Admitting some really safe, and inexpensive treatments like Invermectin have great value would diminish fear and slam the brakes on expensive treatments. I do not know this hypothesis to be true, but if there ever is a strong perception that the most influential members of the American medical community plus much of the media has decided that allowing Americans to suffer and die because otherwise it just opens a can of worms regarding activities in 2020, well, what will be found? Under such a hypothesis, “leaders” may be shocked that it is September 2021 and they still can’t move out of the trenches they dug even while all kinds of countries concern themselves with treating the sick effectively.
reason | KFOR, an Oklahoma news channel, reported last week that rural hospitals throughout the state were in danger of becoming overwhelmed by victims of a very specific poisoning: overdoses of ivermectin, an anti-parasite drug promoted by vaccine skeptics as a possible treatment for COVID-19.
The story went viral, and was seized upon by the mainstream media. But its central claim is substantially untrue.
The meat of the story is a series of quotes from an Oklahoma doctor, Jason McElyea, who appears to attribute overcrowding at local hospitals to a deluge of ivermectin overdoses.
"The ERs are so backed up that gunshot victims were having hard times getting to facilities where they can get definitive care and be treated," McElyea told KFOR's Katelyn Ogle.
The story ran under the headline: "Patients overdosing on ivermectin backing up rural Oklahoma hospitals, ambulances." It was quickly picked up by national news outlets, such as Rolling Stone, Newsweek, and the New York Daily News. Numerous high-profile media figures, including MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, tweeted about ivermectin overdoses straining Oklahoma hospitals—the implication being that the right-wing embrace of a crank COVID-19 cure was dangerous not only for the people who consumed it but for the stability of the entire medical system.
It was a story that appeared to confirm many of the mainstream media's biases about the recklessness of the rubes. But it's extremely misleading. There is, in fact, little reason to believe a purported strain on Oklahoma hospitals is caused by ivermectin overdoses; one hospital served by the doctor quoted in the KFOR article released a statement saying it has not treated any ivermectin overdoses, nor has it been forced to turn away patients.
This is yet another example of the mainstream media lazily circulating a narrative that flatters the worldview of the liberal audience, without bothering to check on any of the details. Additional reporting was sorely needed here, and has now completely undermined the central point of the story.
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