WHAT SIDE EFFECTS WERE ASSOCIATED WITH THE INGESTION OF IVERMECTIN FOR COVID-19?
So, this is another abstract from the American College of Medical Toxicology (ACMT) meeting. This data came from TOXIC, a consortium of clinical toxicologists that submit clinical patient data on patients with tox exposures (similar to poison center data-although poison center data covers the entire US and clinical data is limited).
Ivermectin is a veterinary antiparasitic drug.
At the end of August 2021, Medicare had paid $2,493,716 for Ivermectin prescriptions for the treatment of COVID-19. (!!!!)
The FDA and ACMT collaborated on a TOXIC project. Adverse event (AE) data was collected from 15 sites in 12 states (note-not national representation) from October 2020-December 2021.
• 40 cases with a median age of 53 were reported
• 45% had self-medicated with vet products
• 42% would/could not identify the source of drug
• 60% took drug for prophylaxis
• 20% took drug to treat symptoms of COVID-19
• Daily dose was 12-1360mg
• Time to onset of AE was 0-5 days
• Most frequent AE symptoms were neurological
• 28% confusion, 20% CNS, 4 seizures
• Second most frequent symptoms were GI
• 33% nausea/vomiting
• 4 cases of hypotension
• 3 cases of Latic Acidois
OUTCOME
• 33/40 cases went to ED. 19 were admitted to the hospital.
The above AEs occurred as a result of self-treatment and self-medication with a drug not intended for human use.
This data is from only 12 states and the data from each state isn't from the entire state. The true number of AE in this country is many, many times the numbers in this data set.
Question prepared by Donna Seger, MD
I am interested in any questions you would like answered in the Question of the Week. Please email me with any suggestions at donna.seger@vumc.org.
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DONNA SEGER, MD
Professor Emeritus
Department of Medicine, VUMC
Tennessee Poison Center
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