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DoctorsfightingCOVID-19 should be supported by their profession and their government, not suppressed. Yet today physicians are smothered under a wave of censorship. With coronavirus variants and vaccine hesitancythreatening a prolongedpandemic, the National Institutes of Health and the broader U.S. medical establishment shouldfreedoctors to treat this terrible disease with effective medicines.

For centuries, doctors haveaddressedemerging health threats by prescribing existing drugs for new uses, observing the results, and communicating to their peers and the public what seems to work. In a pandemic, precious time and lives can be lost by an insistence on excessive data and review. But in the current crisis,many in positions of authority havedone just that, stubbornly refusingtoallowany repurposed treatments. This departure from traditional medical practice risks catastrophe.When doctors on the front lines try to bring awareness of and use such medicines,they get silenced.

Ive experiencedsuchcensorship firsthand. Early in the pandemic,my research led me to testify in theSenatethat corticosteroids were life-savingagainstCOVID-19, when all national and international health care agencies recommended againstthem. My recommendations were criticized, ignored and resisted such that I felt forced to resign my faculty position. Only later did a large studyfrom Oxford Universityfindthey were indeed life-saving. Overnight, theybecame the standard of care worldwide. More recently, we identifiedthrough dozens of trialsthat the drug ivermectin leads to large reductions in transmission, mortality,and time to clinical recovery. After testifying to this fact ina second Senate appearance the video of which wasremoved by YouTubeafter garnering over 8 million views I was forced to leave another position.

I was delighted when our paper on ivermectin passed a rigorous peer review and was accepted byFrontiers in Pharmacology. The abstractwas viewedover 102,000times bypeople hungry for answers. Sixweeks later, the journalsuddenlyrejected the paper, based on an unnamed external expertwho stated that our conclusions were unsupported, contradicting the four senior, expert peer reviewers who hadearlieracceptedthem.I cant help but interpret thisin contextas censorship.

The science shows thativermectinworks. Over 40 randomized trials and observational studies from around the worldattestto its efficacy against the novel coronavirus. Meta-analyses by four separate research groups, includingours, found an average reduction in mortality of between 68%-75%. And 10 of 13 randomized controlled trials found statistically significant reductions in time to viral clearance, an effect not associated with any other COVID-19 therapeutic. Furthermore, ivermectin has an unparalleled safety record and low cost, which should negate any fears or resistance to immediate adoption.

Our manuscript conclusions were further supported bytheBritish Ivermectin Recommendation Development (BIRD) Panel. Following the World Health Organization Handbook of Guideline Development, it voted to strongly recommend the use of ivermectin in the treatment and prevention of COVID-19, and opined that further placebo controlled trials are unlikely to be ethical.

Even prior to the BIRD Panel recommendations, many countries have approved the use of ivermectin in COVID-19 or formally incorporated it into national treatment guidelines. Several have gone further and initiated large-scale importation and distribution efforts. In the last month alone, such European Union members as Bulgaria and Slovakia have approved its use nationwide. India, Egypt, Peru, Zimbabwe, and Bolivia are distributing it in many regions and observingrapid decreases in excess deaths. Increasing numbers of regional health authorities have advocated for or adopted it across Japan, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, and South Africa. And it is now the standard of care inMexico City,one of the worlds largest cities.

Its time to stop the foot-dragging. People are dying. The responsible physicians of this country, and their patients, need to be able to rely on their government institutions to quickly identify effective treatments, rather than waiting for pristine, massive Phase III trials before acting. At minimum, the NIH should immediately recommend ivermectin for treating and preventing COVID-19, and then work with professional associations, institutions, and the media to publicize its use. If it doesnt, the organization will lose credibility as a public institution charged with acting in the national interest and doctors will ignore its guidance in the future.

My story is not unique. Physicians across the country are fighting a pernicious campaign to denigrate all potential treatments not first championed by the authorities, and others have faced retaliation for speaking up. Sadly, too many of our institutions are using the pandemic as a pretext to centralize control over the practice of medicine, persecuting and canceling doctors who follow their clinical judgment and expertise.

Actually following the science means listening to practitioners and considering the entirety and diversity of clinical studies. Thats exactly what my colleagues and I have done. We wont be cowed. We will speak up for our patients and do whats right.

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Censorship Kills: The Shunning of a COVID Therapeutic - Fairfield Sun Times