Doctors are being barred from prescribing ivermectin to their COVID-19 patients, and the Food and Drug Administration has joined media in mocking users, but the antiviral drug is featured on the National Institutes of Health website as a treatment for COVID-19.
In fact, ivermectin is the second drug listed – under the highly touted, expensive COVID-19 drug with many side effects, remdesivir – on an NIH page titled “Antiviral Agents That Are Approved or Under Evaluation for the Treatment of COVID-19.”
Ivermectin has not been approved by the FDA as a COVID-19 treatment. But it is approved by the FDA for other treatments and has been successfully used off-label for COVID-19 patients. From 10% to 20% of all prescribed drugs are used off-label. Ivermectin has been shown to be effective in at least 65 controlled studies and 32 randomized controlled trials as a preventative and early- and late-stage treatment. Studies have demonstrated its ability to inhibit the replication of SARS-CoV-2 as well as its strong anti-inflammatory properties.
But doctors and pharmacists have disclosed that health-care management is barring them from prescribing ivermectin. And the drug recently was the target of a media and government disinformation campaign, dismissing it disingenuously as “horse dewormer.” The FDA’s official Twitter account posted a caption above a photo of a horse: “You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y’all. Stop it.”
NIH points out on its “antiviral agents” page that among the serious side effects seen in patients who take remdesivir are severe renal failure and liver damage. Ivermectin, on the other hand, is “generally well tolerated.”
However, remdesivir is currently the only drug with full FDA approval to treat COVID-19. Merck, the producer of ivermectin, applied earlier this month for emergency use authorization for a new COVID-19 treatment called molnupirivar. The federal government already has a $1.2 billion contract with Merck to buy molnupiravir at $700 per 10-pill course. Remdesivir costs $2,340 for a five-day course. Ivermectin can be purchased for about $50 for eight generic tablets.
The World Health Organization, in November 2020, recommended against the use of remdesivir in hospitalized COVID-19 patients.
The WHO said at the time that there was “no evidence that remdesivir improves survival and other outcomes in these patients.”
Prior to the FDA’s emergency use authorization of remdesivir to treat COVID-19, it was studied as a potential treatment for several diseases, including hepatitis. NIH invested as much as $6.5 billion in the drug between 2000 and 2019.
Ivermectin, whose inventors won a Nobel Prize, has a better safety record than several vitamins, with an average of only 160 adverse events reported every year. It has been safely administered several billion times around the world, virtually eradicating diseases such as river blindness in Africa.
The side effects observed, according to the NIH, include “dizziness”; “pruritis,” which is an irritating sensation that creates an urge to scratch; nausea and diarrhea. The NIH said unspecified “neurological” adverse effects have been seen in the treatment of parasitic disease, but it’s unclear if they are connected to the drug or to the underlying conditions.
Dr. Bryan Ardis recently drew attention to ivermectin’s status on the NIH website in an interview on the Canadian podcast “Live with Laura-Lynn.”
In September, more than 8,600 scientists and physicians from around the world signed a declaration condemning public policy makers of “crimes against humanity” for restricting life-saving treatments such as ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine while quashing debate and scientific inquiry.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Last year, America’s doctors, nurses and paramedics were celebrated as frontline heroes battling a fearsome new pandemic. Today, under Joe Biden, tens of thousands of these same heroes are denounced as rebels, conspiracy theorists, extremists and potential terrorists. Along with massive numbers of police, firemen, Border Patrol agents, Navy SEALs, pilots, air-traffic controllers, and countless other truly essential Americans, they’re all considered so dangerous as to merit termination, their professional and personal lives turned upside down due to their decision not to be injected with the experimental COVID vaccines. Biden’s tyrannical mandate threatens to cripple American society – from law enforcement to airlines to commercial supply chains to hospitals. It’s already happening. But the good news is that huge numbers of “yesterday’s heroes” are now fighting back – bravely and boldly. The whole epic showdown is laid out as never before in the sensational October issue of WND’s monthly Whistleblower magazine, titled “THE GREAT AMERICAN REBELLION: ‘We will not comply!’ COVID-19 power grab ignites bold new era of national defiance.”
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