Clamoring for ivermectin, some turn to a pro-Trump telemedicine website
When users visit the telemedicine website SpeakWithAnMD.com, they are immediately hit with a warning: “Due to overwhelming demand, we are experiencing longer than usual wait times.”
The demand is for ivermectin, a drug primarily used to deworm animals that has become the latest false cure for Covid-19. And the website, in partnership with the organization America’s Frontline Doctors, whose founder stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, has become well-known in the Facebook groups and Reddit communities where anti-vaccination sentiment thrives.
“Please consider that even if you can get an Rx for IVM, the pharmacy may not fill it for 1-3 days claiming they don’t have it in stock, which is pure bulls---,” a Reddit user wrote in the ivermectin community this month. “HAVE SOME HORSE PASTE ON HAND,” the user added, referring to the tube form that ivermectin meant for horses comes in.
Originally introduced as a veterinary drug for livestock animals in the late-1970s, ivermectin quickly proved useful in combating certain human diseases caused by parasites, a discovery that won the Nobel Prize for medicine in 2015. It comes in pills and pastes, in versions meant for humans and for animals.
