> Ivermectin is an antiparasitic medication used to treat various types of worms and similar diseases. It’s pretty safe, widely in use across the world, and in most ways a useful medication to have on hand if you think you’ve been exposed to contaminated human feces, or if you just need to disinfect your sheep.

Ivermectin is an antiparasitic, but it also has well-known antiviral properties too [1] [2] against Dengue Fever & Yellow Fever, to name two.

The fact that Ivermectin is in Standard of Care for several viral diseases, and he is describing it as an anti-parasitic purely, is indicative of something sordid. Either he is ignorant of the literature (unlikely, it is common knowledge and he claims to be an Epidemiologist), he is pushing a narrative (high potential), he doesn't believe the copious amounts of literature on the use of ivermectin as an anti-viral (again, unlikely), he is minimizing mentioning it for editorial reasons (not a chance, he writes long.....), he misread several viral diseases as actually being worm parasite based (not probable), or he is intentionally misinforming his readers.

This is all regardless of a position about whether or not it is an effective antiviral in the case of this specific virus, or should we say, series of variants.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3327999/

[2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22535622/

But the larger problem has been the the non-scientific audience running with with things to support their political narrative. If someone from the right infosphere were to promote skinned habanero inserted rectally as a potential prophylactic therapy there would be lawsuits demanding that treatment for people's family members and a furious debate on twitter as to whether habanero or ghost peppers should be used.

Bad science has always been around, you learn how to spot them in grad school. It just now the larger population is learning that bad papers exist.