The actions by federal agencies like the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and others overstepped their bounds, turning into what became an illegal crusade against the generic drug ivermectin, according to two prominent figures from the previous Trump administration.
While C. Boyden Gray served as White House Counsel, U.S. Ambassador to the European Union, and a special envoy on behalf of the U.S. to Europe for Eurasia, well-known neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson, a founder of the American Cornerstone Institute, served as HUD secretary under the previous president. Both wrote in an Op-ed that efforts against doctors using ivermectin as part of a regimen to treat early COVID-19 patients were wrong and most definitely unlawful, going strongly against the grain of the medical and legal system.
The two authors stress the value of treating COVID-19 patients as soon as possible using safe and efficient medications. Since there were no such medications in the beginning, doctors had to assist their patients in finding remedies by using repurposed medications, a widespread practice supported by medical associations. The two writers contend that state-by-state local doctors should be in charge of this type of medical care and claim that the FDA, for instance, overstepped its bounds.
“The government has no grounds for warning against or trying to restrict its use to treat COVID-19,” Carson and Gray write, “despite the fact that the agency has fully approved ivermectin for use in humans—not under an emergency use authorization.” The FDA engaged in a “relentless campaign to disparage a critical human medicine as a horse de-wormer,” according to the two authors, in an effort to exert increasing pressure so that doctors would avoid using it. In fact, TrialSite reported on what seemed to be outrageous deception efforts that were put in place right at the top of the organization.
What laws or regulations did the FDA’s activities break? The FDA’s activities “violate both fundamental ethics and the law,” claim Dr. Carson and Mr. Gray. Yet why? The authors claim that the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act made it clear that the FDA was not to “interfere in the practice of medicine, including dispensing medications off-label.”
But despite the fact that thousands of doctors nationwide utilized this effective anti-parasitic medication during the pandemic, the “Gold Standard Agency” relentlessly attacked it in public. Additionally, the FDA exerted pressure on licensing bodies and umbrella boards to urge their members to forego the medicine on a state-by-state basis. Many Americans plainly understood this to mean that the use of the drug was prohibited, which was not and cannot be the case.
By refusing to “be happy with its jurisdiction over market entry and labeling, and instead trying to usurp the role of doctors in treating their patients as well,” the agency showed “insatiable arrogance.”
The Stream, a conservative, Christian-focused online media outlet, recently published the commentary. Did the FDA carry out an unlawful campaign against a cheap, safe, and affordable drug in what unmistakably appears to be a federal takeover of medicine?
Demand for Action: Visit The Stream to read the whole Op-Ed.
Call to Action: Read the entire Op-ed at The Stream.