Years After Smug Anti-Ivermectin Post, FDA Admits in Court That Doctors Should Be Allowed

After years of denigrating ivermectin as dangerous and as “horse medicine,” the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has been forced to retreat on its all-out attack on the medicine after three doctors sued the agency in federal court for impeding their right as medical providers to prescribe the medicine to their patients.

The FDA made a key admission in court during an Tuesday proceeding in which lawyers for the doctors asked the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals whether doctors have a right to prescribe ivermectin since the FDA approved the drug for use in humans way back in 1986.

So, what was the FDA’s shocking admission?

“FDA explicitly recognizes that doctors do have the authority to prescribe ivermectin to treat COVID,” Ashley Cheung Honold, a Department of Justice lawyer representing the FDA, said on Tuesday during the oral arguments in the case, the Epoch Times reported.

This seems to be a major retreat from the agency’s former antagonism toward the drug and the right of doctors to prescribe it.

Readers may recall that once the pandemic was in full swing, some doctors began reporting anecdotal evidence that ivermectin seemed to help some patients avoid or ease the symptoms of the coronavirus. But almost immediately, the FDA jumped into high gear to destroy the reputation of the drug and to persuade doctors to avoid prescribing it, discouraging pharmacies from selling it even with a doctor’s prescription.

In fact, the FDA was so adamant to stop people from considering the drug that it launched a cynical effort to label it “horse medicine” and, therefore, unfit for use in humans.

In reality, not only has ivermectin long been used in humans to treat several common infections, diseases, and ailments, but long before the pandemic began, its positive impact on the third world was so profound that the scientists who developed it won a Nobel Prize for the drug in 2015.

“Diseases caused by parasites have plagued humankind for millennia and constitute a major global health problem,” the Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet wrote in 2015. “In particular, parasitic diseases affect the world’s poorest populations and represent a huge barrier to improving human health and well-being.”

So, the fact is, ivermectin has been used in humans for decades. Yes, the same style drug is also used in veterinary medicine, but it is not exclusively for animals, despite the FDA’s attempt to paint it as such.

Certainly, that laudatory history did not stop the FDA from its illicit campaign to cajole Americans into thinking that ivermectin is only for horses and cows.

The FDA even took to Twitter in August 2021 to blast the drug, writing, “You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y’all. Stop it.”

You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y’all. Stop it. https://t.co/TWb75xYEY4

— U.S. FDA (@US_FDA) August 21, 2021

It was that post that doctors said amounts to illegal government interference in their right to prescribe ivermectin for their patients — especially since the FDA itself had years ago approved the drug for use in humans here in the U.S.A.

This case was originally dismissed by a Trump-appointed judge in 2022, but the doctors appealed to the Fifth Circuit, and that case was heard last week.

“The fundamental issue in this case is straightforward. After the FDA approves the human drug for sale, does it then have the authority to interfere with how that drug is used within the doctor-patient relationship? The answer is no,” Jared Kelson, who is representing the doctors, told the appeals court, according to Courthouse News.

The doctors added that when the FDA told people to “stop it,” that amounted to a demand from a government health agency to stop prescribing, using, and selling ivermectin. And in many cases, that is exactly how doctors, hospitals and pharmacies took it — as a command to ban the drug issued by a government agency.

The agency also posted a long, involved warning to its website with an article entitled, “Why You Should Not Use Ivermectin to Treat or Prevent COVID-19.”

The FDA, though, claimed that with its offhanded tweet they were just trying to issue a “quippy tweet meant to share its informational article” and the “stop it” command was just a fun way to relay their concerns about the drug, the Epoch Times reported.

The tweet and its other statements “don’t prohibit doctors from prescribing ivermectin to treat COVID or for any other purpose,” FDA lawyer Honold told the court.

“FDA is clearly acknowledging that doctors have the authority to prescribe human ivermectin to treat COVID. So they are not interfering with the authority of doctors to prescribe drugs or to practice medicine,” Honold added.

The judges were not convinced that the FDA was merely trying to inform and wasn’t launching a war against ivermectin.

“What about when it said, ‘No, stop it’?” asked Circuit Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod. “Why isn’t that a command? If you were in English class, they would say that was a command.”

The plaintiffs added that the FDA has never been allowed to offer medical advice, and they said the FDA’s actions to undermine ivermectin is exactly that. The FDA, the lawyers said, didn’t just offer information, they actively offered advice to “stop” using the drug.

This was a point that most of the judges on the panel seemed inclined to agree with. Judge Edith Brown Clement, for instance, said, “You’re not authorized to give medical advice.”

Whatever the government agency meant then, it is clear that now the FDA has quietly rewritten its “information” page to eliminate much of the overly alarming rhetoric. Its new page is far more dispassionate about the use of ivermectin and is couched far more in scientific and medical terms.

Indeed, on its original page, the FDA used phrases like “can cause serious harm” and “please beware,” called use of the drug an “unconventional treatment,” and repeatedly said it was for animals and not for use “in humans.” In short, the original page was filled with words and phrases meant to scare people away from the drug and tried to convey that it was really only for animals and could be dangerous for humans. Much of that language, though, is now gone in the updated page.

The new page also added a line at the end, saying, “Talk to your health care provider about available COVID-19 vaccines and treatment options. Your provider can help determine the best option for you, based on your health history.” It is a line that can now be construed to mean that the FDA is leaving the use of ivermectin up to your doctor. This is a line that was entirely absent in the original post.

This about-face is just another example of how the medical elites and the federal government are quietly and slowly backing away from the extreme statements and polices floated during the worst of the pandemic years. It’s another admission that much of what Biden’s regime was telling us about COVID was simply false.

No wonder fewer and fewer people every year trust what the government tells us, or for that matter, even trust what the “experts” say.