(The Defender) The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) agreed to take down its website and social media posts warning people not to use ivermectin to treat COVID-19 under terms of a settlement reached Thursday in a lawsuit alleging the agency exceeded its authority when it directed health professionals and patients not to use the drug.
Within 21 days, the agency will remove the consumer update, “Why You Should Not Use Ivermectin to Treat or Prevent COVID-19,” which pictures a doctor and a horse. The FDA posted the update on March 5, 2021.
The FDA webpage, still live, states repeatedly that the FDA has not authorized or approved ivermectin for treating COVID-19 and warns the drug can be “unsafe.” The page also includes language warning people not to use ivermectin “intended for livestock.”
The FDA will also delete social media posts from Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram posted in 2021 and 2022 with messages such as “You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y’all. Stop it.”
The posts suggest ivermectin is not “authorized” for treating COVID-19. The agency also will remove all posts that link to the webpage about the drug.
It has already taken down its Frequently Asked Questions page about ivermectin.
In exchange for removing the internet content, plaintiffs in the lawsuit — Dr. Mary Talley Bowden, Dr. Paul Marik and Dr. Robert Apter — will dismiss their claims against the FDA.
“This is a landmark case and one of the most important wins in the whole COVID era,” said Marik, chief scientific officer of the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC) and former chief of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at Eastern Virginia Medical School.
Marik told The Defender:
“It goes beyond ivermectin. It goes to the authority of the FDA, what they can and they can’t do. It’s really about the patient-physician relationship, doctors being allowed to be doctors and prescribe medicine. And so hopefully going forward this will limit the interference by the regulatory agencies to control medicine.”
Bowden, an otolaryngologist with 25 years of experience, tweeted this:
🚨BREAKING:
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.This landmark case sets an important precedent in limiting FDA overreach into the… pic.twitter.com/HWYkkZLpoJ
— Mary Talley Bowden MD (@MdBreathe) March 22, 2024
