One thing that deeply offends me is when members of the officialdom lie, even when it is the artful sort of lying that is narrowly true. The case study today is the FDA (and joined at the CDC) position on Ivermectin as a Covid treatment and possibly prophylactic.1 As readers may recall, official opposition was ferocious, to the degree that we had to curtail discussion in comments due to concerns about becoming the target of an effort to discredit the site generally. See this page on the FDA site:
As you can see below, the FDA is trying to act as if it never opposed the use of the anti-fungal drug Ivermectin for Covid by now saying doctors could prescribe it for so-called off label use, as they can any other approved medication. For instance, most of the prescriptions for Botox are for off label uses.
IM Doc blasted this claim in an e-mail we are hoisting as a post below. Not only were doctors risking their licenses if they recommended Ivermectin, but one reader reported he asked about Ivermectin at his local pharmacy, to see if he could get it quickly if he could get a doctor to prescribe it. He was told the pharmacy would refuse to fill an Rx of Ivermectin for Covid.2
The tweet below seems to confirm that reader’s claim, that pharmacies were actually refusing to fill Ivermectin scrips:
Straight from the horse’s mouth. Now time for @US_FDA to issue a statement so my patients can get their prescriptions filled at @cvspharmacy and @Walgreens.https://t.co/r5khovfAfe
— Mary Talley Bowden MD (@MdBreathe) August 11, 2023
I am first posting an e-mail from KLG with key facts about Ivermectin (including pointing out, contra skeptics’ claims, that there is a mechanism by which Ivermectin could blunt Covid cases):
My comment on Ivermectin:
- The drug was discovered/developed by William Campbell and Satoshi Ōmura as an antiparasitic drug.
- They won the Nobel Prize in 2015 for the discovery.
- The data that show IVM interferes with viral RNA replication are solid even if they have been ignored; the argument that IVM is not bioavailable at high enough concentrations to work in humans is reasonable but not necessarily correct. What happens in the animal is not always what happens in animal cells in a tissue culture dish. If IVM does have this activity, that will explain why it works best when used very early in the course of a COVID infection.
- IVM is exceedingly safe at high doses in humans. This has been known for a long time.
- Yes, “horse paste” (Thanks, Rachel!) for de-worming horses and other livestock is just that, sold at Tractor Supply and other similar businesses; you can also buy animal-grade antibiotics without a prescription at these supply houses AFAIK.
- Pharmaceutical grade IVM is not “horse paste,” but it is cheap at a few cents per dose. Therefore, the profits to be made on IVM are small.
- IVM will not harm those who take it at high doses and may work, so why not?
- The repurposing of drugs has a long tradition in medicine. Thalidomide is now a treatment of choice for lymphoma IIRC.
- That the exact mechanism for any drug is unknown is a nonsensical argument argument against its use. The mechanism of aspirin as a cyclooxygenase suicide inhibitor was identified fairly recently (1970s) compared how long aspirin has been used as a pain reliever. Bayer patented aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid, acetylsalicylate with dissolved in water) at the end of the 19th century. The legend that willow bark tea (which is loaded with salicylates) was used by the ancients as an analgesic might be only that, however.
I wonder if we have any vets or animal breeders in the house. The “animal-grade” I suspect is not accurate. The FDA points out that pharmaceutical grade is pharmaceutical grade, whether for veterinary or human use; I have specifically had doctors say that veterinary grade injectable hyaluronic acid was the same as human injectable hyaluronic acid and more generally that veterinary grade was pharmaceutical grade (injectable hyaluronic acid was commonly used in sports circles for injuries until Big Pharma cracked down and made it pretty much impossible for mere mortals to buy it online). So if the “horse paste” was veterinary grade, the Ivermectin would have been of the same standard as Ivermectin sold for human use. The issues with the veterinary product would be the other ingredients to make it palatable for animals (as in some human digestive tracts might not like them) and dosing (particularly since many Americans are bad at math)..
Now to IM Doc:
The reputation of both my profession of medicine and medical science in general is in complete tatters.
I am a medical doctor. I have trained students to be a medical doctor for decades. I am very familiar with what all has happened in my own lifetime and I have studied relentlessly what has happened in previous eras.
At some point, the fundamental issue is that medicine is itself a science – but it is also an art. The art mainly has to do with dealing with the most complex creature on Earth – the human brain and the human soul. Our forebears recognized long ago that as a PHYSICIAN – you cannot deal with one and not the other. It is simply impossible.
Part of that is laying down a groundwork of basic rules that must be followed. Rules that have stood the test of time to help patients where they are, with what is going on in their lives and bodies, and to be able to deal with them as human beings, no matter what their personality type or mental issues are. No matter where their soul is at any given time. It is not easy and it takes years to get used to – but it is the only way. There are fundamental precepts that must be followed on every single encounter. You must include the patient and their family in every decision. You must be honest and truthful with them in every way. You must realize that everything we do has a possible benefit and a possible risk and you must include them in your decision making and make sure they understand all of this all of the time. Medicine is about the individual and what is best for them. Public health has exactly the same precepts, but the organism is the entire population – not just one person.
We have failed in almost every aspect in the past 3 years.
There have been two issues this week, this Ivermectin thing is one of them, that have demonstrated to me the complete moral failure of our entire apparatus. I have completely lost faith in the whole system. My faith is gone and will never return.
You simply cannot with a straight face get up in front of the country that has seen what has happened the past 3 years and announce that doctors were always allowed to prescribe Ivermectin. That we did nothing to impede this. What a total crock.
We have multiple MDs across the country to this day still dealing with board issues and hospital privileging issues because of this.
The other knee slapper going around this week is “we never forced anyone to take this vaccine.” First of all, that commentary, it seems to me, would not be a defense posture emanating from a safe vaccine. It seems to me that you would not have to be verbalizing that if everything was A-OK.
But more importantly, I have had to deal with the human tragedies the mandates have caused over the past few years. Not the least of which is the continuing dumpster fire that our hospitals and clinics have become from sea to shining sea after the mass resignations they caused. But I have looked too many young fathers in the eye in my exam room to let this lie slide. As Klemperer said about European Jewry – I WILL BEAR WITNESS. They can lie all they want, the truth will out – and it will very soon be very obvious to every American what has happened.
We are currently experiencing yet another wave of COVID where I am. A previous one went through about a month or so ago. It is the exact same story – I have heard not a word from any unvaccinated patients. The ones seeming to be infected and calling for illness are the multiply vaxxed and boosted. The only ones getting admitted, as rare as it is, are the multiply vaxxed. I have had a feeling for a long time that this is selection bias as they are more likely to be baseline ill.
I continue to have the very wealthy and the very connected demanding IVM for themselves when sick. And I continue to see the same results – mostly they seem to get better much quicker.
And back to the comment above – the risk of this med is ZERO. It seems to have some benefit. I explain this graphically every time I give it to someone. They are often using all kinds of other supplements as well. Their family members who take Paxlovid seem to take longer to get better. I have been doing this for 30 years – I am able to make patterns in my practice like this and act accordingly. I will assure you, I am not a lunatic. I am doing my best to help the people in my care.
The past few months I have had multiple med students from coastal elite universities here. True believers in the “safe and effective” mantra, and the “IVM is horsepaste” mantra.
But now they are out in flyover in the real country, uncloistered from all the Pharma reps and shills back home in Big Med. Twice now, they have been in rooms with me with parents and young male patients with disabling myocarditis. Stunned that this was “like a real issue, man”. I have implored them every month to keep their eyes out for any unvaxxed COVID positive patient. At the end of the month, they are mystified that they are not to be found. But most importantly, they are the ones who follow up with phone calls on all the COVID patients – and can clearly see that the few who are on the horse paste do seem to be getting better much more solidly than others.
I would love to have trials for this drug and COVID. Real trials that were unbiased and helpful. No such trials exist – other than multiple positive ones from all over the world that our authorities have dismissed. The TOGETHER trial that was heralded as the nail in the coffin was horrendously done. It did not really answer any of the questions. Most importantly, they have refused to release the raw data. That is a bright burning red flag. But the nuclear red flag is the sponsorship of the study by FTX and SBF. What the hell is a corrupt political money laundering unit doing sponsoring a trial of this import?
The critics argue – YOU DO NOT HAVE A MECHANISM – HOW DOES THIS EVEN WORK – WHAT A JOKE. HOW CAN A WORM PILL WORK OF A VIRUS? Excuse me, how is this any different than countless other drugs in my lifetime – and why is Ivermectin being singled out for ridicule in this way?
Just this week – trumpeted by our MSM for days – was the somewhat flimsy study showing the “blockbuster” effects that ozempic like drugs may have on CAD. Why are the media not demanding an exact mechanism like they did for ivermectin? Why are they not ridiculing the fact that a DM med is being used for heart disease? Why indeed?
The most damaging aspect of Ivermectin though is the ridicule and derision directed at those families who wanted it used at the end of life. After 30 years of dealing with these families, you realize how important it is for a majority of people that everything possible be done for their loved ones. And done by a trusted physician explaining everything. There are so many times in medicine that we do ALL KINDS of things at the end of life that we know are completely futile – but we are mainly treating the family members. In my entire life, this has been accepted as treating the family and their ongoing mental health more than the patient.
And here we have had all these families all over the country wanting this completely safe intervention given as a last resort. And met with derision and ridicule and even the health system getting the authorities involved. Shame on us all………how much better would it have been to sit the family down in a conference room – “Guys, we have no evidence this Ivermectin will work… none at all….but we will give it to Grandma just to see what happens…..it is a completely safe drug and who knows – it may help – it is the least we can do.” But no – we shat all over years of lived experience and threw rationality out the window. We made literal enemies of so many across this country – I hear from them a lot – their families and their church families, etc.
I am not sure the profession will survive intact from what is about to happen. This kind of stuff from the FDA this week is like pouring salt on wounds. They just cannot help themselves.
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1 My NYC MD was willing to write one scrip before the anti-Ivermectin campaign really got rolling, in the spirit, “It has a great safety profile, can’t hurt, so why not?” But I didn’t bother asking a second time.
I am not going to litigate the issue of efficacy here. Generally speaking, the studies on Ivermectin have been seriously underpowered due to there being no money to test for uses of old, cheap, off patent drugs. The studies that found no results for active Covid cases were criticized by Ivermectin fans for administering the drug late compared to when it had been found to be beneficial (shortly after symptom onset, while the studies were typically at least a day after a case had been confirmed by PCR test, which for most patients would be at the very fastest 48 hours after symptom onset…..You have to feel bad, then rouse yourself to get a PCR test, then get results).
2 US pharmacy-knowledgable readers are encouraged to pipe up. When I get prescriptions filled, the scrip does not show the diagnosis, so I do not see how in the normal course of events a pharmacy could determine the intended use for a medication. But I am not in a pharmacy plan. Is the diagnosis shared in those cases? In other words, this pharmacist may have been way out over his skis in trying to prevent Ivermectin use.
