Pfizer and other drug makers have been working on a drug to treat COVID and Pfizer just announced Paxlovid is 89% effective in preventing hospitalization if taken soon after COVID symptoms during phase 2/3 trials. It worked so wonderfully, they stopped testing and petitioned the FDA for emergency authorization use.
This immediately got the antivaxxers up in arms, claiming that Paxlovid is just Ivermectin in a different packaging at 20X the price because both are protease inhibitors.
I am not going to screenshot the tweets and such, because they are rather silly. But then, it may take some ability to Google (tm) and knowing how drugs REALLY work to understand such comparisons are silly.
Let me give you an analogy: comparing Ivermectin to Paxlovid is like comparing these two vehicles, but probably not in the way you think:
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| Yellow: Caterpillar 797F 360 ton truck White: Chevy Suburban 2.5 ton truck Now that's how much IVM you have to take in the yellow truck to equate one dose of Paxlovid (in the Suburban) |
It's pretty clear you would never drive the yellow truck on a public road, it'd never fit!
Yet that's how much Ivermectin you have to give to the patient so enough of it gets to the blood in order to have enough effect on the COVID virus in you, when compared to Paxlovid (with the Suburban acting as a stand-in).
I am not going to get into the details as to what makes up Paxlovid, the scientific names, and so on. If you want, you can read the better explanation by Orac on his blog Respectful Insolence. This is my summary of it.
A drug when taken orally has to be able to be digested and absorbed by the body. This is called "bio-availability".
A protease inhibitor blocks a virus' ability to reproduce using the host's own cells. This protease inhibitor must block as few protease as possible, as not to interfere with host body's own functions, such as digesting protein, yet block the virus' ability to reproduce. With me so far?
(Side topic: Immune system and vaccines, as well as the monoclonal antibodies treatment, floods the blood with antibodies, which attaches to the proteins of the virus they match to, which prevents the virus from reaching the cells, attaching themselves, and burrowing inside to multiply.)
Pfizer, had actually identified this compound, called PF-07321332, back in the 2000's as part of its effort to find a drug that works on SARS, which is itself derived from another PF-series compound which I won't list, as it's too technical. Read Orac's blogpost if you want the details.
Ivermectin was discovered in a Japanese pond (on a golf course) by two Pfizer scientists around 1970's.
The two are not related. The only thing they have in common is they are both protease inhibitors, just as both vehicles above are considered "automobiles". They don't even affect the same protein!
So what's the problem? Bioavailability. Ivermectin, abbreviated IVM from here on, has a safe range of blood concentration of about 20-80 ng/ml. That's nanograms per milliliter. What antivaxxers don't understand about IVM is it's technically a nerve poison. That is how it kills parasites. In the safe range noted above, the human body tolerates it well. If you overdose on IVM, you can suffer "confusion, drowsiness, visual hallucinations, tachypnea (rapid breathing), and tremors", "disoriented and had difficulty answering questions and following commands" (as documented from actual cases of IVM overdose).
The original study that potentially identified IVM as having an effect on the COVID virus noted that the effect was only achieved with the concentration of the drug in a petri dish in the milligram range. It's 10-20 times HIGHER than it's possible to achieve safely in human blood due to poor bio-availability and side effects.
Or as one doctor puts it?
Re: Ivermectin inhibits the same protease Pfizer's Paxlovid does:
— Avi Bitterman, MD (@AviBittMD) November 20, 2021
Paxlovid works at 3.11nM, IVM at 21uM. 6-12mg IVM gets you ~26nM. Assuming linearity, you need ~6,000-12,000mg IVM to get ~21uM. Thats over the LD50 of 15mg/kg (avg wt), which is over 15 full tubes of horse paste. https://t.co/iAeZrTEfDF
That's right, one dose (two pills), vs 15 tubes of horse paste (which will likely KILL you). That's how much IVM you need to take to have the same effect of Paxlovid on the COVID virus.
Don't be a COVIDiot and believe that Ivermectin is all you need.
Get vaccinated.
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