” said Dr. Dale Bratzler, chief COVID officer at the University of Oklahoma. “People particularly with underlying things like liver disease may have toxic side effects from ivermectin.”
Bratzler said the only time ivermectin should be used for coronavirus treatment is during a clinical trial, where patients are monitored and controlled.
“It should not be used (otherwise),” Bratzler said. “Do not get veterinary ivermectin to treat it.”
Pharmacists and registered nurses at the Oklahoma Center for Poison and Drug Information are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week at 800-222-1222.
“Don’t try and wing it on your own,” Schaeffer said. “If you’re considering using ivermectin or it’s tempting to go to the feed store and purchase some of it, let your prescriber, your physician, know that you’re interested in doing that. Let him or her decide whether or not it’s appropriate, review the medications you’re on, see if there are any interactions, and you can make the decision from there.”