‘Seriously, y’all. Stop it’: FDA, Dobbs warn against using animal drugs to treat COVID – National & International News – MON 23Aug2021

**Breaking** FDA grants full approval to Pfizer vaccine.

Dobbs, FDA warn against taking animal parasite drug for COVID. 22 dead, many missing in TN floods. Taliban opponent threatens civil war.

NATIONAL NEWS

**Breaking** FDA grants full approval to Pfizer COVID vaccine

Pfizer’s COVID vaccine has received full FDA approval. The vaccine was previously approved for emergency use. Experts hope that full approval will encourage more hesitant people to get the vaccine. You are also likely to see more public and private institutions issue vaccine mandates now that the vaccine has full FDA approval.

Click here for the full story (opens in new tab).

Dobbs, FDA warn against taking animal parasite drug for COVID

Last Friday, Dr. Thomas Dobbs, exhibiting a gift for understatement, told Mississippians, “I certainly would strongly recommend people not take any medicine from a feed store or a veterinary source. It can be dangerous”.

That medicine would be Ivermectin, an anti-parasite drug most often prescribed for large animals. Last week saw an uptick in calls to the state poison control hotline. 70% of those calls were from people who had taken high doses of Ivermectin, believing that it was either a treatment or preventative for COVID-19. Claims of this kind have been circulating in various COVID conspiracy circles, citing no medical evidence.

Fortunately, 85% of the poison-control callers had mild symptoms, and none required hospitalization. According to the FDA, people who overdose on Ivermectin can experience nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, low blood pressure, allergic reactions, dizziness, seizures, coma and even death.

“You are not a horse. You are not a cow.”

The FDA has approved Ivermectin (for humans) to treat things like intestinal parasites, and in topical form for head lice and rosacea. But those doses are human-sized, not cow- or horse-sized. And, while the FDA says some “initial research” is underway, there is to date no conclusive evidence that Ivermectin is effective in either treating or preventing COVID.

Dobbs continued, “You wouldn’t get your medical treatment, you wouldn’t get your chemotherapy at a feed store. I mean, you wouldn’t treat your pneumonia with your animal’s medication. It can be dangerous to get the wrong doses of medication, especially for something that’s meant for a horse or a cow”.

On Saturday, the FDA tweeted this advice to any Americans considering treating their COVID with Ivermectin. “You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y’all. Stop it”. In addition to the dosing mismatch, the FDA pointed out that some of the inactive ingredients in Ivermectin for animal consumption are not approved for inclusion in human medicines. “In some cases, we don’t know how those inactive ingredients will affect how Ivermectin is absorbed in the human body” the agency said.

Fines, prison for MS COVID patients who break isolation

Also on Friday, Dobbs issued an “isolation order” that states, “All persons residing in Mississippi must immediately home-isolate on first knowledge of infection with COVID-19”. The order requires any Mississippian who tests positive for COVID to self-isolate for 10 days afterward. Anyone who fails to do so is subject to fines or even imprisonment.

Refusing to obey a health officer comes with a $500 fine and the possibility of six months behind bars.

Click here for the full story (opens in new tab).

22 dead, dozens missing after 17″ of rain in Tennessee

Parts of middle Tennessee received record-breaking amounts of rain on Saturday, triggering devastating flash floods. The worst-hit community is Waverly, TN. In 2010, Waverly had a population of 4,105.

The floods wrought havoc throughout the area, inundating homes, heaving boats up onto the land, and submerging vehicles. At least 22 people have died, several of them small children. These include twin toddlers swept from their father’s arms in the sudden torrent.

Rescue and recovery efforts continue and reports say dozens of people are still missing. One report from Sunday put the number of missing as high as 50. The deluge also took out roads, cellphone towers and telephone lines, complicating the search for the missing.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee visited Waverly on Sunday, describing a “devastating picture of loss and heartache”. The violence of the storm was evident in the homes and businesses swept off foundations and a tangled mess of debris covering the area. 

President Biden expressed his “deepest condolences for the sudden and tragic loss of life through this flash flood”. He also said that FEMA stands ready to “offer any assistance they need for this terrible moment”.

Click here for the full story (opens in new tab).

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

Afghan opposition leader threatens ‘civil war’ with Taliban

Afghan opposition leader Ahmad Massoud is the son of 1990s Taliban opponent Ahmad Shah Massoud. The Taliban assassinated the elder Massoud two days before 9/11. In a recent letter to the Washington Post, Massoud the Younger, 32, wrote that he is “ready to follow in my father’s footsteps, with Mujahideen fighters who are prepared to once again take on the Taliban”.

Massoud leads the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan, currently based in the Panjshir valley, north of Kabul. There he has amassed thousands of resistance fighters. The group says that war with the Taliban will be ‘unavoidable’ if the Taliban refuses to hold talks.

With Massoud is former Afghan Vice President Amrullah Saleh, who fought alongside Massoud the Elder in the 1990s. Saleh has declared himself acting president of Afghanistan, after President Ashraf Ghani fled the country, reportedly carrying $169 million in cash.

Over the weekend, Massoud called on the United States to arm and support his group. The NRFA would likely need all the help they could get, since the Taliban seized state-of-the-art weapons we had given the fleeing Afghan security forces during their conquest of the country.

On Sunday, the Taliban said it was sending hundreds of its fighters to Panjshir “to control it, after local state officials refused to hand it over peacefully”.

Click here for the full story (opens in new tab).

Here’s some more info on Massoud and Saleh.