Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., argued “hatred of Trump” is responsible for health officials’ sudden opposition to ivermectin as a possible COVID-19 treatment.
“The hatred for Trump deranged these people so much, that they’re unwilling to objectively study it,” Paul said, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer.
“They will not study ivermectin,” he continued. “They will not study hydroxychloroquine without the taint of their hatred for Donald Trump.”
Ivermectin, a drug that is sometimes used to treat parasitic worm infections in humans and livestock, is regularly used for other medicinal purposes.
The Food and Drug Administration, however, dismissed it as “horse” and “cow” medicine that coronavirus patients should not use.
You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y’all. Stop it. https://t.co/TWb75xYEY4
— U.S. FDA (@US_FDA) August 21, 2021
“There’s a lot of misinformation around, and you may have heard that it’s okay to take large doses of ivermectin. That is wrong,” the agency posted on its website.
“Even the levels of ivermectin for approved uses can interact with other medications, like blood-thinners,” said the notice. “You can also overdose on ivermectin.”
Paul said health officials are treating ivermectin the same way they treated hydroxychloroquine, a drug touted by former president Donald Trump as a therapeutic for serious COVID-19 cases.
Several studies have since found that hydroxychloroquine was an effective treatment.
An Ohio judge ruled this week that a hospital must prescribe ivermectin to a coronavirus patient who specifically requested it.
The patient’s family doctor, Dr. Fred Wagshul, said he supported his patient’s lawsuit against the hospital and added that the science supporting the use of ivermectin against COVID-19 is “irrefutable.”
Wagshul also argued that the FDA and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are engaged in a conspiracy to deny this treatment to coronavirus patients.
“If we were a country looking at another country allowing those [COVID-19] deaths daily … we would have been screaming, ‘Genocide!’” he told the Ohio Capital Journal.
