“You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y'all. Stop it.” That’s the FDA demeaning the 28% of adults holding out, who definitely don’t want to get vaxxed. They trust a familiar drug over the jab. By the stubbornness of that number, the anti-vaxxers won’t be changing their minds anytime soon.

If there’s one thing the FDA hates more than a stubborn resistor, it’s a faithful drug taker. Beware those who seek salvation in Ivermectin. The words poison, lethal, seizures, and hospitalization, sprinkle the FDA’s alert. A poison pill, we’re led to think.

“Ivermectin, a deworming medicine, is the latest quack cure for covid-19.” This was the headline to a story in the staid Economist. We read that crazies are emptying the shelves of veterinary stores, and taking the cure in doses meant for quadrupeds.  

In such a manner do vaxxers poke fun at dissenters.  

But could it be possible the dissenters know a thing or two their tormentors don’t know? What if—to speculate--there’s more idiocy on the orthodox divide? 

Vaxxers, for a start, may not know that the scientists who discovered Ivermectin won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1975. It’s on the World Health Organization’s List of Essential Medicines, in case they aren’t aware of it. And could it be that the vaxxed are too busy mocking Neanderthals for taking animal cures to read up that Ivermectin shares the podium with penicillin and aspirin for having the “greatest beneficial impact on the health and well-being of humanity.” And you can nudge the know-it-alls by telling them that the drug is FDA approved—for humans as well as horses. The CDC recommends it for almost all parasite-ridden refugees from the Third World.

And claiming that there’s no evidence of the drug being effective against Covid? Denial so blatant and panicked must come from the shallowest instinct. As if it’s not enough to be compliant, vaxxers must be complicit. What bugs medics and politicians, technocrats, and journals of impeccable authority so much that they lie about, and even commit blood libel against, a drug on the market for fifty-odd years? It has to be something that could hurt really badly. Is there anything that panics them more than the prospect of losing money and power?

The fact is that what is possibly the biggest trial in medical annals has produced results to which no Covid vaccine could hold a candle. Uttar Pradesh is the most populated state in India, home to 240 million people. It’s also been averaging fewer than 4 deaths daily. No. It’s not vaccines that did it. It can’t be if just 10% of the people are fully vaxxed. The secret is the drug. Authorities began dispensing ivermectin liberally while encouraging people to take it early on and even as a prophylactic. Other states followed suit. Delhi, Karnataka, and Uttarakhand have used Ivermectin widely and basically have eradicated Covid. 

But if dirty chaotic India cannot be trusted to prove a drug, then there’s clean orderly Japan's support for Ivermectin. 

Two questions beg to be addressed. One, what do the powers that be have to gain from closeting the Indian experiment and Japan’s approval? And two, why make the infantile excuse that taking Ivermectin in the wrong dosage could be fatal? Dosing up on aspirin could be fatal. Billions of lives are at stake. How can this be? 

It can be and it is when the stakes are counted not in lives but in dollars by the trillion. Then any behavior is possible. Killing is possible. Before the vaccine rollout, death by Covid was preventable. The powers that be just need to lay off Ivermectin’s case. Today devastating comparisons between Ivermectin treatments and vaccine results could be made. They’d make life unbearable for the Ivermectin deniers. Heads could roll, governments fall, reputations flounder. But a cheap remedy isn’t worth a hill of beans to eyeballs flashing dollar signs.

Narratives, when held together by lies, come apart at the slip of a President’s tongue. Biden announcing his vaccine mandate is a case in point. 

“We’re going to protect vaccinated workers from unvaccinated co-workers,” Biden swore. The un-vaxxed might as well be Tutsis and Biden the Hutu chief speaking code words for genocide. Unvaxxed. Cockroaches. Not a very big difference. 

“I understand your anger at those who haven’t gotten vaccinated,” the President said. “I understand the anxiety about getting a ‘breakthrough’ case. But as the science makes clear, if you’re fully vaccinated, you’re highly protected from severe illness, even if you get COVID-19.”

Try spotting his two lies and one inconsistency.

Lie # 1. “You’re highly protected....” 

Fact check: In the UK, out of 2,381 deaths in the latest period, 69.7% were doubly vaccinated and 25.2% weren’t at all. In the over-50s group, 73% were doubly vaccinated while 22.5% weren’t at all. Adjusting for the over-50s vaccinated and unvaccinated, that works out to a vaccine effectiveness against death of 68.1%: a far cry from the claims being made.

So Mr. Biden’s highly protected aren’t.

Lie # 2. “As the science makes clear....”

Fact check: CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky gave her stamp of approval to the recommendation that the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices gave to the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, even though ACIP ignored evidence from six studies. They described not only lower effectiveness but bodily harm. “Given the ramifications this recommendation is already having on the vaccine mandate, the evidence presented does not appear to meet the highest level of standards for scientific integrity and conduct.” So Biden’s clear science is of the muddy type. 

Then his inconsistency: Biden makes no sense. On the one hand, he claims that the vaccines are highly effective at preventing serious illness and death. On the other hand, he argues that a vaccine mandate is needed to protect the vaccinated from the unvaccinated. If his first claim were true, his second claim must be false. 

Believe a politician’s promise? Vaxxers, you are not a moo cow. Seriously, y'all. Since when did anyone take politicians at their word? Here’s the big problem. When it comes to vax or not to vax that’s clearly what vaxxers do. 

Consider a study by Morning Consult, an American pollster.  It found that between March 22nd and August 30, 2021, American adults holding out dropped from 37% to 28%. French skeptics fell more precipitously: 49% to 14%. In China (because of government by stick more than by carrot?), only 10% were still holding out. In Russia though (because of government by the corrupt for the corrupt?), 45% of adults persist in looking through narrowed eyes at getting vaxxed.

How or why did vaxxers go out of their little frightened minds? They bought into an oversold pandemic. Take a recent Guardian article that begins with the Great Plague of Marseille in 1720, which killed more than half the population, and then sneakily slides from there into modern-day France: “President Macron is walking an equally tricky tightrope…” Equally? Meaning Covid is deadly like the plague, enough to pose a 50 % risk of dying. Under 1% would be nearer the mark.

So, to the bottom line. Let the buyer beware. Harmed by a vaccine? You’re precluded from claiming damages. Parties are protected. The pharmas are not responsible. The experts are not. Your government is not. But you must act responsibly and get vaxxed, for Godsake! 

Steve Apfel is an economist and costing specialist, but most of all a prolific author of fiction and non-fiction. His blog, ‘Balaam’s curse,’ is followed in more than 15 countries.

Image: FDA tweet about Ivermectin. Twitter screen grab.

To comment, you can find the MeWe post for this article here.