Four inmates at an Arkansas jail have sued the jail, the jail doctor and the county sheriff, alleging they were given Ivermectin as a COVID treatment without their informed consent.
I hope that none of the inmates are black because…you know… the Tuskegee Study. And if they’re white, well how do we mention the Nazi’s experiments on Jews in the concentration camps?
I mean really, is it not the 21st century? Even in Arkansas?
Given that the FDA says it shouldn’t be used for COVID, this suit might have legs:
The FDA has not authorized or approved ivermectin for use in preventing or treating COVID-19 in humans or animals. Ivermectin is approved for human use to treat infections caused by some parasitic worms and head lice and skin conditions like rosacea.
Currently available data do not show ivermectin is effective against COVID-19. Clinical trials assessing ivermectin tablets for the prevention or treatment of COVID-19 in people are ongoing.
Why in the hell aren’t these quack doctors losing their licenses right and left. The AMA and its certification boards, like most self-regulating professions — I’m looking at you ABA — are a joke. Such lax (my euphemism for non-existent) oversight does incalculable harm to millions every year.
As I wrote when this topic first was being discussed here, it’s not about the off-label use, because off-label use in and of itself it neither unheard of nor necessarily a bad thing.
It’s about informed consent and, particularly in this context, informed consent in a coercive environment with its attendant huge disparity in power, knowledge, and access to information.
I hope they have a case with evidence and that the discovery, or lack, of evidence that there was truly informed consent, and any evidence that there was really experimental stuff like differing dosages, etc., going on, provides the legal basis to sue this guy and his employers to metaphorical death.
So they are guilty and know it but quacks are a dime a dozen and prisons prime territory for grift and corruption. What makes me curious is what was their upside? This was a medically unethical and probably illegal treatment regime so must have been getting something for it: money, leverage in a side play, pill pushing, what? What was their angle? Why do this?
Not their upside, the “doctor’s” upside. If he prophylactically and reactively treats them with ivermectin and it works, he’s got a published ticket out of being a prison doctor. The health agency he was associated with just wants to bury the mess.
The ABA is a voluntary organization and has no authority to regulate attorneys. Attorneys are licensed by a quasi-state agency, aka the state bar association, which also has the authority to discipline and disbar attorneys when appropriate.
And then there’s giving antibiotics for a viral infection. While the antibiotics are not particularly harmful themselves, that’s glaringly bad medical practice.
“Guess we made the news again this week; still with best record in the world at the jail with the same protocols,” the post read. “Inmates aren’t dumb and I suspect in the future other inmates around the country will be suiing [ sic ] their facilities requesting same treatment we’re using at WCDC-including the Ivermectin.”
If he violated IRB protocols about human subjects (which he did) no reputable journal would publish. The New England Journal of Medicine does not want to be linked to experimentation on prisoners, I guarantee.