Federal appeals court revives lawsuit against FDA over COVID-19 ivermectin messaging

[KCfromNC]

With the Tide Pod analogy, if they identified a trend of a bunch of dumb kids eating it for some social media challenge, are they allowed to lie about what the nature of detergent pods are, or punish people who use laundry detergent for cleaning purposes outside of clothes in order to hammer the point home? Or are regulatory agencies still tasked with being honest about the nature of issues?

They could have told kids they aren't washing machines ... and then end up being sued for that too. If GOP messaging made sense, it wouldn't be GOP messaging, I guess.

 

[Tropical Wilds]

Aquarium antibiotics are fine **if** one knows how to titrate the dosing.
Those are formulated to treat a forty liter (or more) aquarium so that the “human dose” would be much much less.

No, they really aren’t.

Ornamental Fish Drugs and You

Although it’s true that people and many animals are sometimes given the same antibiotic, they shouldn’t be shared or substituted between species.

www.fda.gov

They’re not evaluated for human consumption, do not have universal dosing standards across brands making it hard to calculate dosing, may not be produced in food/medication-safe facilities, and there is significant risk for cross contamination with dangerous chemicals. Not to mention there are medications to treat aquariums sans fish and there are medications to treat fish, and it’s very possible to make yourself ill if you take a medication meant to treat an aquarium as part of conditioning it to receive fish vs the same medication at a dose meant to treat fish. Especially with exotic fish, some aquarium medications are meant to be paired with water cycling as part of preparing it to receive fish. Even if it’s the same medication, an aquarium medication is a dose unsafe for fish and highly unwise for humans, hence the need for a different fish medication.

Really, let’s just stick with people medicine for people, animal medicines for animals. Were we in a Fallout 76-style nuclear apocalypse, sure, let’s see what we can do. But in 2023 with ready access to doctors, minute clinics, emergency rooms, and first responders, let’s just stick with people stuff.

 

[Pommer]

No, they really aren’t.

Ornamental Fish Drugs and You

Although it’s true that people and many animals are sometimes given the same antibiotic, they shouldn’t be shared or substituted between species.

www.fda.gov

They’re not evaluated for human consumption, do not have universal dosing standards across brands making it hard to calculate dosing, may not be produced in food/medication-safe facilities, and there is significant risk for cross contamination with dangerous chemicals. Not to mention there are medications to treat aquariums sans fish and there are medications to treat fish, and it’s very possible to make yourself ill if you take a medication meant to treat an aquarium as part of conditioning it to receive fish vs the same medication at a dose meant to treat fish. Especially with exotic fish, some aquarium medications are meant to be paired with water cycling as part of preparing it to receive fish. Even if it’s the same medication, an aquarium medication is a dose unsafe for fish and highly unwise for humans, hence the need for a different fish medication.

Really, let’s just stick with people medicine for people, animal medicines for animals. Were we in a Fallout 76-style nuclear apocalypse, sure, let’s see what we can do. But in 2023 with ready access to doctors, minute clinics, emergency rooms, and first responders, let’s just stick with people stuff.

You’re serious?
If a pharmaceutical company killed people’s tropical fish, the outrage and backlash would dwarf any product liability case to date.
The bins that churn out the erythromycin for humans are the same as for the fish but the fish-type has less filler and binders.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

They could have told kids they aren't washing machines ... and then end up being sued for that too. If GOP messaging made sense, it wouldn't be GOP messaging, I guess.

But this isn't about GOP messaging...it's about CDC/FDA messaging.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

And with Ivermectin, they identified a trend of dumb people using it because of social media. They didn’t lie about the nature of Ivermectin, nor did they punish people for using it. It doesn’t even say that doctors shouldn’t or are wrong for prescribing it, just that it’s off-label and if it is prescribed, to take it as the doctor directs. So if you do get a doctor who doesn’t care that it’s off label and believes he knows more than science and believes it does work, the FDA doesn’t forbid it, it just says take it as directed.

I don’t think an FDA statement to the effect of “stop taking horse dewormer for COVID because your doctor won’t give you an RX” is an unreasonable or misleading statement.

Nobody was arrested for prescribing it, there were no calls for people to be arrested for prescribing it, no pharmacists refused to fill it, and nobody was punished for taking it. Perhaps you’re confused and thinking of birth control pills or the morning after pill or mail order abortion pills.

You seem to be assuming a lot here...

First off, based on the sheer number of people who immediately assumed ivermectin was exclusively a livestock dewormer shows the flaw in their messaging.

The doctors bringing the suit were ones who were punished for prescribing it.

I'm not in the camp that believes anyone should be restricting birth control pills, Plan B, or mifepristone. If you read my posting history, I defend all of those things. In fact, I've posted on here before that if republicans wanted to reduce abortions, they should be on-board with no-cost contraception for people who don't have the funds.

Perhaps this post isn't the slam dunk you thought it was?

 

[zippy2006]

I read the article in question and it does no such thing.

It does. Read the article of the OP. You are bringing in a different article.

The FDA’s campaign, which included viral signs reading “You are not a horse,” emphasized agency recommendations that ivermectin — an anti-parasite medication often used for horses but sometimes prescribed to humans — should not be used to treat COVID-19.​

​

Yes, this is lying. It implies that ivermectin is for horses and not for humans, which is a lie, and it is intended to make other people believe this falsehood. It is a lie as a means to an end. It is similar to when Fauci told everyone that masks don't help, because he wanted to maintain a large number of masks for medical personnel. Another lie as a means to an end. The obvious problem is that these lies are coming from authoritative, "trusted" sources. Sources like the FDA should not have the option to lie to the general public when they feel like it. Defending such a practice is crazy.

 

[Tropical Wilds]

You seem to be assuming a lot here...

First off, based on the sheer number of people who immediately assumed ivermectin was exclusively a livestock dewormer shows the flaw in their messaging.

The doctors bringing the suit were ones who were punished for prescribing it.

I'm not in the camp that believes anyone should be restricting birth control pills, Plan B, or mifepristone. If you read my posting history, I defend all of those things. In fact, I've posted on here before that if republicans wanted to reduce abortions, they should be on-board with no-cost contraception for people who don't have the funds.

Perhaps this post isn't the slam dunk you thought it was?

Did you research what these doctors were punished for?

The doctors who were punished were punished by their employers, not the FDA. One took to Twitter to dispense medical advice, tell patients how to present themselves to get the med, falsely claim she was involved in studies on Ivermectin that proved it effective (untrue) and her hospital and the government covered it up (untrue), and used “vulgar language” while sharing her “medical opinion and political views” on Twitter. The other two were removed from their teaching positions in a medical school and a hospital. One was teaching that the FDA was wrong and pressuring others under them into prescribing it as a front line medication and continued to do so after being told not to, the other was promoting the name brand drug on his social media while invoking his position and offering advice on how to lie to get it and have it covered by insurance. As I’m sure you know, there are rules (both in medical centers and federally) about doctors advertising medications to the public especially while claiming to be a representative of a named hospital and insurance fraud is universally frowned on. One of the two (I’m unclear as to which one) actually said on Facebook that if their doctor wouldn’t prescribe it, to get the livestock version and DM him so he could tell you the dosing.

The “you are not a horse” tweet which led to a link that says to use ivermectin under a doctors supervision and with the doses they prescribe and to not buy it from places unauthorized to sell medications to humans did not ruin these doctors reputations. Their behavior did. You can’t be a doctor and advertise meds on your social media. You can’t coach people on how to commit insurance fraud. You can’t cuss out people who disagree with you online or lie about your role in a study or tell your students that the FDA is a meaningless agency. You can’t pressure subordinates into prescribing drugs for an off-label use.

Those are pretty basic, common sense things and to go against that as a medical professional… Yeah, your reputation will go down the tube because you’ve broken the trust people should have in you.

Seriously, it would be like suing a car company because they say in their ad disclaimer “professional driver, do not attempt” but you tried it 5 times, got into 5 accidents, now you’re upset people think you’re a bad driver and your insurance dropped you. People think you’re a bad driver because you’re a bad driver, not because the car company told you not to drive like they do in the ad.

 

[Tropical Wilds]

It does. Read the article of the OP. You are bringing in a different article.

The FDA’s campaign, which included viral signs reading “You are not a horse,” emphasized agency recommendations that ivermectin — an anti-parasite medication often used for horses but sometimes prescribed to humans — should not be used to treat COVID-19.​

​

Yes, this is lying. It implies that ivermectin is for horses and not for humans, which is a lie, and it is intended to make other people believe this falsehood. It is a lie as a means to an end. It is similar to when Fauci told everyone that masks don't help, because he wanted to maintain a large number of masks for medical personnel. Another lie as a means to an end. The obvious problem is that these lies are coming from authoritative, "trusted" sources. Sources like the FDA should not have the option to lie to the general public when they feel like it. Defending such a practice is crazy.

The article attached in my post is the one that was linked in the tweet. The exact one, word-for-word.

And there is no lie… Ivermectin is commonly used in horses, but is “sometimes” prescribed for humans, and it shouldn’t be used to treat COVID because it doesn’t work and animal version shouldn’t be taken at all.

I’m tired of the “Fauci lied about masks” false narrative. He said don’t wear masks at the start of the pandemic. Then they learned more about COVID, including that a large number of people passing the virus were doing so when they were asymptomatic, and he revised his recommendation (as did everybody else) based off of this to say that masking did have benefits and people should mask. That’s how science and medicine works… It evolves as the information becomes clearer as do the treatments.

The whole mask conspiracy theory is just so stupid to begin with. What does Fauci have to gain by lying about wearing masks? Nothing. He has no reason to lie and nothing to gain by having the populace mask. And if he says “wear a mask” and it turns out to not work, who is harmed? Nobody. Nobody will die because they wore a mask when they didn’t need to. But we are rounding the corner on 7 million dead worldwide, almost 3 million of them in the US. The the equivalent of the entire populations of Wyoming, Vermont, DC, and Alaska combined dead from COVID. Given that statistic, given that masking is easy, cheap, safe, and will cause the death of zero people, and given we know masks do help prevent contamination and disease (which is why medical professionals wear them), Fauci saying “a lot of people are dying, we should try this to try and contain the spread” is common sense, not a conspiracy. At the very start of COVID our area was one of the earliest hit, my doctor told me to mask as a precautions. He wasn’t lying, he was giving me a best practice scenario to try and say safe.

Since it’s 2023 and I’ve yet to get COVID despite being immune compromised and working in a public-facing job, clearly the combination of diligent masking (which I’m still doing) and keeping my COVID shot current (along with other best practices) is doing the trick for me. Not getting COVID at all despite being in the highest risk category is quite ok with me.

 

[zippy2006]

I’m tired of the “Fauci lied about masks” false narrative.

Are you at all interested in the truth?

Fauci’s Mask Flip-Flop, Explained (by Economics)

Newly published emails from February 2020 undermine Dr. Fauci's claim that his early recommendation to not wear masks was motivated by fear of causing a mask-purchasing stampede.

fee.org

 

[KCfromNC]

But this isn't about GOP messaging...it's about CDC/FDA messaging.

CDC/FDA messaging about what, specifically?

Oh right, the far right creative writing department pushing the idea that horse dewormer will cure COVID. And now their antics when government agencies point out facts like, in this instance, people aren't horses.

 

[Pommer]

CDC/FDA messaging about what, specifically?

Oh right, the far right creative writing department pushing the idea that horse dewormer will cure COVID. And now their antics when government agencies point out facts like, in this instance, people aren't horses.

Nay!

 

[zippy2006]

CDC/FDA messaging about what, specifically?

Oh right, the far right creative writing department pushing the idea that horse dewormer will cure COVID. And now their antics when government agencies point out facts like, in this instance, people aren't horses.

The claim that one should not take ivermectin because they are not a horse is based on the lie that ivermectin is only for horses and not for people. Try to follow along, boy. This isn't rocket science.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Did you research what these doctors were punished for?

The doctors who were punished were punished by their employers, not the FDA. One took to Twitter to dispense medical advice, tell patients how to present themselves to get the med, falsely claim she was involved in studies on Ivermectin that proved it effective (untrue) and her hospital and the government covered it up (untrue), and used “vulgar language” while sharing her “medical opinion and political views” on Twitter. The other two were removed from their teaching positions in a medical school and a hospital. One was teaching that the FDA was wrong and pressuring others under them into prescribing it as a front line medication and continued to do so after being told not to, the other was promoting the name brand drug on his social media while invoking his position and offering advice on how to lie to get it and have it covered by insurance. As I’m sure you know, there are rules (both in medical centers and federally) about doctors advertising medications to the public especially while claiming to be a representative of a named hospital and insurance fraud is universally frowned on. One of the two (I’m unclear as to which one) actually said on Facebook that if their doctor wouldn’t prescribe it, to get the livestock version and DM him so he could tell you the dosing.

The “you are not a horse” tweet which led to a link that says to use ivermectin under a doctors supervision and with the doses they prescribe and to not buy it from places unauthorized to sell medications to humans did not ruin these doctors reputations. Their behavior did. You can’t be a doctor and advertise meds on your social media. You can’t coach people on how to commit insurance fraud. You can’t cuss out people who disagree with you online or lie about your role in a study or tell your students that the FDA is a meaningless agency. You can’t pressure subordinates into prescribing drugs for an off-label use.

Those are pretty basic, common sense things and to go against that as a medical professional… Yeah, your reputation will go down the tube because you’ve broken the trust people should have in you.

Seriously, it would be like suing a car company because they say in their ad disclaimer “professional driver, do not attempt” but you tried it 5 times, got into 5 accidents, now you’re upset people think you’re a bad driver and your insurance dropped you. People think you’re a bad driver because you’re a bad driver, not because the car company told you not to drive like they do in the ad.

So would these standards cut both ways?

Meaning, are the punishments equitable if people are "going rogue" when they're on the other side of the debate?

For instance, there was a company called One Medical, a concierge private medical practice that was helping to facilitate "vaccine line cutting" by doing the "wink wink nudge nudge...you have a preexisting condition? right?"

How many doctors from that organization got barred from social media and had their medical license yanked? Were there any serious repercussions for them? I'm guessing not based on the fact that they remained in operation and Amazon just bought them a few months ago.


How about for the lying in the form of either downplaying or overexaggerating the risks of covid? Only the former got people tossed out of the town square, the latter seemingly came with no consequences.


In 2021, when polled

41% of Democrats and over 20% of Republicans and Independents thought the hospitalization rate for unvaccinated people was >50%. That estimate was wildly high...they got that idea from somewhere, and it certainly wasn't from honest messaging from media and public health officials. That dissuaded a lot of people from going back to work, pushing for schools to remain closed, keeping businesses shut down, etc... All things that had consequences.

Yet, the only lies that got people in trouble were the ones on the other end where people claimed "it's no worse than a cold or flu".

There's clearly a double-standard with regards to how different forms of misinformation were treated.

Heck, there's still public health officials in certain states putting out messaging along the lines of "Do it to protect your family and those around you" regarding boosters, despite the fact that the communal benefit of the vaccines left along with the Alpha variant, and despite the fact that Paul Offit (on the board of both the FDA and CDC advisory committees) has stated that the data doesn't support boosters for most people.

Here's an interesting recent article:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/08/19/jama-study-on-covid-misinformation-won-t-restore-trust-in-public-health/8ab7228c-3e8b-11ee-aefd-40c039a855ba_story.html

 

[ThatRobGuy]

CDC/FDA messaging about what, specifically?

Oh right, the far right creative writing department pushing the idea that horse dewormer will cure COVID. And now their antics when government agencies point out facts like, in this instance, people aren't horses.

Point of reference:

So who's misinformation was more effective at shaping public opinion?

Evidently the right wing messaging surrounding "take this off label medication" only managed to convince 22% of Republicans that it was effective. (with nearly as many thinking it was dangerous to take Ivermectin)

However, the progressive messaging around covid itself managed to convince 41% of Democrats that the hospitalization rate for it was >50% (and convince another 12% of them that it was >30%) ...prompting people to demand that businesses stay closed and schools be 100% remote.


What's more impactful? 1 out of 5 republicans taking an off label drug falsely thinking it'll address covid if they catch it? (most would've survived anyway...and for the ones who didn't, it's on them, most democrats made the choice to get vaccinated...most republicans too for that matter), or keeping businesses shuttered (or at limited capacity) for 2 years, and costing an entire generation over a year of in-person learning and the social developmental aspects that go with it?

 

[Pommer]

The claim that one should not take ivermectin because they are not a horse is based on the lie that ivermectin is only for horses and not for people. Try to follow along, boy. This isn't rocket science.

Correct but the dose for a horse and an adult human being of 75kg (or a 30kg child) are going to be different.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Correct but the dose for a horse and an adult human being of 75kg (or a 30kg child) are going to be different.

Obviously...

But the messaging should've been more honest.

Like I noted early

"Don't go to Quality Farm & Fleet and buy ivermectin made for horses" would've been fine.

Implying that it was exclusively a "horse medication" (as if that was going to make anti-vaxxers get vaccinated) was not only a dishonest approach, but an ineffective one.


Honestly, what was their game plan? Did they seriously think that if they portrayed it that way (and yanked the MD licenses from people who were prescribing it off-label), a person who was dead set on finding "anything but the vaccine" was going to say "well, shucks, they said it's for horses, and took my doctor's license away...guess I'll get vaccinated"?

If they'd learned anything from the last year, it's that they'd just move onto the next thing.

They got on board with Hydroxychloroquine, when they tried to squash that, they tried to use Z-pak as a prophylactic...when they squashed that, they moved onto Ivermectin.

If they're willing to dip their toes into the murky waters of dishonesty, a better approach would've been reverse psychology.

If their goal was to get conservative anti-establishment people vaccinated, and were willing to be misleading in order to accomplish that, they would've gotten more mileage out of a public messaging campaign saying "We need to prioritize vaccinating illegal immigrants and transgender people before straight white people get them".

We saw it first hand with masks. When Fauci first said "don't buy masks, they don't do much" early on, my uncle practically raided every Home Depot in a 50 mile radius to stockpile the 3M respirators they had. The moment Fauci started saying people should mask up, he let them collect dust in the garage and started calling them "face diapers" and spouting off corny phrases about "my freedom of speech won't be muzzled by a mask"

 

[Pommer]

Obviously...

But the messaging should've been more honest.

Like I noted early

"Don't go to Quality Farm & Fleet and buy ivermectin made for horses" would've been fine.

Implying that it was exclusively a "horse medication" (as if that was going to make anti-vaxxers get vaccinated) was not only a dishonest approach, but an ineffective one.


Honestly, what was their game plan? Did they seriously think that if they portrayed it that way (and yanked the MD licenses from people who were prescribing it off-label), a person who was dead set on finding "anything but the vaccine" was going to say "well, shucks, they said it's for horses, and took my doctor's license away...guess I'll get vaccinated"?

If they'd learned anything from the last year, it's that they'd just move onto the next thing.

They got on board with Hydroxychloroquine, when they tried to squash that, they tried to use Z-pak as a prophylactic...when they squashed that, they moved onto Ivermectin.

If they're willing to dip their toes into the murky waters of dishonesty, a better approach would've been reverse psychology.

If their goal was to get conservative anti-establishment people vaccinated, and were willing to be misleading in order to accomplish that, they would've gotten more mileage out of a public messaging campaign saying "We need to prioritize vaccinating illegal immigrants and transgender people before straight white people get them".

We saw it first hand with masks. When Fauci first said "don't buy masks, they don't do much" early on, my uncle practically raided every Home Depot in a 50 mile radius to stockpile the 3M respirators they had. The moment Fauci started saying people should mask up, he let them collect dust in the garage and started calling them "face diapers" and spouting off corny phrases about "my freedom of speech won't be muzzled by a mask"

It was a changing situation, there was a pandemic response plan that was chucked into the trash because it had Obama cooties on it, so there’s that.
This is a(nother) reason why pandemics are bad to go through, mistakes will be made.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

It was a changing situation, there was a pandemic response plan that was chucked into the trash because it had Obama cooties on it, so there’s that.

I've often heard the claim that Obama's Pandemic Playbook would've drastically changed the trajectory. But I've yet to see that actually quantified.
Most of that talk was occurring back in early 2020 and we haven't heard much about the playbook since.

I've read large parts of that 60-something page document (Politico published it), and while it has some good stuff in there specifically regarding funding for PPE and reallocation of hospital resources, I don't think it would've been the game changer it was being sold as in early 2020. (which is probably why we haven't heard a peep about it in the last two years.

Much of it was written based on what they knew about the recent (at the time) outbreaks for MERS and Ebola, Ebola wasn't nearly as transmissible, and MERS never really got a foothold here in the US (I think there were a grand total of two reported US cases), so the playbook was largely untested for highly transmissible airborne viruses that can have a substantial number of asymptomatic carriers.

 

[KCfromNC]

Point of reference:

View attachment 335715

View attachment 335716


So who's misinformation was more effective at shaping public opinion?

Who cares? What's the down side of people not taking a drug that isn't effective against a disease? Compare and contrast against the downside falsely believing a drug is effective to see what I mean.

But hey, never miss a chance at a false equivalency. After all, the democrats must be bad, right, otherwise the GOP wouldn't be forced by them into doing what they're doing.

 

[KCfromNC]

Obviously...

But the messaging should've been more honest.

What do you mean? It was targeting a specific problem, one which was actually happening : People ingesting veterinary-use ivermectin in attempts to prevent, cure COVID-19