Mixed Results in Lawsuit over Ivermectin
It could have been better ... but it could have been worse too
Mixed Results in Lawsuit over Ivermectin
We live in an age where Supreme Court Justices aren’t even certain that the First Amendment was meant to give primacy of an individual’s speech over the government’s supposed right to silence you … for your safety. Who amongst us seriously thinks that the first amendment was meant for anything BUT to protect us from tyrannical government? Who believes that there is an exemption clause included for government to quash speech through an intermediary? Here it is in the original:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
And what have we seen lately? The government has pushed a narrative, coerced social media to stamp out anything that goes against that narrative and has gone after journalists that question that narrative (most recently their arrest of Steve Baker years after his coverage of the J6 events).
Which brings me to a quick review of a recent “win” for medical freedom. Headline: “Texas Doctors Force FDA to Remove Covid-19 Posts in Settlement.”
I read about this in several reports each stating that this was a victory over the government and its overreach in denigrating the value of early treatments in Covid including the use of ivermectin specifically. Personally, the reports did only a little to gladden my heart. I had hoped that perhaps there would be some deep dive into the machinations that led to the ‘soft-banning’ of a perfectly safe and useful drug. But instead there was a settlement that fell short of exposing the depth of how the deep state acted in this regard. In fact, the reports are that the settlement specified only that the FDA agree to remove certain posts from their website that said that ivermectin was ineffective and that pushed the notion that it was only for livestock (see above graphic).
“Discovery” was not pursued apparently based on the notion that the government never gives up anything useful in discovery. Even if required, there is apparently no penalty for dissembling and pretending like there is nothing to be discovered. It really seems to be true that short of a whistleblower giving out classified documents (for which they will be pursued and punished, whistleblower protections notwithstanding), no lawyer has the ability to peel away government documents that they do not wish to reveal. You may have seen the recently released document to a Congressional oversight committee that was 100% redacted. Not 98 or 99%. 100%. There is absolutely no shame in governmental bureaucracies anymore. They rule with 100% confidence in their right to do so … or at least shameless arrogance in wielding their power over anyone’s ability to rein them in.
Ivermectin of course would have been a disaster for organized medicine if it was allowed to be marketed freely and if the results (for Covid treatment) were allowed to be known. The investment by big pharma (and likely big government as well) would have been unneeded, causing untold financial pain to those agencies that counted on dividing the spoils of the $100B+ in coerced sales of the mRNA product … not to mention the additional billions in sales of dangerous and mostly worthless “new”(and expensive) antivirals.
So they put out their advisories; they pretended that a few phone calls to poison control centers asking about veterinary ivermectin amounted to a massive and tragic loss of life due to using this ultra-safe drug, and they coerced pharmacies to stop filling prescriptions for it. They even set to work interdicting shipments of ivermectin from overseas, I suppose because it is so much more dangerous than fentanyl which continued to pour across our southern border. These all should be considered criminal actions. But they will not be.
Going after the government isn’t easy. So I choose, at the end of the day, to view this as one small but important victory. Recall that initially the lawsuit was dismissed and it was only on appeal that it was even allowed to go forward with the appellate court ruling that the FDA was not immune to lawsuits. The suit claimed that the FDA’s statements regarding ivermectin were misleading and interfered with a physician’s ability to practice medicine. I think that completely understates the case. The more we know, the more we realize that the government has been micromanaging much of what we can and cannot do … in medicine and in other spheres. But it was during this lawsuit that a government lawyer had to openly admit that physicians indeed do have an absolute right to prescribe ivermectin off-label for Covid. So that right there was huge.
The appellate judge had a few choice words for the FDA:
“FDA can inform, but it has identified no authority allowing it to recommend consumers ‘stop’ taking medicine.” This is important because the FDA has no statutory authority to practice medicine. In fact, I don’t believe that the FDA went to medical school.
“FDA is not a physician.” More of the same.
This one is great: “Even tweet-sized doses of personalized medical advice are beyond FDA’s statutory authority.”
After the court found that plaintiff Dr. Mary Talley Bowden DID have standing to continue her lawsuit (with others), the FDA settled. Better than a long war over discovery. Here is the link to the final agreement (it is brief): settlement ivermectin case
How many times have you read somewhere that such and such a company agreed to pay a fine but without admission of guilt. That generally means, ‘we will pay the fine because we are guilty … but we get to avoid the actual label of being guilty and will pretend that we are not.’ That’s just how settlements go. And that is sort of what happened here. The FDA did not admit anything but took down its tweets and web-pages that were being debated in court. In fact the FDA explicitly stated that they disagree with the allegations that they exceed their authority. I interpret this to mean that they will continue to exceed their authority in the future and will have to be sued again. At least the right to sue them was upheld by a court.
“No evidence.” A recurrent phrase heard from media and government officials when they don’t want you looking into something is that there is “no evidence” to suggest that something is true. I have heard that phrase a million times: ‘no evidence’ that ivermectin works; ‘no evidence’ that mRNA is dangerous; ‘no evidence’ that there was any election cheating; ‘no evidence’ of J6 being a false flag operation; and so on. Actually there is no evidence that there is no evidence for any of these things.
This case is tangentially related to Missouri vs. Biden. That one is currently before the Supreme Court. It is the free speech case of my lifetime. Either the First Amendment means something or it does not. If the court rules that government may NOT suppress a citizen's right to speak (or write on social media) it will likely only mean that the government will find other ways to harass and bankrupt those who don’t toe the party line. I’m not naive to think that a government willing to shut down your posts is not a government willing to shut down your other rights … as they have already demonstrated over and over again. Still it is a battle that must be waged until its conclusion whatever that may be. I hope to have more on the Missouri v Biden case as things develop.
In health,
DocofLastResort