Weird Medicine: The Podcast - 461 - The Politics of Ivermectin

Episode Date: July 1, 2021

Dr Steve and Tacie discuss the science of ivermectin (check out clinicaltrials.gov) and the fact that politics + medicine = politics. PLEASE VISIT: stuff.doctorsteve.com (for all your online shopping needs!) noom.doctorsteve.com (lose weight, gain you-know-what) Get Every Podcast on a Thumb Drive ($30 gets them all!) roadie.doctorsteve.com (Every bass/guitarist needs one!) simplyherbals.net (for all your StressLess and FatigueReprieve needs!) BACKPAIN.DOCTORSTEVE.COM – (Back Pain? Check it out! Talk to your provider about it!) Cameo.com/weirdmedicine (Book your old pal right now while he’s still cheap!) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I was going to tell you a joke about dirt, but it's beneath us. If you just went to bio to Dr. Steve, host of weird medicine on Sirius XM103, and made popular by two really comedy shows, Opie and Anthony and Ron and Fez, you would have thought that this guy was a bit of, you know, a clown. Your show is better when you had medical questions. Hey! I've got diphtheria crushing my esophagus. I've got Tobolivir stripping from my nose.

I've got the leprosy of the heartbound, exacerbating my infertable woes. I want to take my brain out. I'm clasped with the wave, an ultrasonic, ecographic, and a pulsating shave. I want a magic pill. All my ailments, the health equivalent of citizen cane. And if I don't get it now in the tablet,

I think I'm doomed Then I'll have to go insane I want to requiem For my disease So I'm paging Dr. Steve It's weird medicine The first and still only Uncensored Medical Show

In the History of Broadcast Radio Now a podcast I'm Dr. Steve with my little pal Tacey My wife, hello Tacey Hello everyone I mean hi Everybody

Oh yeah you were doing your Dave Landau I didn't mean to that I'm so sorry Hello everyone Hello everyone Hello, everyone. This is a show for people who would never listen to a medical show on the radio or the internet. If you have a question, you're embarrassed to take to your regular medical provider. If you can't find an answer anywhere else, give us a call at 347-76-6-4-3-23,

aka 347 Pooh Head, because Tacey won't say it. Nope. Visit our website at Dr. Steve.com for podcast, medical news and stuff you can buy. Most importantly, we are not your medical providers. Take everything here with a grain of salt. Don't act on anything you hear on this show without talking over with. Your doctor, nurse practitioner, practical nurse, physician assistant, pharmacist, chiropractor, acupuncturist, yoga master, physical therapist, clinical laboratory, scientist, registered dietitian, or whatever. You know, I was just thinking, it's just really been in the last year.

Did that dog just knock the fan off? I think she did. She's freaked out by the fan and somehow she figured out a way to turn it off. What the hell? Maybe she's not as dumb as we think she. She's dumb, but she's smart in certain things. Maybe she's like a savant. She's smart in being sweet and smart in turning the fan off.

That's weird. Okay, well, anyway. I was just thinking, this is one of our vacation shows, so it will be brief. But we'll try to answer as many questions as we can. But I was just thinking the intro has been so much more fun since I started intercalate. those hateful comments that people made to our show. Each one of them is about four to six seconds long

and they fit perfectly with the intro. Here's the one that we're using now. Whoops. Oh, dang it. Hang on. Hang on. My fault. Your show was better when you had medical questions.

That's my favorite. But we also have this one. You haven't heard of a single fucking medical question. The problem, man. I've got the theory. Is that the same girl? I don't know. I don't know.

And then there's this one, this woman who I love. Can you please stop bullshitting and get to the question? I've got the picture. I mean, they're perfect. I think they just want questions, Steve. And then there's this one. Well, she did. God damn, this is about as boring as sex with my wife.

I've got the theory. I mean, they fit perfectly. So I want to know who those people are. If any of those people are still around, because that was some old school stuff right there from way back in the early serious XM days. But there's this guy. Your show was better when you had

medical questions. AIDS. And this guy a single fucking medical question. The Bob, man. Please stop bullshitting and get to the question. And then this guy. God damn, this is about as boring as Okay. So if you are one of

those people or you know who they are, please get in touch with me. I don't know what we'll do. Maybe I'll send you some Chotchkes or something, but I just would like to give you recognition on here because it's given me no end to joy. Just like Dee from Nashville, her phone call still is one of my favorite things that we ever had on this show. Let me see if I can find it. You remember, you know what I'm talking about? And you met Dee. I remember meeting her, but no, I don't remember the. Oh, my goodness. Let me see. This is improperly. Oh, well, we're not going to answer medical

questions. We're going down memory lane today. this is memory lane day let me see I may not be able to find it we are going to answer questions okay here it is hey dr. Steve my name is Dee I'm in Nashville Tennessee I am calling because you said something about a worse medical smell I was sitting in with the dentist one day a man came in his jaw was swollen the doctor had a round probe was moving his jaw was all out of the way. The probe brushed up against whatever the lesion was inside of his mouth and some shit came out of it that looked like green peas, like pea soup. Okay, that's disgusting. And the smell was so nauseatingly bad that I quit school and I am a realtor now. I'm not doing anything

in the medical profession because that smell was just like unreal, unlike anything I had ever heard before. So there you go. Hope that makes the air. I hope it made the area. I was dubbed as greatest phone call ever so and uh since then we've you know we've had d in the studio she's great on the air if she didn't live so far away four and a half hours away she'd be a regular but anyway it's hilarious it the shit smelled so bad that she quit school and went into real estate as far away from anything that you could possibly do with regard to medical care so that's great All right. So, yeah, so if you are with those people or you know who they are, we would like to get in touch with you. All right. Let's take some questions. Are you ready for that?

Of course. Okay. With my vast medical knowledge. How's it going? Good, man. How are you? We'll be right of your way a little bit. Listen, I got to ask because it's killing me. Yeah. What's your opinion on ivermectin and COVID? Is it blown up? being touted conspiracy theory tinfoil hat type business or

is it a legitimate you know a solution for treating code well okay so yes and maybe yes and I've got another we had two questions on our argument Hey Dr. Steve this is Steve in New York I

can you listen to Joe Rogan 1671 is what Brett Weinstein is dude I don't have like like six hours to listen to a Joe Rogan podcast, but I'm sure you'll summarize it. Dr. Corey. I love Joe. And they talk about this drug for COVID called Ivermectin or something.

Ivermectin. Yep. And they say that there's a lot of hope and promise in that. Yes. CDC and who and even YouTube is shutting down all to all talks about. See, this is what's not true. Go to Clinical Trials. If you want to see if the scientific community is giving this drug the proper attention that it deserves,

because Ivermectin is something that we give to people with parasitic infections, but it also is known to have antiviral properties. So the problem I have with so much of this stuff with COVID-19 is it's become politicized. so everything that you said has truth in it every single thing yes it has promise yes people are being censored but here's the thing if you want again if you want to know if the scientific community is giving it the credit or the attention that it's due go to clinical trials dot gov type in COVID-19 for the disease and the keyword Ivermectin 72 studies here's Ivermectin nasal spray for COVID-19 patients. Ivermectin treatment efficacy, sorry, in COVID-19 high-risk patients, that's

recruiting, clinical trial of ivermectin plus doxycycline for the treatment of confirmed COVID-19 infection. Ivermectin for severe COVID-19 management. You know, here's outpatient use of Ivermectin. That one was withdrawn. That was at Temple University. You know, there's 72 studies here. So a recent meta-analysis came out saying, yeah, looks like the data in some of these smaller studies is looking pretty good. What we need is a large-scale, randomized, placebo-controlled, double-line placebo-controlled study. It doesn't have to be placebo-controlled twice. That would be the Department of Redundancy Department taste. So anyway, but we do need that.

And once we have that, and there's a statistically significant result that shows a positive result in whatever, symptoms, hospitalizations, deaths, any of those will take it. And or transmissibility or adverse effects, long COVID, maybe it prevents long COVID, or maybe you give it to people early and it can. prevent people from going into the hospital. Whatever the statistically significant positive result is and the safety, in other words, the benefit outweighs the risk of taking it, that hell we'll write it for everybody, you know, that it's appropriate for, that we have data for. I am not cool with people getting on shows and saying,

oh, this stuff is a panacea for this, because we don't know that. But I am also not cool, and I am way more not cool with this, is YouTube and other outlets just deleting people's posts if they're posting about ivermectin. I can get on right now and summarize these 72 studies, and there is a decent chance that my post will get tossed off of social media. That is bullshit. yet. And as a libertarian, like I said, I'm not really cool with people saying it's a panacea, but that's their right to say it. And people have the right to make up their own decisions on this. They may not have the right to go to a pharmacy and just demand a scheduled, or not a scheduled drug, but a, you know, a prescription drug that's required by the FDA. That we can debate.

But, you know, people should be able to talk about it. And even, if it's tinfoil hat stuff, which there may be. People should be able to talk about that, too. I am very irritated about the censorship that goes on, which makes people that much more political, in my opinion. What sayest thou, Tacey? Oh, you're reading your Facebook, so. Oh, yeah. Sorry. She just tunes me out while I'm, when I'm on my soapbox. I agree 100%. Do you? Do you even know what I said? It's okay if you don't. Some of these...

Well, no, I think the censorship on Facebook and all that's really just ridiculous. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and see, here's this one. So Ivermectin for severe COVID-19 management. The problem with it is they had 30 patients. These are kind of pilot studies. They had 30 patients in each of the control and study groups. During the study, six patients were excluded from the study group, so they got down to 24.

as a result, 66 patients were included in the study. Six were excluded, and the study was completed with 30 patients in both groups. So that's good. So I can't crunch this data on the fly to see if it is good data or not. It's impossible to do, but it's a very small study. I mean, it just goes on for pages and pages. But they will publish this. and you can look at for ivermectin meta-analysis and ivermectin systematic review and you can see where they've taken these smaller studies pooled the data and then got a statistically significant positive result i'm fine with that but that's not the same thing

and and that just tells you that this bears a large scale double-blind placebo-controlled study that's what it tells you you know so anyway so yeah totally cool with with studying it, it's obviously a drug that we have to study and we need to know the answer because it may be, because Ivermectin, hell, it's a pretty damn safe and well-tolerated drug. Now, if I had somebody that I'd tried every other damn thing on, would I push to try this? If I had any knowledge whatsoever, even a crumbier study, an observational study that said that worked on a critically ill person, hell yeah, I'd advocate for it. if everything else was failing, if they're going to die. If we don't do something, I would advocate for its use.

I would have no problem doing that. You can do compassionate use for people if it's a last-ditch ever. But the problem is that's not what we're really interested in for these drugs. What we're interested in is drugs that we can give to people at the first sign of infection that will keep them from progressing to severe infection. And that you can't just start throwing drugs at people. you need to do that the right way. You know.

All right. So, yeah, not being censored in the scientific community. People having opinions about it are being censored, and the people who are censoring them can kiss my ass. That's the best I can say. All right. Dr. Scott's not here, but this is one. Hey, hey, Dr. Steve, Dr. Scott.

Hey, man. How are you? This is Paul from New York. Hey, Paul. Thanks for calling. Good to hear. So. I think my question is probably more aimed at Dr. Sky.

Oh, wow. I have lower back issues, some bulging discs in my lower back, and I'm a heavy equipment mechanic for a living, and I was driving in my service truck the other day and was listening to the radio, and I heard an advertisement for a chiropractic firm that was in the area, and he was advertising a procedure I'd never heard of saying it was a therapy called cox flexion distraction and it was some well if you're flexion my cox I say I'm big a distracted don't you think so here you go away

all right sorry special table that you would lay on and he would do these treatments on, and that after a few sessions, it actually could cause the bulging piss to recede back into its normal position. I was curious if this is a legitimate treatment, or I know there's a fair bit of quackery involved in some of the paropractic. Well, I wouldn't say that so much. there's quackery everywhere and chiropractic has some pretty good data when it comes to back pain. No question about that.

So it's when you get, well, I'll just leave it there. So I'm looking at Cox flexion distractions. It says it's a gentle non-force adjusting approach. So in other words, they're not cracking your back. The thing that most patients notice is the special. table. The movements of this table help traction the spine, which feels good. I'll tell you that. Opening up compressed spinal discs and reducing pressure on facet joints of the spinal. One of the problems is, is that we're upright a lot of the time. When we're not upright, we're supine or

horizontal. But we're either putting traction, you know, axial pressure on the discs between our vertebral bodies or we're, you know, flat on our back, but it's either, it's one or the other. And we never really kind of take that pressure off. When you're laying down, it's sort of neutral, but we never do the opposite. So that's why I bought the inversion table. The inversion table for me helps to take the pressure off of the spinal nerve bundle that's being compressed by the fact that my spine is out of alignment with this thing called spondylolisthesis. That's where instead of stacking on top of each other, my vertebrae, one of them is more forward

than it should be. And when it does that, it affects the shape of the hole that the two of them are supposed to make together to allow the nerves to pass through from the spine down to my leg. And so because of that, it's pinched all the time. causes pain. Doing the inversion table helps to reverse that somewhat. And this looks pretty similar, but I think they're targeting people with bulging discs. And it says this highly effective technique combines osteopathic principles with the specific highly directed approach used in chiropractic. The combination, well, okay, let me see. It says lying on the table,

neutralizing the effects of gravity, we're able to gently separate spinal joints. and move them through a more normal range of motion. Patients find the surprisingly pleasant. We find it powerfully effective, and then they use the example of an accordion, you know, gently drawing apart each joint like an accordion allows the spine to reset, and the pumping action. Enhances soft tissue nutrition and rehabilitation.

I'm not opposed to this. I found a YouTube video. It's just cocks, flexion, and distraction. I just want to, this one is two minutes and 56 seconds, and we won't play the whole thing. I just want to see what it looks like. Dr. Genentee at Procropractic here again. This morning, I want to demonstrate for you guys

a technique that we do in the office called Cox Flection Distraction. It was invented by it. Well, you've got to be careful how you say that, though. Dr. James Cox, and that's why it's named that. Oh, he owned that place where he could buy spirits. No, Cox Liquor store? Cox Liquor Shale. There you go, Tice.

You got it. All right, let's see. The technique we're going to do today is I'm going to be having... Okay, just show us how... Well, it's a radio show. I know, I know, okay. I just want to see what they're actually doing. Oh.

Space in here and help get some pressure released through those... Now, okay, so what this guy is is he's laying on his stomach, and they have this table that is hinged right around the hip joint. And she's pushing on his low back and then pushing down. on the part of the table where his feet are, so it's causing the hinge to flex toward the floor, and that's stretching

his spine while she's stabilizing it at the same time. Low back, those lumbar discs that get compressed very... And it's cracking, you hear that? This is super helpful for someone that has discompression that may be going... Okay, so that's basically, let me see if they do anything anything else here. Let's see.

Okay, oh. Oh. Okay, now the table also is swivels at the hip so she can move his legs to the left. I've been on that table. Have you really? Mm-hmm. Yeah, this actually, I think this could help some people, I really do. I think it's okay to try it. Look, chiropractic most of the time isn't that expensive unless you get into a thing where you've got to go week after week after week after week.

But I think this would be, I would try this for what I've got because it's a mechanical problem. I have a mechanical problem where nerves are being compressed because of the way that my spine is aligned. And this thing looks like it could at least temporarily give you some relief by moving some of those bones out of the way. Yeah, I think this is cool. I thought it would be motorized that it would be something that would be kind of undulating. My friend in Myrtle Beach, we went to see a chiropractor. It was kind of like a massage kind of thing But his table did that

And I have lower back issues And it did feel really amazing Yeah, really? Oh, yeah, that's cool Yeah Well, there you go Yeah, I'm cool with it I know probably a lot of people thought That I would crap on it

But I'm not going to crap on that But definitely a question not for today Since Scott's not here Right, except I already answered it Except for you already answered it Now, Dr. Scott would say also do that, but also come see a D-O-M. That's a diplomat of Oriental medicine. That's somebody did a four-year doctorate-level degree in acupuncture,

and they could augment that with some needles and stuff like that. So I'm telling you that's what Dr. Scott would say. And throw in some astragalus, and you'd be fine. All right, there we go. Hey, Dr. Steve, how are you? Good, I'm well. How are you? Yeah, I'm good, I'm good. Good, good, good.

Listen, I am a pharmacist, so I should know the answer to this question, but it's not really something that we discuss at school. So I'm going to my favorite source of all things tricky, which would be you. Thank you. So here's the question. I take estrace, an estrogen cream intravaginally. If I'm taking this regularly, like I'm supposed to be doing it twice a week, we'll say, for UTIs.

Anyway, I want to know if I'm having regular sex with my husband, how will that affect him? Okay, thank you for your answer. in advance, and I look forward to hearing it. Dr. Yusuf, thanks. This is a brilliant question, and I appreciate Dr. D. calling in. Different D. by the way. There is actually, if you look at the package insert of the estrogen vaginal creams, which she's right, she's using it for recurrent UTIs, but really what it is,

she probably had a cystocil. So a cystocil is the bottom wall of the bladder is the top wall of the vagina. And when the top wall of the vagina gets thinned out because of menopause or lack of estrogen, then the wall gets weakened and the bladder will drop into the vagina. It doesn't have to do it much

to then cause problems with incomplete emptying of the bladder. You can imagine that, you know, if it's blooped down like that, trying to pee and you can't get everything out. If it's a really severe cystocil, it can sometimes actually prolapse out of the vaginal entrance. And those people need a thing called a pestry or they need surgery. But she probably had very mild vaginal wall weakness and problems with incomplete bladder emptying, which then results in higher risk of having urinary tract infections because there's more urine

to hanging around to get infected. So intravaginal cream can be used to thicken the wall of the vagina and strengthen that upper wall so it returns the bladder to its normal shape. And you have better lubrication, better intercourse, all kinds of stuff. Now, if you look at the package insert, one of the warnings is avoid exposing your male sexual partner to your vaginal estrogen cream or suppository by not having sexual intercourse, right after using these medicines.

They don't define what right after means, but I would say that would be within hours. So with testosterone, you don't want to have intercourse if you're using testosterone in the chestal area to have intercourse with your shirt off, with your partner with her shirt off, within four hours.

Now, this stuff does absorb, but for him to get a significant dose, there'd have to be loose vaginal cream in there. So I would say four to eight hours. And, you know, if it's every once in a while, it's no big deal. It's just if you're using vaginal cream every day, which she is and she's using it twice a week. And then having intercourse every day, he could get a significant exposure to estrogen. And then he would grow boobies?

Well, maybe. Could, you know, there's could be one thing. you just don't want to have an imbalance in your testosterone estrogen in your body so he could lose he could get erectile dysfunction he could get lose his libido stuff like that I have never by the way I believe this is very hypothetical because I've never seen this ever happen I've never known of it ever happening and it would be interesting to see if there is a single clinical study at PubMed.gov. Let's just look. Male exposure to female intravaginal estrogen. So we're going to see if there's even a single article on that. And oh, there's lots of them.

But they're this. Okay. But it's all intrauterine. I don't see anything. Environmental estrogen. Nope, I'm not seeing anything that has anything to do with. Here we go. Absorption of vaginal estrogen cream during sexual intercourse. Let's see if they talk at all about men. To determine if intercourse change serum estradial levels in women, using vaginal e2 cream or in their male partners. Give yourself a bill.

So the results, serum E2 levels were higher in 8 of 10 men after intercourse with vaginal estradiol cream, and this resulted in a small but significant increase in the estradiol levels as compared to placebo. So it was small but significant. The P was 0.03. So, yeah, paradoxically, intercourse resulted in markedly lower estradial levels in women

as compared to absence. What? So it says here, men absorb vaginal estradial during intercourse, whereas intercourse reduces estradiol absorption in women. Okay, so, yeah, sex right after putting it in is bad for the woman and bad for the guy. Although serum estradial levels were only mildly elevated in men as possible, long-term exposure could cause feminizing changes. In women, estradiol levels were markedly reduced by intercourse.

So the question is, how long do you have to wait? I'm going to say eight hours now. I'm changing it from four to eight. But maybe you don't have sex on the days that, that you put the estrogen cream in. That's interesting, isn't it? That is a delightful question. She wins the question of the week and maybe the month.

All of us learn something. So there you go. All right. I thought you were going to say something. Nope, got nothing to say. Contribute something while I was looking for another question. Nope, not going to do that. Well, hi there, Dr. Steve.

It's Natalie in northern Ontario, Canada. Hello, Natalie. As I get ready to wrap up a school year, I'm an elementary school principal. We all know that elementary schools are just basically germ factory. Yes. So here's my question to you. Common colds, many of them are caused by coronaviruses. I just had my second Moderna shot.

Excellent. Protecting me against COVID-19, which is also a colds. coronavirus. Because the MRNA vaccines are targeting the protein spikes, will they offer me any protection against common colds and other snot and boogers and whatnot that the kids are bringing into the school building? I'm just hoping that this will give me a little bit of extra protection on that front too. Yeah. Be curious to hear what you have to say. Thanks much. Say hi to Dr. Scott And you know what? I really miss having Tacey on the air with you.

She was a good fall for you guys. There you go. See, see Tase. She's a line. The answer is we don't think so, but we don't know. We don't really know. We don't test for the other coronaviruses usually. When people die from coronaviruses during the non-pandemic times,

it's usually people who are already really sick, the elderly, and they will die from what we call. a typical viral pneumonia or just viral pneumonia or just atypical pneumonia and they hardly ever test for them there are some research studies that do test for those things that's how we know that coronaviruses kill about 10,000 people a year but it gets lost in the noise so I think that for the next couple of years we should be testing everybody for all of these viruses just to see if there is an effect from the MRNA vaccine on other coronaviruses. The reason that they're distinct is because their spike protein is distinct.

And I think that's why really most people think that we're only going to get protection against this one, but we won't know until we do the studies. So, interesting. Interesting. Yep. and I'm getting my booster study actually we're doing this one

several days before I'm going to have the booster but it's going to air several weeks after so we'll know if if we see I Am Legend then we'll know that that things didn't go well when I had my booster vaccine

you remember in I Am Legend they had a cancer vaccine and it was Emma Tom Oh, is it Emma Thompson? I don't know. Kenneth Brown is ex. And she's like, yep, we've got this vaccine.

You kind of set you up thinking, well, if Emma's in this, I mean, she's a huge actress. She's not just going to have a bit part. And she says, yep, we developed this vaccine against cancer and the cancer is going to be no more. And then it's like two years later, they just flash forward and it's just zombies. Now, you should read the book. The book was, if I remember correctly, was also called I Am Legend. And the book, they were sort of vampire things, and I'm just going to spoil the ending. Don't do that.

Well, it's, honey, the book came out in 1950. I mean, it's, but the upshot was, and it was, and it was, and it was, much better than the movie where he just shows up at this place and it's like oh we're safe here it was like no he met with the zombie things the zombie vampires and they were like dude we're terrified of you you can go out during the day we can't you know all this stuff and they were they were they were afraid of him as he was afraid of them which i thought was kind of a cooler ending that read the book uh that day the earth stood still came from too and you'll fight of much more interesting approach to that situation than was done in either one of the movies.

Anyway, all right. Well, listen, thanks, Tacey. We can't forget, Rob Sprantz, Chowdy 1008, the Port Charlotte Horror, Vicks, Nether Fluids, Carls Deviated Septum, Steve Tucci, and Bernie and Sid, Fez Watley, and Ron Bennington, who's support of this show's never gone on. I appreciate it. We're just out of time. I can't do the whole list today. Listen to our SiriusXM show on the Faction Talk channel.

SirisXM Channel 103, Saturdays at 7 p.m. Eastern, Sunday at 6 p.m. Eastern on demand. And other times at Jim McClure's pleasure. Many thanks to our listeners and voicemails and topic ideas who have made this job very easy. Until next time, check your stupid nuts for lumps. Quit smoking, get off your asses and get some exercise. We'll see you in one week for the next edition of Weird Medicine. Thanks, Taze. Bye, everybody.

All right. Say you later. Thank you.