The Magical Disappearance of IVM:
I recently reported on how ‘suddenly and unexpectedly’ Chris Cuomo admitted to both being vaccine injured AND taking ivermectin. So weird. I mean he was sooo vocal against those who had an ounce of skepticism about either the safety or the effectiveness of this novel “vaccine.” And he decried the ignoramuses of the world who thought that taking a horse dewormer might somehow have benefit for a virus. Boors one and all; not to mention grandma killers and societal sociopaths.
Early in the pandemic, doctors were disciplined for using inexpensive but effective drugs. Dr. Simone Gold was one the first to lose her job, as an ER doc in California, due to prescribing hydroxychloroquine. Dr. Mary Talley Bowden was disciplined by her hospital in Texas for prescribing ivermectin. Dr. Paul Marik lost his esteemed position at a Virginia hospital after years of dedicated service. I know of a doctor whose job was threatened for merely suggesting a “journal club” on ivermectin for his residents. [A journal club is an evening get-together of residents who bring in articles about an area of controversy in medicine. Over brats and beers (or similar) they present the articles and discuss their strengths and weaknesses and thus educate themselves on the topic.] He was told that if he liked his job he would call off the journal club and never mention ivermectin again. Other physicians bravely wrote prescriptions ‘off the books’ in defiance of orders, as they put their patients above their paychecks. Some purchased ivermectin abroad and smuggled it in. And the post office started to confiscate ivermectin they would find being mailed in from pharmacies abroad. They fought the importation and sale of ivermectin as much as fentanyl it seemed.
And to this very day, doctors who prescribed the drug are being disciplined. They are being fined and forced to go to what amounts to “I shall obey” reeducation camps. Or in some cases they are losing their licenses. I recently read about a Washington State doctor still being harassed with fines and reeducation mandates for writing ivermectin scripts for a few patients early in the pandemic when there was nothing else.
Never mind that there are well over a hundred studies now that show the effectiveness of horse dewormer for Covid (check out this site which tracks all studies: https://c19ivm.org/meta.html - it’s impressive). Never mind that there had been plenty of earlier research suggesting broad antiviral activity, which is why it was tried for Covid to begin with (check out this summary of the library of viruses it had been tested on long before Covid: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7290143/). Never mind that nearly everywhere ivermectin was used, it was found to be highly effective (India, South America, etc). Never mind that it is one of the safest drugs on the planet. Never mind and never mind. One must never forget that it stood in the way of the emergency authorization of a sexy, expensive, inadequately tested but highly profitable group of drugs that pharma was eager to sell. From other antivirals with a much lower safety profile and a lower efficacy profile to the mRNA shots in all of their variations.
Still, many doctors, desperate to do something to help their patients, prescribed the drug at great personal professional risk. Doctors have little to no experience practicing outside of guidelines so this did not come naturally for most. Local experience undoubtedly mirrors what happened nationally (and elsewhere in the world). At first drug stores filled the prescriptions. Then they started to quiz the doctors as to what it was being prescribed for. Then they began to simply refuse to fill and often threatened to report the prescriber. And here I am talking about all of the major pharmaceutical chains, one by one. And they were followed by all of the pharmacies at the grocery store pharmacy chains. Only a handful of independent pharmacies who refused to be intimidated were left to fill these prescriptions. Some call them “freedom pharmacies.” They were often compounding pharmacies accustomed to filling unusual combinations or unusual formulations and thus were more familiar with tailored treatment rather than one size fits all (or one size fits none, as the case may be).
One wonders (but not too deeply) how all the pharmacies came to rapidly fall in line with a similar novel policy. Never before did they give that much of a damn (think: filling ridiculous amounts of narcotic prescriptions like for years). I mean sure they were used to notifying/questioning the doctor if a prescription seemed unusual or perhaps in error. I rarely got those calls myself. But the pharmacists never lorded it over the prescriber; you know, the one who actually saw the patient and discussed with them the best course of treatment. So how did this come to pass?
I recently came across an article (https://www.americaoutloud.news/the-government-cartel-paid-billions-to-walgreens-and-cvs-not-to-fill-ivermectin-the-question-is-why/) on just this subject that makes sense to me and is in fact more or less what I suspected, given the wildly coincidental lock-step reaction of the major pharmacy outlets. It mirrors what we already know was happening simultaneously: hospitals were issuing cease and desist edicts to their doctors who were often using the drug with great success. I include my own hospital in this craven act.
During the pandemic, the government, in its seemingly limitless (but narrowly directed) largess, dedicated roughly $180 billion to ‘helping the medical community lead us safely through the pandemic.’ Was any of this money specifically directed to hospitals and pharmacies that followed orders on ivermectin? As it turns out, tax dollars taken from you, dear taxpayer, or added to your future generations’ tax-debt tab, was used to pay off influencers on social media to spread the government line (read: propaganda), to coerce hospitals into second guessing their practitioners (read: threaten into using approved protocols only), and to intimidate pharmacies into pushing shots and newer antivirals over much safer and cheaper ‘early treatments.’
This article says that their research showed that both CVS and Walgreens received large amounts of government monies. They were to all appearances to push the shots and expensive antivirals while pushing out the ivermectins of the world. The ICATT (Increased Community Access To Testing) program pushed billions onto pharmacies that cooperated. Ostensibly the money was to provide testing and vaccine services. But it takes no stretch of the imagination to realize that just as money for influencers was a quid pro quo, so too is it likely with pharmacies. We know from lawsuit discovery that government discussions with social media were both heavy handed and came with subtle (and not so subtle) threats (as I have written about before). Records show that CVS got up to $2.1 billion for their Covid efforts. Walgreens came in at under $1 billion. These kinds of numbers for a pharmacy are very tempting. It is easy to see why they might want to cooperate, with or without additional urging.
I have also shown previously where practitioners too were awarded hefty bonuses by insurers (also closely tied to government regulators) for having their vaccination numbers up. It was an all-hands-on-deck government push/purchase.
You may have read where the CDC has taken down its ‘ivermectin is a horse paste’ social media posts. This came as a result of a lawsuit claiming that the government was overstepping its regulatory role and in essence practicing medicine (the corporate practice of medicine being illegal). Still, it is likely that they continue to quietly let it be known which companies will find favor and government largess down the road … those that still do their bidding.
As the article notes, recently minted new ‘anti-vaxxer’ Chris Cuomo is quoted as asking: “Why were Americans given bad information about Ivermectin.” All signals point to government purchase of the behavior it wanted all in order to assist their actual clients, big pharma, to get what they wanted - so that all could share in the coming bonanza. It would have been a shame to have released a virus in order to save the planet with a vaccine, if at the end of the day a penny-per-pill drug could take care of most of the problem. What a waste that would have been.
Bottom line: A government with an unlimited budget and an unaccountable ‘permanent political class’ will inevitably manipulate every sector of the economy to its own advantage. The public benefit is of little concern. It's everyone for themselves. I recall a day when a “public servant” was just that. They accepted a salary lower than what they could have gotten in the private sector in order to fulfill their dream of serving the public good. Those days are gone. Now government jobs are generally the highest paying and attract the greedy, the power hungry and those craving prestige. It’s all backwards. I hope that recognizing it is the first step towards fixing it.
In health,
DocofLastResort