Ivermectin is an anti-parasitic drug that has been used since the mid-1970s to treat river blindness and intestinal infections.  It has been documented by frontline doctors around the world to also be a safe and effective treatment for COVID-19.  Ivermectin has found widespread use in Latin America and India and was just greenlighted for treatment against COVID in Japan.

In the United States, however, not only is ivermectin not FDA-approved, but it is demonized with a near-religious fervor.

Why is the U.S. medical establishment so opposed to ivermectin?  They say it is because large-scale trials have not been done.  But this rings hollow, with evidence from around the world saying just the opposite.  More likely, the true answers circle back to money and reputations.

Let's break this down in some detail.  Before doing so, keep two things in mind.  First, ivermectin is an oral drug.  It is not a vaccine.  Second, ivermectin is off-patent, meaning that it is cheap.

1) The approval of ivermectin for COVID would severely dampen vaccine sales.  People would reason, "Why should I take a risky vaccine when, if I catch COVID, it can be treated?"  The fear of the vaccine lobby is that approval of ivermectin would fuel vaccine hesitancy, especially when they are advocating for booster shots perhaps even on a yearly basis.

2) The release of the COVID vaccines was done under an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) grant.  This EUA was predicated by the belief that there was no effective treatment for COVID.  This allowed shortcuts to be taken on the release of these novel vaccines to the public.  One of the shortcuts was that possible long-term side-effects were not adequately studied.  Should ivermectin be approved, this could threaten the EUA for the vaccines and, in the worst case for the vaccine lobby, lead to their recall.  The embarrassment would be unpalatable.

On August 23, the FDA fully approved the Pfizer vaccine under the name Comirnaty.  But reading the fine print of this approval leaves doubts. 

3) Approval of ivermectin for COVID would officially make it an anti-viral drug.  Dr. Pierre Kory notes that Merck and Pfizer are right now deep into the process of developing their own anti-COVID oral drugs.  Should these drugs be approved, they would be under patent protection and hence expensive.  They could not compete with low-cost ivermectin in the marketplace, meaning that much of Big Pharma's R&D investment could be lost.

4) For ivermectin to get approval for COVID, the FDA is insisting that large-scale testing be done.  The FDA refuses to take multiple small trials and merge them into a metastudy, as is often done.  What the FDA is demanding is expensive.  Ivermectin is off-patent and is inexpensive.  Even if the approval cost could be recovered, the profits for ivermectin would be slim and not a blockbuster hit that Big Pharma looks for.   

5) Woven through the points above are the reputations of medical professionals who for whatever reasons ignored the evidence for ivermectin and other treatments for COVID.  Should ivermectin get approved, questions would be asked, like how much suffering and how many deaths could have been avoided if this was done earlier?  Nobody in the medical establishment is prepared to answer that question.  This, perhaps more than any other reason, is why ivermectin and other treatments for COVID are demonized.  So the strategy is to naysay ivermectin and push vaccinations to the hilt.  However, much of the rest of the world is not following America's lead.  Perhaps this is because their medical authorities are not held in the grip of Big Pharma as tightly as ours is. 

I'm optimistic.  In surveying the information that is available, it is hard to see how the current official narrative on the dangers of the COVID virus, the source of the virus itself, and the vaccines and treatments for it can stand.  There are too many holes in the story.  Plus more and more accomplished doctors and scientists are speaking out.  Interestingly, news of Japan approving ivermectin for COVID doesn't have much of an effect on the public, as most have never heard of it.  But when the hip and popular podcaster Joe Rogen, with 11 million young listeners, recently credited ivermectin for his rapid recovery from COVID, ears perked up.  Try as they might, this false narrative cannot be long perpetuated, nor can the truth be censored indefinitely.

Image: Avitek.

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