Expert warns people on the intake of livestock deworming drug to treat COVID-19

Rutgers Professor Lewis Nelson is available to discuss the dangers of people taking the livestock deworming drug ivermectin to try to treat COVID-19.

Demand for the drug is surging nationwide despite warnings from the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention against using it. Scientists are studying ivermectin as a potential coronavirus treatment, but the formula used for animals differs greatly from what humans are supposed to take for some parasites and skin conditions. The FDA and CDC say people could become severely ill from self-medicating with ivermectin because an overdose could cause a coma, seizures and death.

It is inexplicable that anyone would use ivermectin, an unproven and potentially dangerous substance, to treat a disease that is nearly preventable with a safe and proven FDA-approved vaccine."

Lewis Nelson, Professor and Chair, Department of Emergency Medicine, Rutgers New Jersey Medical School

"The old Benjamin Franklin adage that "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" could not be truer regarding COVID-19, and the idea that the entire medical establishment would withhold an effective therapy given the devastation the disease has unleashed on the world is not supported by any reasonable evidence."

"Concerns over rare and generally minor adverse effects from the various COVID-19 vaccines can not be compared to developing the disease or the suffering some of the known adverse effects of the various unproven treatments that have been popularized."