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Mulling a theory that the reason stuff like the horse dewormer nonsense takes hold so readily is that it *feels* like a particular kind of folk remedy scenario in which doctors are mistrusted quacks, whereas The Folk know of a cure that is local, humble and non-obvious
example of this scenario: you are a villager in the 15th Century or thereabouts and you have a headache. The 'doctor' recommends bloodletting or trepanning or something equally scary but your grandmother says her grandmother would boil up willow bark & drink the infusion
Now this scenario is the kind of thing that is popularly believed about folk remedies: the cure is often local, humble, and non-obvious as opposed to that highfalutin' medical talk which nobody can understand anyway and which is probably just the latest fad in doctor circles
And in this scenario, this *narrative*, the folk medicine inevitably turns out to have been right all along by dint of some component that we are only now clever enough to understand, e.g. salicin in willow bark
The result being that some people are naturally predisposed to think that a) anything which LOOKS like this kind of folk remedy is bound to be effective because that's how the story goes, and b) there must surely BE such a folk remedy for any ailment you care to name
The narrative is always that the local, humble, non-obvious folk remedy gets proven to be effective all along. And the problem with that narrative is that it is just that - a narrative.
For every folk remedy that turns out to have something to it, there are *thousands* that are just batshit (an uncomfortably literal descriptor). Burnt dog skull ash for cancer, anyone? Pills of compressed spiderweb? Swallowing a live spider to treat whooping cough?
I mean, indeed I find it hard to think of medication more "humble" than animal dewormer
I've just realised that UK TV doesn't seem to have adverts for treating lungworm in cattle like Irish telly did when I lived there.
Reminds me of Kingsfoil in LoTR. "see, the learned men in the big city only use it to treat worms in horses, but Grandma Jones cured her piles with it in no time."
The studies showing Ivermectin works were done in Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Turkey and Bangladesh. Not countries usually associated with folk medicine. They’re trying Ivermectin because they have it, and it probably helps because de-worming patients makes it easier to fight Covid.
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