Pharmacists are also doctors, and are legally permitted to decline prescriptions in a number of cases, including believing it'll cause harm to the patient. Chronic pain patients experience this fairly frequently with opiate-skeptical pharmacists, for example.
1) Did they believe that the medicine would harm the patient & why would they believe that? If there were any evidence it could, surely that would have been bought up loudly.
2) Is there a secret handshake or QR code we should be using to separate this new sort of "good doctor" whos prescriptions are good from these "bad but qualified doctors" whos prescriptions are bad? I have naively gone all these years believing that qualified doctors could prescribe treatments but it seems that there is some uncertainty on that point. How would you separate the two without relying on your own opinion?
3) If we are relying on our own opinion anyway and doctors can't agree, why is it the case that patients with the prescription can't make their own decisions based on their own risk tolerances?
4) Doesn't the prescribing doctor have a better understanding of the patients needs and situation than a pharmacist? The pharmacist isn't exactly doing an in-depth interview to make their decision, they stand at a counter and hand out drugs.
I'd put it to you that the behaviour of this hypothetical pharmacist refusing to fill a prescription ... is pretty poor. Verging on outrageous.
1) "The FDA and CDC are explicitly saying not to take this for COVID" is a fairly significant form of evidence.
2) Who said anything about picking good/bad doctors? The prescription and the patient are what's being evaluated. A good doctor can make mistakes; a bad doctor can write plenty of reasonable prescriptions worth filling.
3) Because we've tried that as a society. It's where the term "snake oil salesman" originated. We decided correctly that it was a sucky setup.
4) My pharmacist has caught a drug interaction my doctor didn't. They likely have a more accurate record of what I'm currently taking, as well. You seem to be mixing up pharmacists and pharmacy techs; perhaps a visit to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharmacist would be appropriate.
1. Well, ok, but that is a different argument. You said that a pharmacist could refuse a customer in cases such as when the medicine caused harm. Is there any evidence that this medicine caused harm? We all know a bunch of people said not to take it, that is not something anyone is going to argue about.
3. So why are pharmacists immune to being snake oil salesmen but perfectly qualified doctors giving out prescriptions can be snake oil salesman? Is there something wrong with the system that qualifies ordinary doctors?
4. Are you suggesting that the reason the pharmacists were overriding this prescription is because there is an interaction with Ivermectin? I feel pretty confident you'd come off the worse if we check, but I'll admit I haven't.
1. A pharmacist might justifiably believe giving a medication to someone when the FDA and CDC have explicitly said not to is a form of doing harm; that they've got good reason to make the recommendation. They, like medical doctors, are empowered to make judgement calls.
3. Strawman. I don't doubt that there are ivermectin-flogging pharmacists just like there are ivermectin-flogging doctors. Your question was "why is it the case that patients with the prescription can't make their own decisions based on their own risk tolerances?"
4. Your question was "Doesn't the prescribing doctor have a better understanding of the patients needs and situation than a pharmacist?" I answered that; they do not always, no; this fact is part of the reason they exist.
This goes a lot smoother if you follow the chain of the questions you asked through to my answers to them, rather than mixing up the context with a blender.
1. They certainly might, that is why I'm typing all these questionmarks. What is the justification for why it might cause harm?
Overruling a doctor's prescribed treatment is a pretty extreme action. Drawing a rough parallel to abortion, I can see how they might choose not to carry Ivermectin and call it a day. But if they are selectively not filling prescriptions for political reasons, that is outrageous. There is no evidence that Ivermectin will cause patients harm. If they then took horse paste, there is evidence that the pharmacists stubbornness is causing more harm. It is better for people to take drugs under the supervision of a doctor.
3. You've had 2 goes at answering the question and you are struggling to even take a credible guess at how the prescription might have caused harm. And we know a doctor might think it is a fine thing to prescribe speculatively. But I think you have more problems than just that - it looks a lot like you're comfortable with the idea that a pharmacist can overrule a doctor and a patient based on gut feel and no evidence. Literally no evidence, given your responses so far. Are you really comfortable with that crazy stance? You don't think it is reasonable that patients trust and follow their doctors advice?
4. So in this specific case, do you think that the pharmacist suspected an interaction? Because I feel pretty confident you'd come off the worse if we check, but I'll admit I still haven't. The filling of Ivermectin scripts somehow became a political rather than a medical issue and this pharmacist is probably acting politically.
Placebo effect is very real and the alternative for early COVID treatment is literally nothing. Ivermectin isnt quite as harmless as sugarpills, but its really close.
Ivermectin is off patent and extremely cheap, there is zero problem producing enough. And if i want to waste a few cents on a few tablets, thats my prerogative.
The risk is also far below aspirin. As to what you consider an acceptable placebo, why should anyone care? As long as we are all consenting adults, i would say mind your own business, would you?
Knowing that the more you try bossing people around, the more likely they are going to push back. Leaving us all in a non to friendly environment. So ask yourself, are you really willing to start societal conflict over denying people a non-harmful, not scares placebo?
we require prescriptions for drugs for a reason. medicine should be evidence based. I am also upset that pharmacies sell homeopathic remedies. people selling snake oil hurt society and should be forced out.
further there were supply problems with ivermectin when only a small portion of the population was trying to take it. a clinical trial on ivermectin was halted due to supply issues. imagine if it were recommended broadly.
The supply issues in the UK were nonsense. It was available in the market. Producing more would also not have been a problem.
You also skipped over the the part of your opinion being not reason enough to start societal conflict. I do sympathies with your views, however any such behavior comes with a cost. And looking around we cant really afford more conflict over trivial things. Your feelings might not be important enough to add to the problem with no clear harm at stake.
Sorry, you're saying that every one (or at least the majority) of those people who tried to buy the livestock version had valid prescriptions and it was only the pharmacists standing in the way of the legitimate medical use?
It became well known that getting it in a legitimate way wasn't possible, so those who were determined to get it, didn't even bother trying. If it was well known that you could get it by seeing your doctor, people would have gone that route, since it is much safer to take proper human dosage under supervision of a medical professional.
> since it is much safer to take proper human dosage under supervision of a medical professional
Well now I'm getting conflicting messages about its safety, compared to the user I originally responded to:
> It has virtually no negative side-effects, over 40 years of safety track record, and is safely taken prophylactically for other uses around the world. Its efficacy has yet to be proven and there are conflicting studies on this, but its safety is not disputable.
But regardless we come back to my original point - should it be handed out like candy just because they asked for it? Especially when its efficacy was questionable?
Quit it with the straw man BS. You can overdose on any substance. Taking a medication is always going to be safer under supervision.
My issue is that the use of IVM got politicized and as a result the will of many doctors and patients was undermined. A large number of the people who took it illicitly did it so because pharmacies stopped filling valid prescriptions.
If you want to talk about safety: The same crowd bitching about IVM happened to be the people pushing a vaccine with much less data supporting its safety and questionable efficacy on people under 50.
Their logic:
- Mandate a new drug, using a new technology on the entire world, even though there were no real Phase III trials.
- Don’t look into prophylactic treatment options which are cheaper and known to be safe.
- Call anyone who studies anything else a conspiracy theorist and a quack
- Actively suppress peer reviewed articles that don’t follow the narrative. (Including refusing to publish or unpublishing work in major journals)
I was just pointing out the inconsistencies in the argument - especially when people were clearly ready and willing to take it without guidance or supervision because they had come to believe it as some sort of COVID panacea.
To be clear, IVM was just another politicization. It was a rush decision to reject the obvious mainstream option and an attempt to find alternative treatments so that people could take a medicine with known side effects and unknown efficacy over one with known efficacy and unknown side effects, all seemingly because it felt better to be counterculture and was an act of defiance against "big {your adjective of hate here}".
After billions or doses and ever more research it's pretty obvious which side made the right call.