Kallie and I buy a lot of Ivermectin. We use it to treat our livestock. In people, it is used to treat parasite infestations like head lice, scabies, and many other infections and diseases. When our llamas contracted meningeal worm, Ivermectin saved their lives. It’s cheap. It used to cost about $2-3 per horse, but now it is around $15. We use it every few months to keep everyone healthy. It also cuts down on the amount of feed we have to give them, so livestock producers see value in it.

Several uninformed legislators want the government to solve the problem of people using livestock Ivermectin to self-medicate. They want to make it illegal to sell in farm supply stores and require doctors or pharmacists to sell it and put limits on it, just like they solved all the meth problems by putting monthly caps on how much pseudoephedrine you can buy. Two problems with the government trying to save us: First, I have five horses and my neighbors have twenty. What’s my monthly limit? And second, if you are worried about people self-medicating: one syringe for a horse treats 1,250 pounds, with five clicks on the syringe in 250# increments. So limiting me to anything isn’t going to solve it. If they require veterinarians to administer it, no one will treat their animals frequently enough and the animals will suffer.

We should also remember that the pseudoephedrine law passed over a decade ago didn’t solve the meth problem, even though legislators think they did. Frequently, the government just makes things worse.

Ivermectin was discovered in 1975 and came into medical use in 1981. In 2015, William Campbell and Satoshi Ōmura won the Nobel Prize in Medicine for its discovery and applications. It is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines. Ivermectin is FDA-approved as an antiparasitic agent. In 2018, it was the 420th most commonly prescribed medication in the United States, with more than one hundred thousand prescriptions (in humans). The medication is also being researched as a way to treat or prevent tropical diseases including yellow fever and malaria.

DISCLAIMER: I am not a doctor or a veterinarian, but I do write laws for our State. I don’t want to put more regulations on farmers or animal lovers just because a small group of people is doing things without the advice of their doctor. If you hear a lawmaker discussing Ivermectin legislation, please tell them ‘no.’

"If you insist on writing another dumb law in a fruitless effort to save lives, put Tide Pods behind the counter."

https://web.archive.org/web/20151006112430/http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/2015/press.pdf

The problem would be easily solved for anyone who actually wanted to solve it.

Instruct physicians to prescribe the 3mg Ivermectin pills at an appropriate dose for the patient for prophylactic and early infection treatment for COVID 19.

This would also solve the problem of hospitals overcrowding.

This would also solve the problem of injecting people with a drug that has not been tested on humans or FDA approved.

Side bonus, it would solve the problem of horse Ivermectin paste becoming inexpensive, unavailable and otherwise regulated.

These people are not looking for solutions.