#drug-repurposing

#drug-repurposing

When President Donald Trump's administration announced it would repurpose an old, generic drug as a new treatment for autism, it came as a surprise to many experts including the physician who suggested the idea to the nation's top health officials. Dr. Richard Frye told The Associated Press that he'd been talking with federal regulators about developing his own customized version of the drug for children with autism, assuming more research would be required. RELATED: California health officials say Trump's claims linking Tylenol and autism are false and harmful So we were kinda surprised that they were just approving it right out of the gate without more studies or anything, said Frye, an Arizona-based child neurologist who has a book and online education business focused on the experimental treatment.

While this drug is best known as a horse de-wormer, it is also used to treat humans for a variety of conditions and many medications are used to treat conditions they were not originally intended to treat. Viagra is a famous example of this. As such, the idea of re-purposing a medication is not itself foolish. But there are obvious problems with taking ivermectin to treat COVID.