Some conservatives are eating horse dewormer to treat COVID-19 and it's 'got out of hand fast': reporter

Why have some anti-vaccine conservatives decided to start taking horse deworming medicine to treat COVID-19?

NBC News' Ben Collins has written a lengthy Twitter thread outlining how many anti-vax conspiracy theorists have become convinced that ivermectin is the best way to treat COVID-19, and it's filled with head-spinning turns of illogic.

"First off, they really are eating horse dewormer," writes Collins, who spends much of his days monitoring conspiracy theory forums. "It tastes terrible. Some mix it into jam to eat it on toast."

Collins traces some of this phenomenon to America's Frontline Doctors, a fringe medical advocacy group that last year promoted hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19.

"Antivaxx groups on Facebook and Reddit wanted ivermectin," Collins explains. "Doctors wouldn't prescribe it. Members did whack-a-mole with telehealth providers, trying to get doctors to sign off on scripts. But one reliably obliged: SpeakWithAnMD, who partners with… America's Frontline Doctors."

Once this group started offering up ivermectin, Collins writes, the situation "got out of hand fast."

"SpeakWithAnMD now hits you with a prompt warning of long wait times due to 'overwhelming demand,'" he writes. "Antivaxxers were worried about family members dying of COVID, and they were told ivermectin cured it. They were getting really impatient. Antivaxxers started imploring each other to go to pet stores, claiming the horse and people Ivermectin are the same. They started sharing tips on how to eat the gel kind. They started hoarding it."

Read the whole thread here.