In the wake of the FDA settling a lawsuit brought against it for wantonly and aggressively smearing ivermectin, the agency has deleted an array of its highly advertised internet postings. That’s good, but we shouldn’t forget how egregiously it mischaracterized the drug, ignored copious evidence in its favor, and portrayed its proponents as dangerous crackpots.
About 30 months ago, America’s FDA was publishing articles with headlines like this: “Should I take ivermectin to treat COVID?” Answer: No.
The agency also told Americans not to use ivermectin to prevent Covid.
Then, in what became known as its infamous “horse tweet,” the FDA even patronizingly told Americans: “Seriously, y’all. stop it.”
Prescribers who advocated for alternate treatments including ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine were mocked online by America’s “trusted journalists” as being part of a “right-wing conspiracy” and labeled “hucksters.” Those who didn’t demure to the Covid mRNA or other Covid Big Pharma treatment narratives were banned, fired, and spoken harshly about around the world and into the reaches of the stratosphere in what certainly seemed like coordinated messaging.
Many clinicians who believed otherwise lost their jobs–at best. They lost their reputations, practices, finances, shattering their hard-earned careers.
As if that was not bad enough, even after losing their jobs, state medical and pharmacy boards also parroting incorrect tropes, initiated legal proceedings against their licensure, singling out their “off-label” Covid treatments–despite other off-label treatments being a near-ubiquitous component of all pharmacy and medical practices.
Within days of FDA’s initial postings above, the American Pharmacist’s Association (APhA) the American Society of Health System Pharmacists (ASHP), and the American Medical Association (AMA) all collaborated to release a joint press release condemning physicians who prescribed ivermectin to treat Covid, but it appears that these organizations–instead of actually performing independent analysis of available data–simply blindly regurgitated FDA, CDC, NIH, plus other government and Big Pharma talking points “strongly opposing” ivermectin use.
For generations professionals depended on these “elite” medical groups. Some of them have existed for around 170 years and have anywhere from $150 million to $1.2 billion in assets, so they clearly had the history, expert staff, mission and wherewithal to objectively examine published data. Even beyond those, the AMA has several floors in a skyscraper in Chicago filled with experts. The APhA’s Constitution Avenue’s “landmark headquarters” is so luxuriant that it is advertised and utilized as a wedding venue.
Of course, that extravagance was paid for by millions of pharmacists, physicians, and benefactor members over centuries who expected these organizations to act as a legitimate checksum and ensure excellent clinical practice standards – not just blindly parrot the talking points of others.
These medical organizations were supposed to honor their histories, responsibilities, and medical ethics standards to better the human condition using clinical/ scientific evidence. Instead, they appeared to outrageously abandon their obligations from their lofty positions of respect, comfort, money, and power.
APhA, ASHP, and AMA Clinical Recommendations Both Were and Are Indefensible:
On March 22, the FDA agreed to remove their anti-ivermectin postings due to 1) a lawsuit filed against them and 2) the impossible task of having to defend themselves with an overwhelming amount of data disagreeing with not only dispensing medical recommendations, but the published data backing their Covid-19 use (e.g., see below).
With FDA webpages gone, the APhA, ASHP, and AMA assertions that were always thin, suddenly have no leg at all upon which to stand.
Several non-FDA links within their press releases have (unsurprisingly) also quietly vanished with no explanation. NIH references are slated to be shut down, on top of multiple FDA and CDC links already no longer working. (note the html addresses in the non-working links)
Historical Ivermectin Mechanism of Action and Evidence:
The broad antiviral mechanism of action of ivermectin is complicated and may partially involve blocking the uptake of viral proteins, but the bottom line is that it has been shown to yield positive results in a variety of published results for Covid-19.
Had APhA, ASHP, and AMA pharmacists (ie, #Medication Experts) and/or AMA physicians independently examined the data, (as I, just one drug-safety analyst have done without multi-million-dollar endowments, fancy headquarters) rather than simply regurgitation narratives of others, they would have learned that ivermectin works as an antiviral.
Ivermectin has an extensive track record of being not just safe – but astonishingly safe for a variety of viral diseases. Mind you; this is not breaking or fringe science; it has been written about for years. Ivermectin is such a safe and effective drug that back in 2015 it was the first drug for infectious disease associated with a Nobel Prize in 60 years.
While I have stacks of electronic files and printed materials, dog-eared and food/drink-stained, there is a most elegantly presented meta-analysis website designed by some brainy and web-savvy scientists detailing over 100 studies from over 1,000 different scientists, involving over 140,000 patients in 29 countries describing the benefit and safety of ivermectin for Covid-19 treatment.
In fact, it actually appears to be more extensive than Cochrane’s outdated review of ivermectin which only examined 14 trials – of which it mysteriously excluded seven from consideration.
According to these data, consisting of smaller international publications that include real-world findings and small observational studies, ivermectin shows a statistically significant lower Covid-19 risk as detailed in the graphic summary above.
All findings favor the use of Ivermectin, some more than others. The less-positive findings associated with late treatment/viral clearance/hospitalization data cohort were associated with delayed administration. Much like the late stage drug treatment of other conditions like cancer, any late-state use of antiviral pharmacology tends to be ineffective after hundreds of millions of viral replications have taken place. That’s the case for any viral infection,whether it’s cold sores, influenza, AIDS, or Covid-19.
Contradiction of Available Study Data and Clinical Practice Standards:
The ASHP, APhA and AMA did not review the available data and here is the proof. When the FDA scolded Americans not to use ivermectin for Covid-19on April 25, 2021, there existed 43 different published manuscripts showing its potential benefit.
Around three months later, on August 21, the FDA released its infamous horse/cow tweet which strongly implied that ivermectin was only for animals, not humans. The FDA’s August 21st “doubling down” occurred as an additional 20 studies had subsequently been written detailing additional benefits for Covid-19. See the timeline below:
Multiple APhA/ASHP/AMA statements within the press release ignored published scientific and clinical evidence. Specifically, statements declaring the: “Use of ivermectin for the prevention and treatment of COVID-19 has been demonstrated to be harmful to patients” (bold emphasis theirs) are objectively inaccurate. I do not know on what basis those statements were made.
Their additional recommendations to healthcare professionals to “…counsel patients against use of ivermectin as a treatment for COVID-19, including emphasizing the potentially toxic effects of this drug” represents a departure from pharmacist and physician practice standards.
The absurdity of the latter statement is quite outrageous. Pharmacists and physicians know that all drugs have “…potentially toxic effects” so if they applied the standard of “emphasizing potentially toxic effects” while discussing every prescribed medication, few (if any) patients would ever take their medications. The APhA/ASHP/AMA discriminatory hostility towards ivermectin was not only clinically unjustified and irresponsible; it was – as far as I know – without precedent.
These anti-ivermectin talking points also benefited new Big Pharma product advancement including the rebounding, overpriced taxpayer-funded boondoggle of Paxlovid and Remdesivir, such a “safe and effective” drug that hospitals had to be heavily incentivized (i.e., bribed) to entice nurses, physicians, and hospital administrators to promote its use as a “hospital protocol” via an unheard of 20% “bonus” on the entire hospital bill, funded by the taxpayers. That’s despite the fact that Remdesivir had already earned the sardonic, rhyming nickname of “run-death-is-near” by American Frontline Nurses and others, due to serious questions about its clinical benefit.
Why were federal agencies’ and professional organizations’ talking points against ivermectin not backed by independent, original APhA/ASHP/AMA data examinations? That question needs to be thoroughly probed with regard to potential regulatory capture and/or Big Pharma conflicts within the ranks.
Both then and now, those FDA webpages, postings, and tweets were not just biased and factually wrong. They were clinically irresponsible in their denigration of ivermectin as an off-label treatment
An important question to consider is is, who was worse? The FDA for overstepping its congressional authority in not just making medical recommendations, but making recommendations ignoring data, or the servile “independent” elite professional organizations exuberantly and blindly echoing a narrative? Was their motivation financial? Was it political?
Prescient or not, here is an excerpt of the expert panel congressional testimony to the Covid Select House Oversight Committee, explaining the FDA’s disparaging ivermectin versus promoting mRNA injections using an automobile analogy, delivered just one day prior to the FDA’s yielding to physicians’ lawsuit to remove its postings denigrating ivermectin:
Despite FDA Settlement and Data Abundance, the Press Remained Stuck on Anti-Ivermectin Narratives
Even after the FDA’s about-face, on March 26, 2024, a Los Angeles Times journalist published a column calling the removal of FDA tweets “groundless” unilaterally declaring ivermectin as “conclusively shown to be useless against COVID-19,” comparing ivermectin to “snake oil,” and describing those who advocate for it as “purveyors of useless but lucrative nostrums” …whatever the heck that means. (Regarding the ‘lucrative’ claim, it is worth noting that since ivermectin is generic and inexpensively available, and therefore not ‘lucrative’ to anyone.) It also referenced ivermectin lacking “scientific validation,” even though the above-cited data abundantly indicates otherwise.
Regarding the FDA’s choice to settle its lawsuit disparaging ivermectin, the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research leadership isn’t “shooting itself in the foot” as the LA Times proclaims. It seems that the FDA is indirectly attempting to prevent further embarrassment likely because it now realizes that its ivermectin assertions were wrong and outdated with every passing day. But where does that leave the APhA, ASHP, or AMA who heavily relied on these now deleted FDA links in their press releases?
An Embarrassing Silence From APhA, ASHP, AMA following the deletion of the FDA’s References Used in Their Press Release:
Over a month later, and as of this publication date, none of these organizations have a single thing to say about their press releases quoting the now-removed FDA articles and tweets. In fact, here is an indication of their level of concerns: one week after the FDA acquiesced to remove its postings in ivermectin, APhA’s newly elected speaker chair and pharmacist Mary Klein is “happy danc[ing]” and giving her official acceptance speech wearing Mickey Mouse ears.
ASHP’s (A/K/A self-labeled “#MedicationExperts”) still shows its official page with clinicians wearing ineffective, unnecessary surgical masks despite the pandemic having ended well over a year ago, plus Cochrane reviews indicating that this sort of masking is almost certainly ineffective.
AMA officials focused on making multiple posts on transgender issues and declaring climate change a public health crisis – all while fully ignoring its impactful, incorrect, inappropriate statements on ivermectin.
Take a look at these screengrabs (all from March 31st, 2024) from its respective websites:
In summary, the APhA, ASHP, and AMA have remained conspicuously silent on this topic while focusing their newsfeeds on everything but their failure to protect their patients. To this day, their press releases remain online, with multiple dead links to government agencies. In blindly backing incorrect narratives still pointing to removed web pages, they are now all alone in their ivermectin declarations.
Bottom line: ivermectin was, and is, safe and more than likely effective for Covid when timed and dosed correctly, and under medical supervision, despite what was declared by organizations and federal officials. In fact, ivermectin’s general antiviral activity might even be helpful for bird flu (avian influenza) in animals and humans, in lieu of another novel adverse-event-ridden “warp speed” mRNA “vaccine” with an endless boondoggle of boosters.
The past and current record on ivermectin needs to be set straight. We know there is an important (but untransparent) list of who is responsible for misrepresenting published data, but will anyone be held accountable?
DISCLAIMER: Do NOT discontinue or initiate taking ANY drug without first discussing it with a pharmacist or physician you know and trust.
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