To be clear: This controversial generic has been used globally for many years and is very safe and cheap. The official public health system, however, does not support the use of IVM for addressing COVID despite its very wide use globally, including very successful use in India where its use has wiped out the pandemic in most of the country. Normally, IVM has been used as an early treatment and with very successful outcomes; this being explained by the drug's ability to kill the virus in the initial stage of COVID infection called viral replication. The protocols of a number of front-line doctors include IVM who have used it for early treatment to keep patients out of the hospital and alive.
Using courts to fight hospital opposition
Below are some case examples of critically ill patients seen as being on their death bed who were given IVM, when hospitals capitulated to court orders sought by family members, and then fully recovered!
In the past year there have been over 100 court cases trying to get access to IVM for very ill patients, usually for whom hospital doctors say have little chance of surviving. Sadly, only about 10% of these legal actions have been successful in terms of saving lives. Hospitals are literally killing late stage COVID victims by withholding IVM and then mounting costly court actions. Few judges have been willing to conclude that what hospitals are doing are not saving lives and that it is medically and morally appropriate to give these patients a chance at recovering with IVM use. There seems to be inadequate use of the medical evidence given above.
Nor has there been strong calls for CDC and FDA sanctioning use of IVM as compassionate off-label drug use for late-stage COVID patients.
Case of Sun Ng, age 71
In Illinois a court forced a hospital to capitulate to family demands to give a very sick elderly patient IVM. The hospital used the approved ways to treat the patient, including the unsafe and very expensive drug remdesivir, intubation and ventilator use for a month in the ICU. None of it worked and Mr. Ng was given only a 10 to 15% percent chance of surviving.
Ng's only child, Man Kwan Ng, with a doctoral degree in mechanical engineering, did her own research and decided that her father should take IVM. The hospital refused. The daughter went to court. Judge Paul M. Fullerton of the Circuit Court of DuPage County granted a temporary restraining order requiring the hospital to allow IVM be given to the patient. As usual, this hospital refused to comply with the court order. But the legal fight continued. One physician who testified described Sun Ng as "basically on his death bed." The judge was informed IVM can have minor side effects such as dizziness, itchy skin, and diarrhea at the dosage suggested for Ng. And the judge said that the "risks of these side effects are so minimal that Mr. Ng's current situation outweighs that risk by one-hundredfold."
The judge issued a preliminary injunction that day directing the hospital to "immediately allow " temporary emergency privileges" to Ng's physician, Dr. Alan Bain, "solely to administer Ivermectin to this patient." [As of several months ago, Dr. Bain had treated over 40 patients with IVM.] But the hospital resisted the order. Then the judge admonished the hospital and restated that it must allow Bain inside over a period of 15 days to do his job. Then the hospital filed a motion to stay the order but judge Fullerton denied it, again directing the hospital to comply. The hospital finally gave in. He passed a breathing test that he hadn't been able to pass in the prior three weeks, looked more alert and aware. The first dose of IVM showed immediate results and he got it for four days. He recovered from COVID-19 and was discharged by the hospital some six weeks after admission.
The attorney in this case was Kirstin M. Erickson of Chicago-based Mauck and Baker. She worked with Ralph Lorigo, the leading attorney in this area.
New York cases
Ivermectin was at the center of three successful court cases in three upstate counties of New York involving hospitalized COVID patients - 65, 80 and 81 years old. The three patients were in ICUs and on ventilators when given IVM and had little chance of living. All were given IVM under court order and recovered and were discharged.
The attorney for these cases was Ralph Lorigo. He has helped many families, with about 100 similar cases nationwide, he was the subject of an article titled "Ralph Lorigo has built a potentially lucrative brand as the go-to guy for desperate people willing to buck science in the pandemic's fourth wave. Lorigo called hospitals "arrogant" in the matter. "They only stick to their protocols," he said. "It's like they think they're gods. They wear white coats, but they're not God." Absolutely correct.
The case that received the most attention was for a 80-year-old Buffalo woman with COVID whose feisty, take-no-prisoners family took a hospital to court. Judith Smentkiewicz was on a ventilator when her family was told she'd likely spend another month in the ICU, where they gave her a 20 percent chance of survival. The family did some research and read about IVM's success. They pressed an ICU doctor to give it, and, on day 12 of infection, he did. Within 48 hours of a single dose, Smentkiewicz had improved so much that she was moved out of critical care.
But doctors on the new unit declined to continue IVM even as the woman's condition declined. The family went to court. The hospital fiercely objected. Smenkiewicz's personal physician for 20 years was called in. "We reviewed the limited studies on the use of ivermectin for COVID-19 and recommend [his emphasis] she receive 15 mg orally Day 1, Day 3 and Day 5," wrote Dr. Stephen Scravani in a letter to the court. The judge ordered the treatment resumed. The result, Smentkiewicz was released to a rehabilitation facility shortly, recovered from COVID. "It is a miracle from where she was," Lorigo said.
Texas case
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