I worry that an in-some-ways laudable amateur interest in materia medica both human and veterinary, combined with a fervent desire for a cheap and convenient end to the current siege-like Covid situation might be resulting in some curious (and in my current view, unwise) quasi-therapeutic decision-making among forum members.
The world of risk:benefit analysis in the use of medicines, and the significance of product licences for substances, product licences for particular indications and such licences issued at home and/or abroad as a support (or otherwise) for decision-making when it comes to using stuff other than as licensed for UK use can be quite complex.
I'm not sure in the context of this thread that anything has been clarified by Zambesi's post, other than that the understanding of licensing of medicines is not generally well-understood.
Indeed - and it will remain one while you can't do better than repeating the opinions of a vociferous number of experts and learned bodies whose opinions nevertheless make them spectacular outliers from the current mainstream field of Covid management in places that share the UK's approach to matters medical and scientific.
The subject is interesting, and might perhaps bear fruit that the UK will find palatable in some form or other. Until it demonstrably does, however, to the considered satisfaction of those who have some kind of professional understanding of these matters...
I don't pretend to be a doctor or learned medical man, nor do I profess to be so.
It is simply that I don't personally agree with what I infer from your stance, i.e. that all those who have already died this far and whom are still falling ill - here, in our medical jurisdiction in the UK - could not possibly be given the opportunity to have have benefitted from a novel (to you, not to much of the planet) and even unconventional (to you, not to much of the rest of the planet) treatment option, had they been offered the choice, given their prognosis? Too much risk of some as yet unspecified, never mind as yet unheard of side effect, unique to us Brits, which may somehow do what, increase our risk of dying? Why too, is it when anecdotally, we have known - for some nine to ten months minimum now - of the positive effect of Ivermectin, wherever else it has been administered both as prophylaxis and treatment in the fight against Covid in all the many
other countries where it has been used, is still being used and indeed adopted by other countries in the intervening period, are we so set against it? Even when, privately and less so, there are medical staff themselves here using it to safeguard themselves, can at least the option of its use not
equally be offered to those in their supposed care, namely the sick and dying? These,
our people?
Are all the countries who have reflected on the risk:reward:time question as to whether to 'risk' saving someone from what I understand to be a quite miserable death somehow wrong to be using what measure they have found to be effective? Or is it that we here are somehow in the 'care' of a superior form of healthcare, where it is better to die of the virus than to be saved by the 'wrong sort' of medicine, just because more reasearch is recommended?
Sounds like, a century plus on, our ' superior minds' are still keener to uphold tradition (we should be 'getting ready to climb the ladders and walk slowly toward the machine gun nests') rather than learn from the experiences of all the many others facing the common enemy, and winning by trying the 'new' workaround, all because here, the bigwigs back in the bunker deign it to be the 'right' course of action, and that the cost borne by the many (100,000 and rising) will be worth the loss.
Easier to be the superior, doing the deciding, than the unquestioning 'cannon-fodder', or so it seems from here.
What is the going rate for an ivory tower these days? Thirty pieces of silver, by the look of things. I'll wager that in the fullness of time, the comparative statistics will show
which was the more effective battle strategy; too bad nobody will much care, and just shrug and say, we did our best, our wonderful system did all they could. So much for 'doing
all we can to save lives'.
Your superior stance is to be applauded.
Some figures fornthe open minded, you need not trouble yourself further:
Papua New Guinea, population 8,8million. Use of Ivermectin history: population wide worm control/eradication programme, past ten years.
Number of Covid cases: 835
Number of Covid deaths: 9
Govt response:
bnf.nice.org.uk
As they say in the Godfather - it's nothing 'personal', strictly business...
