(Just when you thought it couldn't get any crazier in the US):
Ivermectin must be administered despite CDC and FDA warnings, Ohio judge orders
A COVID patient's wife got a prescription from an Ivermectin promoter but the hospital refused to administer it.
An Ohio judge ordered a Cincinnati-area hospital to treat a patient with Ivermectin, a drug commonly used to deworm livestock, despite warnings from federal health agencies.
Butler County Judge Gregory Howard last week ordered West Chester Hospital, which is part of the University of Cincinnati network, to "immediately administer Ivermectin" to 51-year-old Jeffrey Smith daily for the next three weeks. The ruling came after Smith's wife, Julie Smith, asked the court for an emergency order to use the drug to treat her husband, who is on a ventilator and has been in an ICU for weeks, according to the Ohio Capital Journal. The lawsuit did not say whether Smith was vaccinated but state data shows that fewer than 500 of the more than 20,000 hospitalized Covid patients in the state have been fully vaccinated.
Julie Smith "found Ivermectin on her own" and connected with Dr. Fred Wagshul, an Ohio physician that her lawsuit described as "one of the foremost experts on using Ivermectin in treating COVID-19," who prescribed the drug but the hospital refused to administer it, according to the Capital Journal.
Wagshul is a co-founder of the Front Line Covid-19 Critical Care Alliance, a nonprofit that promotes the use of Ivermectin despite warnings from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration that it has no effect and could be dangerous.
Dr. Leanne Chrisman-Khawam, a physician and Ohio University professor, called the group "snake oil salesmen," noting that there are "serious" issues with their research and that the studies they cite often "don't show positive results" and have "design flaws."
"Based on evidence-based medicine and my read on this large number of small studies, I would find this very suspect, even the positive outcomes," she told the Capital Journal.
Ivermectin must be administered despite CDC and FDA warnings, Ohio judge orders | Salon.com