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Yeah, all of this Ivermectin information is deeply, deeply sad.
My guess is that there are a few factors at play here.
TLDR: Lack of trust in institutions + desire for dontrol + partisanship = people eating horse paste.
A lot of people have lost trust in institutions including the media, health care providers, pharmaceuticals, government health agencies... you name it. This opens the door for all sorts of conspiracy theories, snake oil sellers, and others who exploit the lack of trust.
Sadly, the actions of some of those institutions have either caused or exacerbated these problems. For example, pharmaceuticals are granted patents of up to 20 years on most medications, during which time they have a monopoly on the drug. Because the US doesn't have a single-payer system, pharmaceuticals can basically charge whatever they want during the patent term. Often that high price is just a starting point for negotiations with dozens of private insurers, but for the millions without insurance -- who have no negotiating power whatsoever -- they often get socked with the full cost. To make matters worse, many will make minor tweaks to medications towards the end of the patent term, which grants them a new patent. This doesn't prevent a generic version from being made, but the companies can leverage their massive ad budgets to convince patients and doctors to use the "new" drug.
Even well-meaning institutions can erode trust. E.g. no one really knew how to handle COVID-19 when it first hit; they didn't even know for sure how it spread. As a result, government agencies like the CDC had no choice but to alter recommendations. This confused a lot of people, who seem to think that modern medicine works like it does on Star Trek -- e.g. doctors can figure out everything there is to know, and devise a cure, for a deadly pathogen in 10 minutes.
Or: Doctors are experts, but even the best experts don't always have the answers. If you have a chronic condition, or a mental health issue such as depression, it can take months or years to find medications that work. And in a lot of cases, especially older people and/or people in areas without good access to health care, what's available doesn't work.
The second issue is that people feel like they don't have control, and that often makes people unhappy or distrustful or downright miserable. Even the illusion of control can give people some satisfaction and relief. As a result, they don't always like to be told by a doctor "you need to do X, Y and Z in exactly this way and at this time." Again, this exacerbates mistrust.
We've seen over and over how partisans often accuse the people they hate of doing the things that the partisans' "team" is actually doing. E.g. MAGA accuses Big Pharma of only caring about making profits (which is mostly true), and is thus allegedly "suppressing" cheaper cures (even though doctors routinely prescribe generics, and pharmaceuticals make generics), while it turns out that yep, lots of people are profiting off of selling Ivermectin. It's standard for partisans to ignore hypocrisy committed by "their team" or themselves, while being hyper-sensitive to any flaws or hypocrisies by the "rival team."
Unfortunately, the consequences of all this are not limited to those who consume this snake-oil. Refusing to vaccinate gives viruses more opportunities to spread and mutate; and there are some people who legitimately can't get vaccinated, who would normally depend on herd immunity for protection.
Sadly, I don't see many ways out of this mess, simply because Americans have lost trust, and any attempts to rebuild it will be destroyed by those who exploit mistrust and spread misinformation for their own benefit.
My guess is that there are a few factors at play here.
TLDR: Lack of trust in institutions + desire for dontrol + partisanship = people eating horse paste.
A lot of people have lost trust in institutions including the media, health care providers, pharmaceuticals, government health agencies... you name it. This opens the door for all sorts of conspiracy theories, snake oil sellers, and others who exploit the lack of trust.
Sadly, the actions of some of those institutions have either caused or exacerbated these problems. For example, pharmaceuticals are granted patents of up to 20 years on most medications, during which time they have a monopoly on the drug. Because the US doesn't have a single-payer system, pharmaceuticals can basically charge whatever they want during the patent term. Often that high price is just a starting point for negotiations with dozens of private insurers, but for the millions without insurance -- who have no negotiating power whatsoever -- they often get socked with the full cost. To make matters worse, many will make minor tweaks to medications towards the end of the patent term, which grants them a new patent. This doesn't prevent a generic version from being made, but the companies can leverage their massive ad budgets to convince patients and doctors to use the "new" drug.
Even well-meaning institutions can erode trust. E.g. no one really knew how to handle COVID-19 when it first hit; they didn't even know for sure how it spread. As a result, government agencies like the CDC had no choice but to alter recommendations. This confused a lot of people, who seem to think that modern medicine works like it does on Star Trek -- e.g. doctors can figure out everything there is to know, and devise a cure, for a deadly pathogen in 10 minutes.
Or: Doctors are experts, but even the best experts don't always have the answers. If you have a chronic condition, or a mental health issue such as depression, it can take months or years to find medications that work. And in a lot of cases, especially older people and/or people in areas without good access to health care, what's available doesn't work.
The second issue is that people feel like they don't have control, and that often makes people unhappy or distrustful or downright miserable. Even the illusion of control can give people some satisfaction and relief. As a result, they don't always like to be told by a doctor "you need to do X, Y and Z in exactly this way and at this time." Again, this exacerbates mistrust.
We've seen over and over how partisans often accuse the people they hate of doing the things that the partisans' "team" is actually doing. E.g. MAGA accuses Big Pharma of only caring about making profits (which is mostly true), and is thus allegedly "suppressing" cheaper cures (even though doctors routinely prescribe generics, and pharmaceuticals make generics), while it turns out that yep, lots of people are profiting off of selling Ivermectin. It's standard for partisans to ignore hypocrisy committed by "their team" or themselves, while being hyper-sensitive to any flaws or hypocrisies by the "rival team."
Unfortunately, the consequences of all this are not limited to those who consume this snake-oil. Refusing to vaccinate gives viruses more opportunities to spread and mutate; and there are some people who legitimately can't get vaccinated, who would normally depend on herd immunity for protection.
Sadly, I don't see many ways out of this mess, simply because Americans have lost trust, and any attempts to rebuild it will be destroyed by those who exploit mistrust and spread misinformation for their own benefit.
