What Is Ivermectin? A Short Guide ...

What Is Ivermectin? A Short Guide on Everything You Must Know

SCIENCEALERT STAFF

Ivermectin is the active ingredient in many widely available anti-parasite medications used to treat infections of worms, scabies, and lice in humans and livestock.

Recently, it has gained popularity in some parts of the world as a potential COVID-19 treatment, despite a lack of scientific evidence for its benefits, and a substantial risk of harmful overdoses.

How does ivermectin work?

Ivermectin was developed from a species of Streptomyces bacterium found in the 1970s, the finding was a huge win for the livestock industry and for fighting numerous devastating illnesses around the world, eventually earning the researchers a Nobel Prize.

Ivermectin and its family of parasite-fighting compounds act selectively on a kind of chloride channel only found in invertebrates.

While this makes it a relatively safe drug for knocking out any creepy-crawlies in the body, it is possible to have a toxic reaction or overdose of this medication. At higher concentrations, ivermectin can interact with similar channels in vertebrates like us, interfering with nervous impulses and muscle control.

Can ivermectin treat COVID-19?

Over the past 50 years, researchers have found that ivermectin may have other interactions in the human body apart from just tackling parasites.

There have even been signs that ivermectin has antiviral effects in the lab on RNA viruses such as Zika, Hendra, and HIV1, however trials in animal models have been spotty to date.

Since ivermectin already had FDA approval for treating parasites, it seemed like a perfect candidate to test against the SARS-CoV-2 virus – as a potential medication that might limit viral replication in the human body.

Early in 2020, a laboratory study on cell cultures concluded that a single treatment could cause a 5,000-fold reduction in virus particle numbers within just two days. However, this is vastly different from actually using the drug in people.

Several influential studies on the potential benefit of ivermectin as a COVID-19 treatment have resulted in controversy, with independent researchers uncovering substantial scientific fraud in preprint papers that were widely publicized without having received peer review, but ended up being removed from preprint servers or retracted.

"My sincere opinion is that at least a third of the evidence supporting the use of ivermectin as a COVID-19 therapeutic is not just 'based on shaky data', but consists of studies that may never have happened at all," writes Australian epidemiologist Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz.

The latest evidence from a large clinical trial on several repurposed drugs that might be useful for COVID-19 treatment has shown no benefit for ivermectin. More studies are underway, however.

Despite fraud, controversies, and lackluster evidence, ivermectin has been popularized as a COVID-19 treatment around the world, with a number of medical professionals prescribing ivermectin to patients in the hope it might stave off a more serious infection.

If ivermectin has approval, and doctors are prescribing it, what's the harm?

Ivermectin has approval in many government jurisdictions for treating parasitic infections. None have approved it for treating COVID-19, and doing so can be dangerous.

Drug regulators such as the US FDA and Australian TGA have issued strict warnings against treating COVID-19 with ivermectin.

"There's a lot of misinformation around, and you may have heard that it's okay to take large doses of ivermectin. That is wrong," warns the FDA. 

If ivermectin does have any antiviral benefits in people, clinical trials are needed to determine precisely what dosage can provide the greatest benefits with the fewest risks, for example. There could be conflicts between medications commonly used to treat advanced cases of COVID-19, which would make either medication ineffective, or worse, cause harm.

Read the full US FDA warning here.

 

All Explainers are determined by fact-checkers to be correct and relevant at the time of publishing. Text and images may be altered, removed, or added to as an editorial decision to keep information current.

https://www.sciencealert.com/what-is-ivermectin

ALSO READ:  Ivermectin still not proven as COVID drug - NHK World

US naturopath makes false claims about Gates ...

The many conspiracy theories about Bill Gates's depopulation plan appear to find their roots in a 2010 speech he gave on carbon emissions 

Discredited US naturopath makes false claims about Gates

A 2019 video has resurfaced in South Africa with claims by a discredited US naturopath that billionaire Bill Gates said the world should be depopulated of billions of people, starting in Africa. However, there is no public record of Gates making these remarks. 

Published on Wednesday 20 January 2021 at 02:06Updated on Tuesday 27 April 2021 at 22:48

AFP South Africa, Tendai Dube

Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Microsoft founder -- who has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the fight against the novel coronavirus -- has been the target of many false or misleading allegations, including about forced population control. His foundation has repeatedly refuted these claims, which have also been debunked by AFP Fact Check. 

The video featuring US naturopath Robert O. Young -- who was jailed for illegally practising medicine -- has circulated tens of thousands of times across multiple social media platforms in South Africa on January 11, 2021. This tweet was shared and liked hundreds of times.

"Mandating vaccines is part of depopulation plan. Check Dr Robert O Young testimony (sic)," reads the post featuring the 30-second video clip.

A screenshot of the false tweet taken on January 12, 2021

"For the purpose of sterilisation and population control, there’s too many people on the planet we need to get rid of. In the words of Bill Gates, at least three billion people need to die,"  Young says in the clip.

"These are Bill Gates words. Just Google Bill Gates and depopulisation (sic) and sterilisation. You’ll hear out of his own mouth the plan."

Young was speaking as part of a panel organised by the International Tribunal for Natural Justice (ITNJ) -- a group that holds unsanctioned "hearings" on subjects ranging from child trafficking to the alleged effects of 5G.

On its website, the ITNJ details its vision as "a world in which the Earth is honoured; Truth is spoken; Love is the basis of all action; and Justice is an organic, self-fulfilling function of respect for natural law."

The organisation says its aim is to  apprehend "the abuses and tyranny of systems and institutions; restore truth and reason to the delivery of justice in the world."

No trace of depopulation plan

The full version of the 98-minute video was published on the ITNJ's YouTube channel on November 20, 2019.

Various other clips from the panel discussion were shared thousands of times in multiple Facebook posts, including here and here.

 In the first 90 minutes of the video, Young makes unsubstantiated claims that viruses are not real, vaccines are poison, and that alkaline can be used to cure any ailment. 

A basic Google keyword search did not reveal any trace of Gates ever making any public comments about plans to reduce the world population by killing Africans.

It is not the first time that these unfounded claims swirl around social media. 

The organisation’s healthcare efforts in developing countries over the past two decades have turned him into a bogeyman for conspiracy theorists, as AFP Fact Check reported here. 

In August 2020, AFP Fact Check debunked this anti-vaccine video purporting to expose a Gates scheme to depopulate Africa.

We also debunked a video of Italian politician Sara Cunial making this and other false claims about Gates in an address to parliament in May 2020. 

Gates's ideas on population growth

The claim appears to find its roots in the misinterpretation of a speech Gates gave on carbon emissions over a decade ago.

During a TED Talk in February 2010, he discussed reducing global population growth through new vaccines and improved healthcare in order to lower carbon emissions.

"The world today has 6.8 billion people, that’s headed up to about 9 billion. Now if we do a really great job on new vaccines, health care, reproductive health services, we lower that by perhaps 10 or 15 percent," he said. 

Gates was talking about cutting global population growth by "10 or 15 percent" to reduce carbon emissions, rather than reducing the actual population.

In 2009, Gates recommended using vaccines to reduce child mortality rates. He argued that increasing the chance of a child surviving to adulthood and encouraging parents to have smaller families would create "a virtuous cycle" that lifted countries "out of poverty."

Gates said that some parents choose to have many children as a way to offset high child mortality. 

Below is a brief YouTube video from 2012 where Gates explains how population growth in underdeveloped countries can be mitigated.

The Gates Foundation has repeatedly rejected the depopulation claim.

"We are concerned about the conspiracy theories being spread online and the damage they could cause to public health," its spokesperson told AFP Fact Check in October 2020.

"At a time like this, when the world is facing an unprecedented health and economic crisis, it’s distressing that there are people creating and sharing misinformation when we should all be looking for ways to collaborate and save lives."

To date, the Gates Foundation has pledged $1.75 billion to fight the pandemic.  

Jail for illegally practising medicine

Young is the author of a bestselling book series called "The pH Miracle," which peddles an alkaline diet as a cure for cancer. 

In 2017, the American was jailed for practising medicine without a license.

As part of his plea deal, Young had to admit publicly that he is not a "microbiologist, haematologist, medical or naturopathic doctor or trained scientist," according to the San Diego Union-Tribune.

In 2018, he was ordered to pay $105 million to a cancer patient who testified that Young presented himself as a doctor and advised her to forgo traditional medical treatment.

In the video, Young alleges to have proof that those who testified against him when he was jailed were bribed to do so.

https://factcheck.afp.com/discredited-us-naturopath-makes-false-claims-about-gates

How Much Exercise You Need to 'Offset' a Day of Sitting

Scientists Figured Out How Much Exercise You Need to 'Offset' a Day of Sitting

DAVID NIELD

30 AUGUST 2021

We know that spending hour after hour sitting down isn't good for us, but just how much exercise is needed to counteract the negative health impact of a day at a desk? A 2020 study suggests about 30-40 minutes per day of building up a sweat should do it.

Up to 40 minutes of "moderate to vigorous intensity physical activity" every day is about the right amount to balance out 10 hours of sitting still, the research says – although any amount of exercise or even just standing up helps to some extent.

That's based on a meta-analysis across nine previous studies, involving a total of 44,370 people in four different countries who were wearing some form of fitness tracker.

The analysis found the risk of death among those with a more sedentary lifestyle went up as time spent engaging in moderate-to-vigorous intensity physical activity went down.

"In active individuals doing about 30-40 minutes of moderate to vigorous intensity physical activity, the association between high sedentary time and risk of death is not significantly different from those with low amounts of sedentary time," the researchers wrote in the British Journal of Sports Medicine (BJSM) in 2020.

In other words, putting in some reasonably intensive activities – cycling, brisk walking, gardening – can lower your risk of an earlier death right back down to what it would be if you weren't doing all that sitting around, to the extent that this link can be seen in the amassed data of many thousands of people.

While meta-analyses like this one always require some elaborate dot-joining across separate studies with different volunteers, timescales, and conditions, the benefit of this particular piece of research is that it relied on relatively objective data from wearables – not data self-reported by the participants.

The study was published alongside the release of the World Health Organization 2020 Global Guidelines on Physical Activity and Sedentary Behavior, put together by 40 scientists across six continents. In fact, in November 2020 BJSM put out a special edition to carry both the new study and the new guidelines.

"These guidelines are very timely, given that we are in the middle of a global pandemic, which has confined people indoors for long periods and encouraged an increase in sedentary behavior," said physical activity and population health researcher Emmanuel Stamatakis from the University of Sydney in Australia.

"People can still protect their health and offset the harmful effects of physical inactivity," says Stamatakis, who wasn't involved in the meta-analysis but is the co-editor of the BJSM. "As these guidelines emphasize, all physical activity counts and any amount of it is better than none."

The research based on fitness trackers is broadly in line with the new WHO guidelines, which recommend 150-300 mins of moderate intensity or 75-150 mins of vigorous-intensity physical activity every week to counter sedentary behavior.

Walking up the stairs instead of taking the lift, playing with children and pets, taking part in yoga or dancing, doing household chores, walking, and cycling are all put forward as ways in which people can be more active – and if you can't manage the 30-40 minutes right away, the researchers say, start off small.

Making recommendations across all ages and body types is tricky, though the 40 minute time frame for activity fits in with previous research. As more data are published, we should learn more about how to stay healthy even if we have to spend extended periods of time at a desk.

"Although the new guidelines reflect the best available science, there are still some gaps in our knowledge," said Stamatakis.

"We are still not clear, for example, where exactly the bar for 'too much sitting' is. But this is a fast-paced field of research, and we will hopefully have answers in a few years' time."

The research was published here, and the WHO guidelines here, in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

A version of this article was originally published in November 2020.

https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-figured-out-how-much-exercise-you-need-to-offset-a-day-of-inactivity