CV NEWS FEED // The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) indicated it would remove all of its social media posts bashing ivermectin, including a controversial post from 2021 insinuating that the common medication is only fit for farm animals.
Dr. Mary Talley Bowden of Houston, TX, shared the news on X (formerly Twitter) Thursday evening.
“FDA loses its war on ivermectin and agrees to remove all social media posts and consumer directives regarding ivermectin and COVID, including its most popular tweet in FDA history,” she wrote. “This landmark case sets an important precedent in limiting FDA overreach into the doctor-patient relationship.”
Bowden and two other doctors sued the FDA two years ago, “alleging that FDA statements were interfering with their ability to treat patients,” The Texan noted.
Bowden told The Texan Friday: “After nearly two years and a resounding rebuke by the [U.S.] Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, the FDA has agreed to remove its misleading social media posts and consumer directives regarding ivermectin and COVID-19.”
Last September, a three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit sided with Bowden, Dr. Robert Apter, and Dr. Paul Marik.
“FDA is not a physician,” the ruling held. “It has authority to inform, announce, and apprise—but not to endorse, denounce or advise.”
“The doctors have plausibly alleged that FDA’s posts fell on the wrong side of the line between telling about and telling to,” the court added. “Even tweet-sized doses of personalized medical advice are beyond FDA’s statutory authority.”
At the time, Courthouse News Service reported that Bowden and Apter “say between them they have treated or consulted more than 9,000 Covid patients and they each have a patient survival rate of more than 99%, despite regularly prescribing them ivermectin off-label to treat the respiratory illness.”
On August 7, 2021, the FDA wrote of the use of ivermectin: “You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y’all. Stop it.”
In the post, the federal agency linked to one of its articles, titled: “Why You Should Not Use Ivermectin to Treat or Prevent COVID-19.”
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In the article, the FDA stated that it “has not authorized or approved ivermectin for the treatment or prevention of COVID-19 in people or animals.”
“Ivermectin has not been shown to be safe or effective for these indications,” the FDA claimed:
There’s a lot of misinformation around, and you may have heard that it’s okay to take large doses of ivermectin. It is not okay.
…
For one thing, animal drugs are often highly concentrated because they are used for large animals like horses and cows, which weigh a lot more than we do— up to a ton or more. Such high doses can be highly toxic in humans.
“The most effective ways to limit the spread of COVID-19 include getting a COVID-19 vaccine,” the FDA’s article claimed.
The FDA is part of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
In its ruling, the Fifth Circuit stated that the FDA “[l]eft unmentioned in most of [its] messaging” the fact that “ivermectin also comes in a human version.”
“And while the human version of ivermectin is not FDA-approved to treat the coronavirus, some people were using it off-label for that purpose,” the court added.
