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By Teagan Rasche

Poison & Drug Information Service getting a lot more calls about ivermectin

Oct 13, 2021 | 4:55 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB – Alberta Health Services issued a public letter Tuesday warning about what it called an epidemic of misinformation regarding ivermectin.

AHS wants people to know it is not an effective treatment for the virus.

Dr. Mark Yerema, medical director of Poison & Drug Information Service, says in the last five and a half years, they have received 57 calls on Ivermectin.

But 22 of those calls are from 2021 and 13 are from this month alone.

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The calls are coming from all over the province, including here in the South Zone.

Yerema says the calls are primarily from people taking it as a treatment for COVID-19. He adds the symptoms people call to report are consistent with taking too much of both the human and livestock versions.

“What we’re hearing about and what we’re concerned about is people taking the livestock or large animal forms of ivermectin, that first of all have very, very high concentrations and may have other pharmaceutical additives in them that aren’t studied in humans and secondly we have people who are overdosing on therapeutic doses,” Yerema said.

Yerema also assures the public that the vaccine is no longer experimental, but ivermectin is.