Unfortunately, few are still talking about problems that arose from COVID policy. Thankfully, a Florida grand jury has been investigating COVID policy since late 2022. The grand jury provided a brief (33 pages) preliminary report last week; the complete report is still months away. full-report-florida-grand-jury
The state of Florida also established a Public Health Integrity Commission with several distinguished MDs. In a public roundtable, these doctors discuss the report and highlight the need for accountability governor-desantis-and-experts-on-florida-grand-jury.
The language during the roundtable and in the preliminary report is at times blunt: there were massive failures that need to be more fully exposed to avoid a repeat of these problems.
florida-grand-jury-preliminary-results
Somehow, because of panic, hubris, ineptitude or some unfortunate combination of the three, this widely rejected idea not only made its way back into scientific discourse in 2020, it became the law of the land in most of the United States between 2020 and 2022. It is clear to this Grand Jury that whatever benefits inured from these mandates, they were not worth the price.”
We must accept this troubling fact: public health was badly served by COVID policy. The COVID crisis was one of the most significant events perhaps since the 9/11 attacks more than twenty years ago. A bi-partisan 9/11 Commission was launched to investigate that event. Where is our national COVID response committee? We should have more than a Florida grand jury, a body largely ignored by most of our media and the public, to investigate COVID failures.
In any case, this grand jury is a serious attempt to bring accountability. The grand jury summary made this statement which encapsulates the problem: In short, this was not an ‘information’ problem, it was a ‘judgment’ problem.” Public health became entangled with public policy which in turn was influenced by politics; truth and good judgment suffered as a result.
We could drone on regarding “judgment problems”. Why did we act so badly? Why did we misinterpret or ignore obvious results? Why were masks pushed when there was no evidence to support their use? Why did we persist in lockdowns which dramatically harmed school kids and businesses while providing little or not offsetting benefits? Why vaccine mandates? As Governor DeSantis notes in the roundtable if vaccines were actually effective and safe why should anyone be compelled to use them? Why also demand vaccinations of children (and young adults) not threatened by the disease? Why ignore the basic demographics of the disease? From the grand jury report:
Why censor medical authorities who had alternative opinions to offer? Why were certain treatments rejected so quickly? Indeed, why did public health officials reject treatments like Ivermectin which many medical authorities touted as a miracle drug while emergency rooms sent patients home until they got sicker? Ironically, Ivermectin was far more effective and far safer than the COVID vaccines, yet the vaccines were preferred remedy (see more below). Why did the CDC offer no guidance for treating the disease while highly credentialed medical authorities told authorities said there was an alternative and while clinicians showed incredible results? Why did the American public trust a doctor who hadn’t practiced in fifty years and claimed to be science incarnate? Why did the FDA, a trusted medical authority, lie about the drug Ivermectin, calling it horse medicine when it clearly is far more than that? Why did so many public health officials repeatedly lie to us about so much?
Because it was a presidential election year there was undue political influence, but still too many medical professionals were co-opted by the nonsense. Something went amiss, but I still struggle to understand it.
Has there always been structural medical infrastructure problems that were only revealed in 2020? Had we been fooled repeatedly for years without realizing it? Was it all about making money for big pharma and paying off corrupt politicians? I don’t know the answers to these questions. I know there were plenty of good guys as well. So many medical authorities did offer objections to public policy and attempted to educate the medical lay folks, describing the real problem and the potential solutions.
I am certain though that public health officials did not trust the public with unfiltered medical information. They believed we could not be allowed to make health decisions for ourselves. There were far too many (and far too successful) attempts to discredit or silence the voices who thought more public debate and alternative opinions should be offered.
The public policy folks prevailed with these disreputable tactics. They pushed outrageous notions, notions that even a medical lay person like me or a Florida grand jury of regular folks (armed with facts from actual medical authorities) recognized as a problem. Public health officials and their allies have never been held accountable; consequently, they are an existential threat to our freedoms if allowed to get away with egregiously irresponsible and dishonest, if not outright criminal, behavior.
Public health agencies failed to adequately explain this important distinction to the American public in favor of a broad mask recommendation that did not make nearly enough distinction between the types of masks available and put at risk those it sought to help. Well-financed federal agencies chose to fill the discourse with flawed observational and laboratory studies, hiding behind their conclusion of ‘no equipoise’ to avoid the potential embarrassment of the public health advice they championed being invalidated by evidence.
The bulk of the public didn’t carefully follow the debate as it was happening. Many trusted the wrong news source, ones promoting a political agenda. Today too many want to move on now that the scare is over. We cannot afford to shrug our shoulders and hope for better luck with the next battle. The problems need to be laid bare. We must learn the lessons, expose the bad actors, and educate the public. Otherwise, these practices, many of them unsuccessful in battling COVID (but successful in a more nefarious way), will be attempted again.
We can forgive public health officials for making mistakes early when confusion reigned, but bad policy continued to be pushed after evidence exposed policy failures. This is not simply my opinion as a medical lay observer; this opinion is shared by countless highly credentialed and distinguished medical professionals.
there-is-no-science-we-made-it-up
Dr. Alexander [COVID task force member], recounted the conversation during an interview on Dr. Drew Pinsky’s podcast. Dr. Alexander asked: “How did the CDC decide upon the ‘six feet rule’ for social distancing?” This simple and direct question received a simple and direct answer: “There is no science . . . We made it up,” per Dr. Redfield. Dr. Alexander was stunned, but if you have followed the COVID drama carefully the last three years, nothing should surprise you.
The larger point made by Drs. Alexander and Victory, and echoed by Dr. Drew was that not a single COVID policy was effective: not lockdowns, school closures, mask mandates, social distancing, vaccine mandates. Every government policy failed miserably. Dr. Alexander says the “CDC is one full year behind the science”. He adds (and the others concur): “The CDC has been an absolute failure,” and their “guidance has been wrong–repeatedly”.
Florida’s Surgeon General Dr. Joe Lapado and a dozen highly credentialed medical experts agreed with the concerns from the three doctors above: there were dramatic failures during COVID and they need to be exposed or we are doomed to repeat these mistakes in the future.
roundtable-to-discuss-covid-failures (the discussion begins at minute 16:00)
governor-desantis-and-experts-on-florida-grand-jury (second roundtable discussion)
“During the pandemic, we threw away the basic principles of public health,” said Dr. Martin Kulldorff, PhD. “The verdict is in. Lockdowns were a huge mistake.”
“CDC and other bodies ignored basic science, used their power to silence scientists that didn’t agree with them, and subverted high-quality evidence to make decisions,” said Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
“There have been some accounting tricks used to make COVID-19 seem more dangerous than it really was. There is something odd that a fundamental principle of public health was thrown under the bus,” said Dr. Bret Weinstein, PhD
Ivermectin: The Silver Bullet
The grand jury report focuses on lockdowns, masks, social distancing, and collateral consequences of poor public policy choices. The report also speaks of interventions not tried. For this short post, I examine one intervention, Ivermectin, which many physicians said was the pandemic’s silver bullet. Advocates pleaded with policy makers, but public health officials never got on board that bandwagon and so Ivermectin was only sporadically used.
Dr. Pierre Kory testified to the U.S. Congress in late 2020–still relatively early in the pandemic–that Ivermectin was a solution that could save thousands of lives. His praise for the effectiveness and safety of the drug was glowing:
We have a solution to this problem . . . A miraculous drug . . . Mountains of data have emerged from many centers and countries around the world. It basically obliterates transmission of this virus . . . If you take it, you will not get sick . . . It is proving to be a wonder drug. There are almost thirty studies . . . the drug is so safe.
Dr. Kory emphasized multiple times: if you take the drug you will not get sick. Dr. Kory said there were thirty studies (and this before the end of the first year of the pandemic). Did we hear any of this from the CDC or NIH?
Dr. Kory is a physician treating patients and not a publicist or journalist, and not a politician (as some in Congress accused him of). He wanted to get the message out. Senator Ron Johnson promised to send his evidence to the National Institutes of Health (Dr. Fauci’s organization) for consideration. Dr. Kory had asked only that NIH consider the evidence. Dr. Fauci, the NIH, and CDC were apparently dead ends for Ivermectin. Only doctors outside of US public health institutions, big pharma, and other medical bureaucracies (i.e. those in private practice or at universities) appeared willing to offer a counter.
The World Health Organization (WHO) another of the erstwhile esteemed public health institutions was told about Ivermectin as well. Dr. Kory’s evidence was forwarded to Dr. Tess Lawrie, a physician in the UK who often consults with the WHO on research. Dr. Lawrie, unaware of the benefits of Ivermectin to this point, quickly affirmed Dr. Kory’s conclusions. In fact, she also began stressing it was the obvious choice. Dr. Lawrie contacted Dr. Andrew Hill who was writing the WHO recommendation paper on Ivermectin. Dr. Hill too seemed in alignment with Dr. Kory and Dr. Lawrie on the benefits of Ivermectin as he touted the benefits in his paper.
However, Dr. Hill would subsequently become a key player in derailing the process. While acknowledging the potential benefits of Ivermectin, Dr. Hill inserted a poison pill (per Dr. Lawrie) recommending more studies of Ivermectin and stopping short of fully endorsing it. It was enough just enough doubt for detractors (perhaps corrupt business interests?) to drive a truck through. Dr. Lawrie couldn’t understand why Dr. Hill stopped short. In this interview with High Wire, Dr. Lawrie discusses the interaction between her and Dr. Hill and concludes this one paper led to much of the opposition of Ivermectin.
Dr-tess-lawrie-who-killed-ivermectin
Mind you, Ivermectin was not some new drug on the scene; it was a highly distinguished medication. Ivermectin had been available for fifty years and had been prescribed to humans billions of times. It had won a Nobel Prize for medicine in 2015 and was on the WHO’s list of the 300 most essential medicines. It had been used to treat many human ailments prior to 2020. Dr. Kory and Dr. Lawrie were simply calling for this already highly touted drug to be re-purposed to battle COVID.
Rome had been burning for more than a year. Following this half-hearted endorsement from Dr. Hill, the WHO continued to fiddle, ignoring what many were endorsing at the wonder COVID drug. Who was calling the shots here?
Dr. Lawrie asked why did Dr. Hill urge caution before proceeding with Ivermectin? Dr. Lawrie suspects something more was at play. Did someone pressure him to discreetly pan Ivermectin as a COVID treatment? Was he paid off? Dr. Lawrie videotaped her conversation with Dr. Hill (see the link above); she presses him on the language discouraging the immediate use of Ivermectin. She dresses him down quite a bit and Dr. Hill has no good answer for her.
Ivermectin: Empirical Results
Ivermectin is also used to treat animals, but it is not a medicine strictly for animals. Detractors in media picked up on the animal usage. In the U.S. Ivermectin lived under a cloud of being strictly a horse medicine, despite the fact this was not true.
A doctor friend told me she had treated hundreds of (human) patients with Ivermectin and hasn’t lost a single one to COVID. She touted Ivermectin as much as Drs. Kory and Lawrie had done publicly. She also noted that many doctors had been scared off using it by the large medical providers and that large pharmacies refused to prescribe it–even with a valid MD prescription, a rather shocking development on its own. The influence from public health officials along with executives in large medical corporations had proven successful at suppressing Ivermectin. Despite the pressure to conform, my doctor friend, along with many oothers, continued to sing the drug’s praise. It was highly effective, she said, especially when combined with other treatments.
Public health officials were recommending no treatment for those contracting COVID. How irresponsible is that? I had heard enough of Ivermectin to know it was worth stocking up. I obtained a supply for my family in case needed.
Shortly after, two family members contracted COVID. Both had both developed pneumonia, and one of them was admitted to the hospital; she was stabilized and sent home, but still no treatment was offered. After a brief respite, her situation deteriorated once again. Neither family member had been well for weeks, the COVID was not relenting, and they were scared. So, why not try Ivermectin? They did not know of it. Within 48 hours of being treated with Ivermectin, they returned to normal. Go figure. There is definitely something too this, I thought. Where is Dr. Fauci and company?
It is just one simple anecdote, but there have been countless others I have heard since. Why were we not hearing more about this potentially miracle drug?
Dr. Joseph Varon, a Houston clinician with an impressive set of credentials, calls Ivermectin one of the ten most important treatments we have for whatever ails you. He, like my local doctor (and many other clinicians around the country), bucked the medical establishment:
The Media’s Covid-19 Obsession | PM Show – The Michael Berry Show (podcast) | Listen Notes
https://abc13.com/ivermectin-covid-treat-dr-joseph-varon-united-memorial-medical-center/10976044
“I have used Ivermectin in a few thousand patients,” he said. “I cannot tell you the exact number, but I know that it’s been quite a large number of patients and I have not seen a single significant side-effect. Not one,” said Varon.
He said based on his data, Ivermectin, in combination with COVID therapies, saves lives.
“It’s not just Ivermectin,” he said. “That’s where people get confused. Ivermectin helps you, but it helps you when you are giving it in addition to other components of treatment protocols that are out there.”
Dr. Varon touches on the problem of ivermectin and HCQ being attacked by a politically motivated media, and then provides evidence Ivermectin is, in fact, quite effective and quite safe. Dr. Varon also mentions one Mexican state which distributed ivermectin widely. That state, he says, had better results than the rest of the country. Not bad for a horse medicine.
But other countries also saw incredible results from Ivermectin. Another doctor friend sent me the following text: “The third world uses Ivermectin and they are comfortable with it. They are leading the way and we are unable to learn from them.” India, for example, had absolutely stunning results.
A population two-thirds of the entire U.S. was completely free of COVID despite having low vaccination rate of 5.8% America’s vaccination rate at the times was 54% with cases still rising and restrictions still imposed.
“Uttar Pradesh was the first state in the country to introduce large-scale prophylactic and therapeutic use of Ivermectin. In May-June 2020, a team at Agra, led by Dr. Anshul Pareek, administered Ivermectin to all RRT team members in the district on an experimental basis. It was observed that none of them developed Covid-19 despite being in daily contact with patients who had tested positive for the virus,” Uttar Pradesh State Surveillance Officer Vikssendu Agrawal said.
As many as 64 districts reported no case of Covid-19 infection in the last 24 hours, whereas the other 11 districts reported new cases in just single digits.
India had one-tenth the death rate of the U.S. (through February 2024). Their vaccination rates were a fraction of ours. Shouldn’t some institution in our country be studying why India did so much better in combatting COVID?
Ivermectin: Horse Drug
Empirical evidence from around the world (Japan, India, Mexico, U.S,, and others) showed Ivermectin effective in treating COVID. Yet, football analyst (and supposed COVID expert) Terry Bradshaw told a national TV audience not to take a cattle de-wormer. How many listened to him? CNN hosts Don Lemon and Chris Cuomo laughed at people taking a horse de-wormer. These people know nothing about nothing.
Podcaster Joe Rogan, not a medical authority, interviewed CNN’s medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta regarding these claims made on his network. Rogan forced Gupta to admit Lemon’s and Cuomo’s shameful scorn of Ivermectin was unwarranted.
https://nypost.com/2021/10/14/joe-rogan-takes-on-sanjay-gupta-over-cnn-lying-about-covid-treatment/
CNN’s chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta acknowledged that the network shouldn’t have called a controversial drug being used as a COVID-19 treatment a “horse dewormer” — as he was grilled by podcast host Joe Rogan about why the media was “lying” about the medication.
“They shouldn’t have said that,” Gupta said of the network referring to the medication as a “horse dewormer.”
The FDA also insisted Ivermectin was horse medicine and should be avoided. The same exact same drug is given to horses and to humans. The only difference in the dosage which is based on weight. My doctor friends say the only notable difference is in how it is administered: pill, liquid, or paste. The drug has been prescribed to humans billions and billions of times, as many as McDonald’s hamburgers sold.
https://www.businessinsider.com/fda-warning-ivermectin-horse-cow-medication-for-covid-19-2021-8?op=1
The US Food and Drug Administration issued a plea on Saturday for Americans to stop taking a popular anti-parasitic drug for livestock to treat or prevent COVID-19.
“You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y’all. Stop it,” the agency tweeted.
The FDA is aware of the facts stated above: Ivermectin has been prescribed to humans for fifty years, it is a Nobel Prize winner, it on the WHO’s list of essential medicines, not to mention all the empirical evidence of its effectiveness against COVID. Why tell us: “you are not a cow”? It is an obvious lie from a once credible organization. This (along with many other lies I have documented the last three years) is why we no longer trust public health officials, another awful side effect of COVID and another reason to continue to investigate problems.
Perhaps there could have been a public debate on the effectiveness of Ivermectin against COVID, but that can’t happen when so many tell us it is a medicine only for animals. Don’t lie because you don’t trust the public with the truth. The FDA might as well tell us we are too stupid to understand the debate. They appear to believe they can tell us anything to make us act in the way they prefer. Their ends justify their means.
This is how an effective drug which could have saved hundreds of thousands of lives was shelved at the time it was needed most.
https://www.theblaze.com/news/ivermectin-covid-treatment-new-study
A new peer-reviewed study found that regular use of ivermectin reduced the risk of dying from COVID-19 by 92%.
Still, nothing to see here.
Dr. Campbell, another medical authority, also debunks the debunking of Ivermectin. The BBC also said: “Ivermectin is a horse de-wormer”. Dr. Campbell did not spare them for their lack of rigor and scientific fact.
Please, listen and know the truth. Stop repeating a line from a know-nothing football analyst, corrupt media, and public health institutions with serious judgment problems.
Ivermectin Safety
My debating partner acknowledged Ivermectin is a wonderful drug, but said it isn’t safe when administered in high doses. He didn’t tell me if he heard this from Terry Bradshaw or on CNN. It was simple to find safety studies of Ivermectin. None indicated safety problems.
https://www.nature.com/articles/ja201711
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov › pmc › articles › PMC8088823
Review of the Emerging Evidence Demonstrating the Efficacy of …
Safety of ivermectin. Numerous studies report low rates of adverse events, with the majority mild, … In the context of ivermectin’s long-standing safety record, low cost, and wide availability along with the consistent, reproducible, large magnitude of findings on transmission rates, need for hospitalization,
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31960060
Results: The systematic search identified six studies for inclusion, revealing no differences in the number of individuals experiencing adverse events. A descriptive analysis of these clinical trials for a variety of indications showed no difference in the severity of the adverse events between standard (up to 400 μg/kg) and higher doses of ivermectin. Organ system involvement only showed an increase in ocular events in the higher-dose group in one trial for the treatment of onchocerciasis, all of them transient and mild to moderate in intensity.
I traveled forty miles to a mom and pop pharmacy to fill my Ivermectin prescription. Why would the well-known pharmacy giants not fulfill a physicians’ order? Ivermectin has been prescribed to humans repeatedly. Why stop now? Why does a pharmacist intervene between me and my doctor? My doctor is not going to prescribe for me a concentrated pill with a dosage meant for a horse weighing five times more than I do. I am a Trump voter, but I am not that stupid.
Even if not effective against COVID, why not allow it? I can buy shark fin, a supplement of questionable effectiveness, over-the-counter. Ivermectin won a Nobel Prize for medicine, but shark fin did not. If Ivermectin were not safe or not meant for humans, I would understand the concern, but it certainly appears to be safe as well, even in high doses.
My doctor friend treated hundreds of patients with Ivermectin without losing anyone. Dr. Joseph Varon calls Ivermectin one of the ten most important treatments we have for whatever ails you. Dr. Kory guarantees you will not get sick if you take Ivermectin. So many other doctors touted it as well. Furthermore, I have seen the remarkable results from Ivermectin first hand.
Why did we not hear more of Ivermectin the last four years? Perhaps, the Florida grand jury or some future COVID policy commission will explain. Again, public health experts may be an existential threat to our freedoms if they are allowed to get away with egregiously dishonest and irresponsible, if not outright criminal, behavior.
Dave https://seek-the-truth.com/about/
https://seek-the-truth.com
Seek the Truth 
I will only say in response to this extremely long-winded post, there have been 6,984,286 deaths globally from Covid and 1,198,896 in the U.S. The U.S. accounts for 17.17% of all Covid deaths to date, though our population is only 4.23% of the global population. This is NOT because we implemented mask mandates, lockdowns, social distancing and vaccines … it is because of people saying it was all a hoax and encouraging people to throw out the masks, refuse the vaccines, and carry on with “business as usual.” Or worse yet, take unproven medications intended for animals, or drink bleach.
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My experience was quite different.
Folks in my local were masked quite a bit. It was tried for quite some time. The CDC after the 2009 Swine Flu epidemic recommended against masks as a preventive measure. That guidance held through 2020. Dr. Anthony Fauci also recommended against masking in 2020 (speaking on 60 minutes) and then he changed his mind a short while later.
In addition, the US was heavily vaccinated. The US led the world initially in vaccinations and the vast majority of Americans were vaccinated at least once. I was vaccinated twice myself and did not become a skeptic until a year later when empirical results came out.
A doctor friend of mine sent me an interview of Dr. Brett Weinstein (interviewed by Tucker Carlson) in which the claim is made that the COVID vaccines killed 17 million. I just offer it up if you want to investigate. Or is that too difficult?
Dr. Anthony Fauci told Congress in January 2024 that social distancing mandates “just appeared”. https://nypost.com/2024/01/10/news/fauci-admits-to-congress-that-certain-covid-social-distancing-guidelines-lacked-scientific-basis-sort-of-just-appeared/
As I noted above: Dr. Alexander [COVID task force member], recounted the conversation during an interview on Dr. Drew Pinsky’s podcast. Dr. Alexander asked: “How did the CDC decide upon the ‘six feet rule’ for social distancing?” This simple and direct question received a simple and direct answer: “There is no science . . . We made it up,” per Dr. Redfield.
Ivermectin is a medicine that has been prescribed to humans billions of times the last fifty years. It won a Nobel prize for medicine. The WHO has it on its list to the 300 most essential medicines. Check your facts please.
Sorry, you found the post long-winded. Sometimes it takes a few paragraphs to fully cover a point. I find your comment very short and devoid of facts to support your belief.
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