This is Brian Lair's Daily Politics podcast from WNYC Studios.

It's Thursday, September 16th.

All this week, Brian has been tackling various COVID-19 and vaccine myths, from the false fear that vaccines are harmful to pregnant women,

to the idea that the vaccine itself can give you COVID-19. Well, today we wanted to tackle the topic

of ivermectrin and other therapies being promoted as alternatives to vaccination. More than a year

and a half into the pandemic, various drugs have had their moments

in the anti-vax circles, and ivermectin is not particular different than, say, hydroxychloroquine,

but its popularity comes at a particularly high-stakes time when parts of the country are experiencing

yet another COVID wave, and the president has made

it a national priority to get vaccination numbers up. So what does the science actually say about

this anti-parasitic drug, and how did it get so popular? With me now to talk about both of these

questions are Dr. Imesh- Adulja, infectious disease doctor and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security, and Tara Haley, science journalist who covers vaccine hesitancy and the anti-vaccine movement, and the author of the book for young readers

vaccination investigation the science and history of vaccines dr adolja well

and Tara welcome to WNYC hi thank you thanks for having me Ivermectin has been flippantly described as just a drug for deworming horses,

which it is, but that's not a fair or complete description. There are formulations of it that are

meant for humans, and it's used on humans to treat parasites. Aside from this new kind of notorious

life as an unproven COVID therapy,

what is ivermectin used for inhumans, doctor?

Ivermectin is a very important antiparacetic drug. We use it for certain types of worm infections.

We use it for scabies. And it's something that's on the WHO essential

medications list. It's something that's discovery, the discovery of which led to a Nobel Prize.

So it is a real drug. It's just that it does not have strong efficacy against COVID-19,

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