A Mississippi doctor mentioned he was fired from his job at a neighborhood hospital after trying to treat COVID-19 patients with anti-parasite drug ivermectin.
Dr. John Witcher, an emergency room doctor, mentioned he was let go from Baptist Memorial Hospital in Yazoo Metropolis, Mississippi, for taking three COVID-19 patients off Remdesivir, an antiviral drug authorized by the Meals and Drug Administration to treat the virus, and as a substitute trying to put them on ivermectin. That violated the hospital’s coverage on ivermectin, which isn’t authorized by the FDA for COVID-19.
Ivermectin is used to treat human infections attributable to parasitic worms. Topical types of the drug are authorized to treat head lice and pores and skin situations like rosacea, in accordance to the FDA.
Dr. Witcher, founding father of a physicians group that disputes the efficacy of the coronavirus vaccine and opposes necessities that individuals be inoculated, instructed podcast the Stew Peters Present that he thinks Remdesivir “has not proven to be beneficial” to COVID-19 patients.
“I was very surprised that I was basically told to not come back at the end of the day,” Dr. Witcher mentioned on the podcast. “These patients were under my direct care, and so I felt like taking them off Remdesivir and putting them on ivermectin was the right thing to do at the time.”
Dr. Witcher didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
In a press release to CBS MoneyWatch, Baptist Memorial confirmed that Dr. Witcher “no longer practices medicine as an independent physician” at its Yazoo facility. A spokesperson famous that Dr. Witcher was an impartial contractor and never an worker of Baptist Memorial.
Moreover, Baptist Memorial mentioned it follows “the standards of care recommended by the scientific community and our medical team in the prevention and treatment of COVID-19,” together with FDA-approved COVID-19 vaccines and monoclonal antibody remedies.
Ivermectin has proved controversial. In August, an Arkansas doctor who prescribed ivermectin to jail inmates with COVID-19 was investigated by the state’s medical board after the FDA warned in opposition to use of the drug to treat human COVID-19 patients. Podcaster and comic Joe Rogan in September mentioned he himself used ivermectin after testing optimistic for the virus.
“Ivermectin tablets are approved at very specific doses for some parasitic worms, and there are topical (on the skin) formulations for head lice and skin conditions like rosacea,” in accordance to the FDA, which has mentioned that enormous doses of the drug are probably harmful. “Ivermectin is not an anti-viral (a drug for treating viruses).”
