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group of doctors is suing the Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Health and Human Services for their various attempts at preventing ivermectin from being prescribed to treat Covid-19. Plaintiffs Robert L. Apter, Mary Talley Bowden, and Paul E. Marik argued the FDA tried to prohibit them from prescribing the drug, even though they have successfully used it in treating patients with the coronavirus.
“The FDA generally cannot ban particular uses of human drugs once they are otherwise approved and admitted to the market, even if such use differs from the labeling — commonly referred to as ‘off-label’ use,” the lawsuit argues. “The FDA also cannot advise whether a patient should take an approved drug for a particular purpose.”
But the FDA overstepped its authority by “directing the public, including health professionals and patients, not to use ivermectin to treat COVID-19, even though the drug remains fully approved for human use,” the lawsuit continues. The aim of the suit is to set aside “any FDA actions that direct or opine on whether ivermectin is an appropriate treatment for COVID-19, declare such actions unlawful, and issue permanent injunctive relief enjoining the FDA from further engaging in such actions.”
The plaintiffs originally filed their lawsuit in June 2022 — after the FDAand corporate media spun up the narrative that ivermectin is used as a cattle dewormer and that anyone who prescribed or took the drug as a Covid treatment was an anti-science rube — but a U.S. district court denied their claim. In February 2023, the doctors appealed their case to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Multiple groups have filed amicus briefs in support of the suit, including America’s Frontline Doctors and the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC).
