While the Edward Hospital in Naperville, Illinois insisted on administering remdesivir to the patient, the lawyer of the patient's family was able to get a court order for the use of ivermectin.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the use of ivermectin tablets to treat humans with intestinal strongyloidiasis and onchocerciasis, two conditions caused by parasitic worms.
Some topical forms of ivermectin have been approved to treat external parasites like head lice and skin conditions like rosacea. The drug is also approved for use on animals.
Bu the use of ivermectin to treat humans suffering from COVID-19 remains controversial because the FDA hasn't approved its off-label use to treat the disease.
Instead, remdesivir has been given emergency use authorization by the FDA for treating certain categories of human patients that have been hospitalized with COVID-19. (Related: Remdesivir is "probably worthless"… trials rigged to gain FDA-granted 7-year monopoly.)
The FDA has been accused by critics of being overly cautious and indifferent to human suffering in its approach to regulating pharmaceuticals, which led to then-President Donald Trump signing the Right to Try Act in May 2018.
It provided another way for patients who have been diagnosed with life-threatening diseases or conditions who have tried all approved treatment options and who are unable to participate in a clinical trial to access certain unapproved treatments.
Medical doctors are actually free to prescribe ivermectin to treat COVID-19, even though the FDA claims that its off-label use could be harmful in some circumstances.
Kirstin Erickson, the family's lawyer, said ivermectin saved the elderly patient's life because his condition changed immediately after he took the drug.
Hospitals are trying to kill COVID patients
The 71-year-old Sun Ng came from Hong Kong to attend his granddaughter's first birthday. He became infected with COVID-19 and within days was close to death. His condition worsened dramatically and he was intubated and placed on a ventilator a few days later.
After doing her own research, the patient's daughter decided that her father should take ivermectin.
The hospital refused to administer ivermectin, forcing the daughter to go to court. Judge Paul M. Fullerton of the Circuit Court of DuPage County granted a temporary restraining order requiring the hospital to allow ivermectin to be given to the patient.
One physician testified during a court hearing that Sun Ng had a mere 10-15 percent chance of survival.
Fulleron said the use of ivermectin will lead to minor side effects like dizziness, itchy skin and diarrhea but the risks are so minimal that his current situation outweighs that risk by one-hundredfold.
The judge issued a preliminary injunction directing the hospital to immediately allow temporary emergency privileges to Ng's physician, Dr. Alan Bain, to administer ivermectin to the patient.
But the hospital continued to resist the order, saying it couldn't let Bain because he is unvaccinated against COVID-19.
Erickson filed an emergency report with the court on Nov. 8, and Fullerton heard from both sides. The judge admonished the hospital and restated that it must allow Bain within 15 days to do his job. When the hospital filed a motion to stay the order, Fullerton denied it and again directed the facility to comply.
Ivermectin seemed to work as the patient recovered from COVID-19. He was discharged by the hospital on Nov. 27.
"My father’s recovery is amazing. My father is a tough man. He was working so hard to survive, and of course, with God’s holding hands. He weaned off oxygen about three days after moving out of the ICU," the patient's daughter said in a statement.
"He can now stand with a walker at the bedside and practice stepping. After being sedated for a month on a ventilator in ICU, his performance is beyond our expectations. Praise the Lord."
Erickson said the happy result provides hope for the nation.
"We get calls from all over the place," she told the Epoch Times. "People that want to sue hospitals after someone’s passed, they wanted to get the medicine and couldn’t. Obviously, that’s a different, difficult case because a medical malpractice case is very difficult."
Erickson continued: "People just want to do what’s best for their family members and find ivermectin themselves and have it on hand and use it when someone starts to develop symptoms."
Australian fined for advertising ivermectin, zinc lozenges
Meanwhile, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), Australia's drug regulatory body, fined an individual three times totaling AU$7,992 ($5,710) for allegedly advertising ivermectin and zinc lozenges to treat COVID-19.
"The individual allegedly claimed, on their website, that ivermectin and zinc lozenges are effective in the treatment of COVID-19," the TGA said in a press release on Nov. 30. "References in advertising to the coronavirus (COVID-19) are a restricted representation and the individual had not been granted authorization to make the claim."
TDA has taken a tough stance on "false and misleading" advertising products related to the coronavirus since the start of the pandemic.
"If you are suspicious of the claims being made about a product, including those advertised as preventing or curing COVID-19, you can provide information to us via the online advertising complaint form," the TGA said in a statement in March last year.
Medical authorities in Australia have even suspended practitioners for sharing content on social media platforms that do not conform to existing medical orthodoxy.
William Campbell and Satoshi Omura in 2015 won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery and applications of ivermectin. The World Health Organization also features ivermectin on its list of essential medicines.
Doctors and health care professionals have considered ivermectin as a repurposed medicine in tackling COVID-19, especially when used as early treatment. Many have praised ivermectin for having successfully helped thousands of their patients survive the initial waves of COVID-19.
The Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance and the British Ivermectin Recommendation Development Group have been campaigning for the off-label use of the drug to combat the disease amid the pandemic.
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