That might be of interest, only if ivermectin were actually an effective method of treatment for Covid-19. It ain't.
I think we're talking past each other.
I'd agree that there doesn't seem to be much incentive to continue studying ivermectin as a treatment for COVID at this point.
There has been a narrative that the alleged lack of money in ivermectin (or, more money in other drugs) is the reason it was not being used. Here's an example:
>>>For people inclined to be suspicious of government scientists and federal policies on issues such as mask-wearing, ivermectin filled the place of the failed hydroxychloroquine as an alternative to the official federal guidance on how to prevent and treat COVID-19.
"It fits into the bigger narrative about the so-called 'medical deep state' [in which] scientists, pharmaceutical and political elites have an interest in making people use more expensive, experimental drugs" to increase the profits of the pharmaceutical industry, Yang says. "And they have an interest in not showing the public the cheap, widely available drugs that can supposedly cure COVID-19." (
Ingraham has labeled Dr. Anthony Fauci as part of the "medical deep state.")<<<
Scientists are still studying whether the deworming medicine could have any effect on COVID-19. But the frenzy over the drug has far more to do with politics than science. Here's how that happened.
www.npr.org
I realize you are not promoting a medical deep state conspiracy theory. Nevertheless, for someone who is inclined to believe such things, I would point out that there are financial incentives to investigate new treatments using old drugs.
In fact, one of the doctors (Thomas Borody) who has been promoting ivermectin filed a patent application for a method of treating COVID:
Exclusive: Australian professor Thomas Borody’s failure to widely declare that he could potentially profit from treatment he is promoting raises ethical concerns
www.theguardian.com
The notion that those pedaling ivermectin are acting for purely altruistic reasons (in contrast to the greedy/evil drug companies) strikes me as being naive (For clarity, this is just a general comment, I'm not saying you are pushing this narrative).
In the for what it's worth department, I conducted a brief search to see what the status of Borody's patent application is. He may have filed more than one, but the one I located is US Patent Publication No. 20210330663 (if anyone is interested in looking at it, one easy way to get a .pdf copy is to go to
www.pat2pdf.org and enter 20210330663).
All documents in pending U.S. applications that have been published can be accessed at:
https://portal.uspto.gov/pair/PublicPair
Briefly, his patent application was rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112 1st paragraph in an Office Action dated 12/20/21 for 1) failure to show possession of the invention (i.e. failure to adequately describe the specific combination of elements claimed), and 2) for failure to meet the enablement requirement (i.e. failure to show that the specific features that are claimed actually work). I'm not sure if he will be able to overcome these rejections, but it looks like an uphill battle. Even if these rejections are overcome, the application could still be rejected as unpatentable over the prior art (the first Office Action did not include any prior art rejections).
That got quite far off topic, but I thought people might be interested in seeing what is actually happening in this patent application.