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COVID-19 ivermectin

A 2015 Nobel Prize doesn’t mean ivermectin is effective to treat COVID-19

A screenshot of a Facebook post of a meme that says “IVERMECTIN If you just got finessed into calling the medicine that won the 2015 Nobel Prize for its role in treating human disease ‘horse de-wormer’, then you need to sit the next couple of plays out.” The News Literacy Project added a red X and a “LACKS CONTEXT” label.

A screenshot of a Facebook post of a meme that says “IVERMECTIN If you just got finessed into calling the medicine that won the 2015 Nobel Prize for its role in treating human disease ‘horse de-wormer’, then you need to sit the next couple of plays out.” The News Literacy Project added a red X and a “LACKS CONTEXT” label.
Ivermectin itself didn't win a Nobel Prize in 2015.
Two researchers who in the late 1970s discovered that avermectin, a precursor to ivermectin, was effective in treating diseases caused by parasites, were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2015.
This is not evidence that ivermectin is effective in treating COVID-19.
Clinical trials for ivermectin are ongoing to evaluate its efficacy against COVID-19 after some small, observational studies suggested it might be.
Available data does not show that ivermectin is effective against COVID-19, and the FDA is urging people not to use it for this purpose.

NewsLit takeaway

It can be easy to get swept up in partisan rhetoric online and mistake something that feels substantive as evidence for an unrelated claim. Cut through the emotion and misleading hyperbole surrounding the debate over ivermectin by monitoring its progress through clinical trials, talking with your doctor and awaiting word from health authorities like the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on whether it’s safe to take.

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