Igniting one of the fiercest controversies of the pandemic in recent months, a wave of lawsuits have been filed in courtrooms across the country, as guardians of critically ill Covid-19 patients seek court orders to have their hospitalized loved treated with ivermectin.
Dozens of lawsuits are pending in a wide array of states, 14 of them in New York, AP reports, including hospitals in the cities of Rochester, Poughkeepsie and Monroe. Attorneys have won lawsuits of this nature in New York, Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi and Ohio.
But as families demand the right to try a medication that has been used successfully in dozens of countries, hospital administrations are relentlessly pushing back, citing the advice of the CDC and FDA not to use ivermectin for Covid.
In a typical scenario, precious minutes tick by with a critically ill patient deteriorating on a ventilator as oral arguments fly back and forth in court hearings, while the frantic family awaits a judge’s ruling that may spell life or death.
The phenomenon of so many lawsuits demanding ivermectin for hospitalized patients has taken the debate about the drug to new levels, with critics saying the court challenges threaten to hijack hospitals’ medical authority, and must be resisted.
“Hospitals are not restaurants,” one hospital administrator protested. “We can’t have patients coming in and ordering whatever treatment they desire.”
Advocates of the legal avenue for families desperate to save their loved one disagree. They argue that the courts are the very last recourse available to them. When all else has failed, they say, and hospitals admit they have nothing more to offer, a patient has the fundamental right to try anything that offers even the slimmest hope of survival.
That right has been enshrined in The Right to Try Act, signed into law in May 2018 by then President Donald Trump. The law opens a new pathway for terminally ill patients who have exhausted their medical options. Although 41 states have passed their own Right to Try laws, the federal legislation makes Right to Try the law of the land, creating a uniform legal framework for terminal patients seeking access to non-conventional treatments.
To be eligible for Right to Try, a patient must be diagnosed with a life-threatening disease or condition; have exhausted approved treatment options; be unable to participate in a clinical trial involving the drug; and give written informed consent regarding the risks associated with taking it.
The string of lawsuits, many of them brought by New York attorney Ralph Lorigo, often cite this law in their briefs, in addition to incisive medical information testifying to the efficacy and safety of ivermectin, drawn from a host of studies worldwide.
Attorneys arguing the cases on behalf of Covid patients often turn to the FLCCC (Front Line Covid-19 Critical Care Alliance) for medical advice, court papers show.
The group’s physicians and scientists include widely published leaders in the field of pulmonology, cardiology and critical care medicine. They advocate various treatment protocols for both early preventive treatment, and for late stage Covid ICU patients that include ivermectin in combination with other drugs as core components. They also treat “long Covid,” the lingering symptoms of chest pains, shortness of breath, fatigue, brain fog that plague some recovered Covid patients long after recovery.
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