FDA is NOT a physician: Appeals court sides with doctors on the use of ivermectin for COVID-19

09/11/2023 / By Ramon Tomey

The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has sided with three doctors who sued the federal government over the use of ivermectin against the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19).

In its Sept. 8 decision, Circuit Judge Don Willett and his co-magistrates ruled in favor of the plaintiffs – Drs. Mary Talley Bowden, Robert Apter and Paul Marik. The appeals court’s three-member panel also included Circuit Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod and Senior Circuit Judge Edith Brown Clement.

“The doctors have plausibly alleged that FDA’s posts fell on the wrong side of the line between telling about and telling to,” the ruling stated. “FDA is not a physician. It has the authority to inform, announce and apprise – but not to endorse, denounce or advise.”

The regulator’s messaging that smeared ivermectin drew the ire of Willett, who wrote: “Left unmentioned in most of that messaging: Ivermectin also comes in a human version. While the human version of ivermectin is not FDA-approved to treat the coronavirus, some people were using it off-label for that purpose.”

An Aug. 21, 2021 tweet by the FDA called on Americans to stop using ivermectin as they weren’t horses or cows, alluding to its use as a dewormer for livestock. The said tweet was used as evidence against the regulator.

The decision concluded that “even tweet-sized doses of personalized medical advice are beyond FDA’s statutory authority.” Given the Sept. 8 ruling, the three plaintiffs can now use the Administrative Procedure Act “to assert their ultra vires claims” against the FDA and its parent, the Department of Health and Human Services.

Exactly a month prior, a government lawyer representing the FDA confirmed that doctors such as the plaintiffs were free to prescribe ivermectin against COVID-19. Ashley Cheung Honold of the Department of Justice told the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals during an Aug. 8 hearing: “[The] FDA explicitly recognizes that doctors do have the authority to prescribe ivermectin to treat COVID-19.”

Bowden: Court ruling means nothing for pharmacists refusing ivermectin

But according to Bowden, pharmacists across the U.S. are still refusing to fill prescriptions for ivermectin for use against COVID-19 – despite the FDA saying that doctors can recommend it. She recounted this medical fascism to the Epoch Times, adding: “I see it every single day. Enough is enough.”

She recounted the ordeal of one of her patients, who had been refused the life-saving medication. The elderly patient had to visit several pharmacies that dispensed ivermectin for COVID-19 before finding one. During the time it took to find a pharmacy, their health deteriorated. (Related: Dr. Bowden: Pharmacists still refusing to fill ivermectin prescriptions for COVID-19 despite FDA backpedaling.)

“It’s hard to believe, but pharmacists are still blocking this potentially life-saving drug. The pharmacist didn’t talk to the patient, and won’t know if the patient lives or dies – yet had control of [their] care,” said Bowden.

“This needs to come to an end. In telling my patients what medicines they can and cannot have access to, we effectively have a large group of pharmacists practicing medicine without a license. They have no accountability for this yet they are allowed to dictate patient care.”

According to Bowden, individual pharmacists aren’t the ones to blame in most cases as they often carry out orders from corporate leadership. However, she said there are examples of pharmacists preventing her patients from getting their medication due to their own “personal agenda.”

The physician also warned that if pharmacists are left unchecked, this could lead down a slippery slope that diminishes patients’ rights in the long term.

“Prior to COVID, I never had a pharmacist refuse a prescription. This is a new phenomenon and it needs to come to an end. This is going beyond their role and it’s a dangerous trend,” she said. “It’s an outrage. I would have thought we were beyond this, but it continues to happen.”

Head over to IvermectinScience.com for more stories about doctors prescribing ivermectin for COVID-19 infection.

Watch this segment of “The HighWire with Del Bigtree,” which touches on the FDA’s backpedaling on ivermectin.

This video is from The HighWire with Del Bigtree channel on Brighteon.com.