How Does this Pass for Medical Ethics?

On 22 September, 2021, Art Caplan, Division of Medical Ethics at the New York University Grossman School of Medicine, and the author of recent posts such as “Let’s End Religious Exemptions for Vaccinations,” and “Should Kids Get COVID-19 Vaccine Without Parental Approval?,” wrote a new one in Medscape entitled, “Doctors Should Avoid Being Bullied into giving ivermectin.“

He encourages doctors not to be bullied by relatives of COVID-19 patients asking for ivermectin for their loved ones. He tells them they can simply ignore court orders for ivermectin for ICU patients. “The ivermectin story reminds me a little bit of the days when we were all worried about hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), the unproven intervention that was touted by President Trump and many other people as a treatment for COVID-19, for which there were no data, no evidence, and no trials (except here) Sadly, the same is true for ivermectin.”  

Speaking of “no evidence,” two scandalous papers falsely claiming heath risks from (HCQ), one in the Lancet and the other in the New England Journal of Medicine were retracted, only to have “experts” still citing them.

After he mentions the “ivermectin-deworming” trope, he then proceeds to justify his stance based on the authority of such notable institutions as the CDC, FDA, AMA, WHO, Merck, and the many public health professionals who together say, “Do not use this drug.“ He claims “the studies were weak and not well controlled, and some of them have been withdrawn owing to the investigators being accused of falsifying data. There is not much of a database there.” He instructs doctors to refuse to give in to any court order because it(ivermctin) is a “dangerous, unproven medicine….  It’s not the standard of care.” “Everyone who’s seeking ivermectin in the ICU that I’ve seen is unvaccinated. I think that tells us what the proper response is to the COVID-19 virus.” In other words, if they had only gotten vaccinated.

According to the CDC, the 17 September VAERS  report for the United States included a total of  559,464 adverse events, 43,073 serious injuries and 6,756 deaths from December 2020 to September 2021. Regarding the deaths, 12% occurred within 24 hours of vaccination, 17% occurred within 48 hours of vaccination and 31% occurred in people who experienced an onset of symptoms within 48 hours of being vaccinated.  These percentages add up to 60% of all deaths having some kind of temporal relationship to the jab. Just a coincidence? And yet we learn from this ethicist, without any proof, that ivermectin is dangerous. Maybe the public knows something our vaunted “Experts” don’t.

“Meta-analyses based on 18 randomized controlled treatment trials of ivermectin in COVID-19 have found large, statistically significant reductions in mortality, time to clinical recovery, and time to viral clearance. Furthermore, results from numerous controlled prophylaxis trials report significantly reduced risks of contracting COVID-19 with the regular use of ivermectin. Finally, the many examples of ivermectin distribution campaigns leading to rapid population-wide decreases in morbidity and mortality indicate that an oral agent effective in all phases of COVID-19 has been identified.”

Nowhere is this more apparent than in two states in India, Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.

Here is the current COVID-19 situation in Uttar Pradesh, India, population 200 million. On 22 September, the total number of new cases was 15. Here is the current COVID situation in Tamil Nadu, population 76 million. As of 22 September there were 1682 new cases. 

If the above information is accurate, and I invite anyone to prove that it isn’t, it would be unethical not to follow the example of Uttar Pradesh, which, among other things includes early administration of ivermectin to reduce hospitalizations and deaths.

This pattern does not only exist in these two states, but in others as well. Dr John Campbell provides details of the highly successful COVID-19 intervention in these states. He reports that the WHO has acknowledged the tremendous success in these states, but failed to discuss the role of Ivermectin, vitamin D and Zinc and other products handed out in medical kits to the people. Giving the credit to these products might be difficult for the WHO.

In April of this year, after a WHO executive stopped the administration of ivermectin in Tamil Nadu, cases and deaths increased. In Uttar Pradesh, where ivermectin continued to be used, the daily case and death rate  dropped. The Indian Bar Association is charging WHO chief scientist Dr. Soumya Swaminathan with the mass murder of Tamil Nadu citizens. She stopped the deployment of ivermectin in that state. COVID-19 cases skyrocketed and deaths increased ten-fold.  

As I have noted in other blog posts, the unvaccinated, compared to the vaccinated, do have more frequent and serious COVID-19 during the early stages of a vaccination program, but for various reasons, the protection does not last and the viruses evolve and multiply in both populations. What has not been measured is the extent to which prophylactic use of ivermectin can prevent getting infected in the first place. One of the practices in Uttar Pradesh is to treat the whole family when only one got sick. The COVID-19 kits handed out in Uttar Pradesh cost $2.65. If there is a breach of ethics, it must be with health care providers stuck on the vaccinated/unvaccinated paradigm who are unwilling to consider inexpensive and effective alternatives.

So to Art Kaplan, from the Division of Medical Ethics, I say, “You are correct. Doctors should not be bullied into giving ivermectin. They should be sued for malpractice for failing to give ivermectin and other supplements and drugs to their patients early in the course of their illness. Their failure to treat early is one of the reasons their patients end up in the ICU.