Is “Follow the [Official] Science” the last word on the Covid-19 vaccine debate?
Part 112/2021 (Contribution)
BRADES, Montserrat, May 31, 2021 – Freedom is always “noisy,” sometimes “complicated” and often “messy.” So, while there is generally good evidence of vaccine efficacy and safety, vaccines are not the whole reasonable, responsible story on the pandemic. Especially, for people with medical histories who should consult their doctors before taking any serious medical action.
That’s why we need to hear other sides of the story.
Accordingly, let us pay close attention to the Judith Smentkiewicz story. For, at age eighty years, she was on a ventilator at Millard Fillmore Suburban Hospital in Buffalo, New York; due to Covid-19 complications, and her family was desperately seeking treatment options.
As The Buffalo News reports[1]:
The patient’s son, Michael Smentkiewicz, said hospital officials had told him and his sister, Michelle Kulbacki, on Dec. 31 that their mother’s chance of survival – as an 80-year-old Covid-19 patient on a ventilator – was about 20% . . . . “We did a lot of our own research, we read about Ivermectin . . . The results sounded very promising, and we decided we had to try something different”[2] . . . On Jan. 2, Smentkiewicz was given her first dose of Ivermectin, and . . . “In less than 48 hours, my mother was taken off the ventilator, transferred out of the Intensive Care Unit, sitting up on her own and communicating” . . . But after [being] transferred to another hospital wing away from the ICU, doctors in that unit refused to give her any more doses of the drug, and her condition quickly declined . . .
Understandably, having seen what a single dose of treatment often dismissed as a mere worm medicine did, the family took the hospital to court. New York State Supreme Court Judge Henry J. Nowak then sided with them, and “ordered the hospital to ‘immediately administer the drug Ivermectin’ ” He also told the family that the “family doctor would have to write a prescription for Ivermectin,” which he did. The result was again successful. That’s significant, let’s summarise the case:
PHASE 1: in ICU on a ventilator for CV-19, 80-year-old, 20% chance of survival
PHASE 2: One dose of Ivermectin, in 48 hours, out of ICU
PHASE 3: New doctors refuse further Ivermectin, deterioration, back to ICU
PHASE 4: After a lawsuit, Ivermectin again, and recovery.
So, is this a mere isolated anecdotal account, or is it yet another case of accumulating “real-world evidence” that we need to listen to?
A key step is to see that her family members say that they “did a lot of [their] own research . . . read about Ivermectin.” So, if that is so, why is it we have repeatedly, overwhelmingly heard dismissive remarks about it from various officials and experts, as though yes it might fix some cases of worms but is all but utterly dubious conspiracist speculation when it comes to Covid-19?
Something does not add up.
For example, it is commonly reported that up to a fifth of prescriptions in the leading medical country, the USA, are for “off-label use” of drugs.
That is, once a drug has been certified as safe and effective for one condition, it may be found to have other credible medical benefits. Accordingly, qualified medical doctors often responsibly use their own personal knowledge of such useful side effects to prescribe the drug for other complaints; even without going through the multiplied millions or even billions required to get an additional on-label certification. That is how low dose aspirin came to be prescribed for heart or circulation conditions and it is how another “controversial” drug, Hydroxychloroquine, was found to be effective for arthritis and lupus.
In addition, it is clear that real-world experience or even traditional lore can and do provide useful evidence that various substances have good medicinal effects. Hence, the rising global market for natural remedies, supplements, “superfoods” – including mangoes, pomegranates, the sweet potato – and nutraceuticals, etc.
So, perhaps we should hear out what Dr. Joel Hischhorn of the Frontline Doctors group (which includes the Cameronian-Texan Dr. Stella Immanuel) has to say about Ivermectin (IVM) in his recently released book, Pandemic Blunder:
“IVM is a medication used to treat many types of parasite infestations and came into medical use in 1981. It has been used about 3.8 billion times worldwide, and its success resulted in a 2015 Nobel Prize in medicine. It is also considered an antibiotic and antiviral drug. Like HCL [Hydroxychloroquine] it is a cheap generic requiring a prescription. It is believed that it prevents the coronavirus from entering host cells to stop replication . . . . In recent years IVM has been found effective for a number of RNA viruses, including Zika, yellow fever, West Nile, and avian influenza A. COVID-19 is also an RNA virus. So, the repurposing of IVM for the current pandemic makes much sense. But it has not precipitated media attention, thus allowing some doctors at the forefront of the early home/outpatient movement to use IVM effectively.”
So, the last word has yet to be spoken on Ivermectin, etc., or even on the full story on vaccines. For, full development and testing require four to seven years, typically, including giving time for long term side effects to emerge[3]:
Perhaps, then, it is time for a more balanced, open discussion on public health, treatment options, and onward possibilities for the ongoing pandemic?
[1] See https://buffalonews.com/news/local/after-judge-orders-hospital-to-use-experimental-covid-19-treatment-woman-recovers/article_a9eb315c-5694-11eb-aac5-53b541448755.html
[2] E.g., see references linked here https://covid19criticalcare.com/videos-and-press/flccc-lecture-for-ypo-gold-on-ivermectin/
