On August 23, Judge J. Gregory Howard of the Butler County, Ohio, Court of Common Pleas granted a motion filed by plaintiff Julie Smith. This was on behalf of her husband, Jeff Smith, seeking an order compelling the West Chester Hospital to administer the drug Ivermectin to treat her husband, who remains in a medically induced coma in that hospital’s ICU unit, suffering from complications due to COVID-19. On that date, Judge Howard’s order required the hospital to administer the drug, as recommended by the Smiths’ prescribing physician and medical witness, Fred Wagshul, although no reliable medical evidence has shown it to be effective in treating the coronavirus. Significantly, the judge’s order did not state its reasoning or any findings of fact that would explain why the decision was made.
The hospital complied with the court’s order and began administering the drug over the past two weeks. This was done despite the hospital's objections, which had argued that the use of Ivermectin could interfere with the existing drugs that were helping to keep Smith alive. In the interim, a full hearing on the plaintiff’s application for a preliminary injunction was scheduled before Judge Michael A. Oster, Jr. The case had originally been assigned to Oster, but Howard had handled the August 23 hearing due to a conflict in Judge Oster’s schedule.
On Monday, after hearing testimony and reviewing evidence, Judge Oster reversed course and denied the plaintiff’s request for a preliminary injunction, essentially mooting his colleague’s prior order.
As reported by Andrea Salcedo, writing for the Washington Post:
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), and the American Medical Association (AMA) are united in their opposition to the use of Ivermectin in treating COVID-19. Along with the American Pharmacists Association, all have issued advisories or guidelines against the use of the drug for purposes of such treatment.
In seeking the original order, Smith was represented by Ralph Lorigo, the chairman of Erie County, New York’s Conservative Party. For his part, Wagshul is listed as a founder of the Front Line Covid-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC), an organization that touts the benefits of Ivermectin in preventing and treating COVID-19. Wagshul, interviewed last week by the Ohio Capital Journal, had this to say about the so-called effectiveness of the drug:
Wagshul’s Critical Care Alliance website includes articles that claim studies that recommended against the use of Ivermectin are part of a “hoax” and that the pharmaceutical industry is actively engaged in efforts to “cover up” its effectiveness to profit from the vaccines. The FLCCC site also contains inflammatory, conspiracy-driven videos and opinion-based articles from several purported experts on the subject.
Interviewed for the Capital Journal article, one physician with the Ohio University Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine called the FLCCC a site for “snake oil salesmen,” and says that the studies relied upon by Ivermectin’s proponents are scientifically unreliable:
During Monday’s hearing, Judge Oster specifically asked Wagshul whether the administration of Ivermectin to Smith was improving his condition. Wagshul could only reply that it “seemed” to be, a conclusion that Smith’s actual treating physician rebutted. Wagshul further testified that he simply did not know whether the continued administration of Ivermectin to Smith would benefit him in any way.
As noted by an article in the Capital Journal published directly after the hearing, several witnesses for the hospital expressed concerns about Wagshul’s credibility:
That fell far short of the “clear and convincing” standard of proof required to show “that there [was] a strong or substantial likelihood of success [of plaintiff Smith’s position] on the merits.” Ultimately the judge appears to have essentially weighed the overwhelming degree of evidence attesting to Ivermectin's ineffectiveness in treating COVID-19 against the statements by Wagshul and his cronies at FLCCC.
From Judge Oster’s order:
Judge Oster also ruled that plaintiff was free to transfer her husband to a hospital where Wagshul had privileges to treat. But the overwhelming import of his ruling is that courts should not be in the business of practicing medicine.
The court’s order is about as clear a refutation of the utility of this horse deworming paste for treating COVID-19 as can be envisioned; however, it is unlikely to change any minds from a practical standpoint. Trump and the Republican Party have conditioned people in this country to ignore fact-based and scientific-based evidence in favor of those conclusions they are comfortable with from a political standpoint, no matter how grievously inaccurate (or even ridiculous) those conclusions are. Seen in this perspective, believing in the curative abilities of Ivermectin is just a small step removed from believing that the 2020 election was somehow fraudulent or tainted.
This is particularly the case when the subject matter is not within the realm of knowledge of the average layperson. As evidenced by the coordinated effort to hawk this snake-oil cure for an epidemic it once characterized as a hoax, the right is simply doing what it has done for decades: pandering to peoples’ fears and ignorance while distracting from its own failures. By touting the nonexistent benefits of Ivermectin as some “miracle cure” for an intractable pandemic that they themselves are responsible for aggravating and prolonging, Republicans are simply exploiting an eager and willing audience for the purveyors of junk science, an audience ready to lap up whatever lethal nonsense is fed to it.
The hospital complied with the court’s order and began administering the drug over the past two weeks. This was done despite the hospital's objections, which had argued that the use of Ivermectin could interfere with the existing drugs that were helping to keep Smith alive. In the interim, a full hearing on the plaintiff’s application for a preliminary injunction was scheduled before Judge Michael A. Oster, Jr. The case had originally been assigned to Oster, but Howard had handled the August 23 hearing due to a conflict in Judge Oster’s schedule.
On Monday, after hearing testimony and reviewing evidence, Judge Oster reversed course and denied the plaintiff’s request for a preliminary injunction, essentially mooting his colleague’s prior order.
As reported by Andrea Salcedo, writing for the Washington Post:
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), and the American Medical Association (AMA) are united in their opposition to the use of Ivermectin in treating COVID-19. Along with the American Pharmacists Association, all have issued advisories or guidelines against the use of the drug for purposes of such treatment.
In seeking the original order, Smith was represented by Ralph Lorigo, the chairman of Erie County, New York’s Conservative Party. For his part, Wagshul is listed as a founder of the Front Line Covid-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC), an organization that touts the benefits of Ivermectin in preventing and treating COVID-19. Wagshul, interviewed last week by the Ohio Capital Journal, had this to say about the so-called effectiveness of the drug:
Wagshul’s Critical Care Alliance website includes articles that claim studies that recommended against the use of Ivermectin are part of a “hoax” and that the pharmaceutical industry is actively engaged in efforts to “cover up” its effectiveness to profit from the vaccines. The FLCCC site also contains inflammatory, conspiracy-driven videos and opinion-based articles from several purported experts on the subject.
Interviewed for the Capital Journal article, one physician with the Ohio University Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine called the FLCCC a site for “snake oil salesmen,” and says that the studies relied upon by Ivermectin’s proponents are scientifically unreliable:
During Monday’s hearing, Judge Oster specifically asked Wagshul whether the administration of Ivermectin to Smith was improving his condition. Wagshul could only reply that it “seemed” to be, a conclusion that Smith’s actual treating physician rebutted. Wagshul further testified that he simply did not know whether the continued administration of Ivermectin to Smith would benefit him in any way.
As noted by an article in the Capital Journal published directly after the hearing, several witnesses for the hospital expressed concerns about Wagshul’s credibility:
That fell far short of the “clear and convincing” standard of proof required to show “that there [was] a strong or substantial likelihood of success [of plaintiff Smith’s position] on the merits.” Ultimately the judge appears to have essentially weighed the overwhelming degree of evidence attesting to Ivermectin's ineffectiveness in treating COVID-19 against the statements by Wagshul and his cronies at FLCCC.
From Judge Oster’s order:
Judge Oster also ruled that plaintiff was free to transfer her husband to a hospital where Wagshul had privileges to treat. But the overwhelming import of his ruling is that courts should not be in the business of practicing medicine.
The court’s order is about as clear a refutation of the utility of this horse deworming paste for treating COVID-19 as can be envisioned; however, it is unlikely to change any minds from a practical standpoint. Trump and the Republican Party have conditioned people in this country to ignore fact-based and scientific-based evidence in favor of those conclusions they are comfortable with from a political standpoint, no matter how grievously inaccurate (or even ridiculous) those conclusions are. Seen in this perspective, believing in the curative abilities of Ivermectin is just a small step removed from believing that the 2020 election was somehow fraudulent or tainted.
This is particularly the case when the subject matter is not within the realm of knowledge of the average layperson. As evidenced by the coordinated effort to hawk this snake-oil cure for an epidemic it once characterized as a hoax, the right is simply doing what it has done for decades: pandering to peoples’ fears and ignorance while distracting from its own failures. By touting the nonexistent benefits of Ivermectin as some “miracle cure” for an intractable pandemic that they themselves are responsible for aggravating and prolonging, Republicans are simply exploiting an eager and willing audience for the purveyors of junk science, an audience ready to lap up whatever lethal nonsense is fed to it.