What We Need Instead of “Pandemic Amnesty”

Here we go again. With the holiday season fueling rising COVID-19 cases, public health officials are resorting to their tired playbook. It’s a script that is as familiar as it is failed. The Centers for Disease Control (where 8 in 10 employees are still working from home) is encouraging mask use, while Los Angeles is contemplating a new indoor mask mandate. School shutdowns are back in the conversation, even as data brings sobering news about declining test scores and student mental health. After half a century on the public dole, Dr. Anthony Fauci is stressing the need for COVID boosters.

Meanwhile, cost-effective and readily available repurposed generic drugs remain on the sidelines. Despite their promise and proven results, they are unable to join the fight against COVID, suppressed in favor of the “vaccine or bust” strategy favored by the Biden Administration and its allies in the pharmaceutical industry. The incoming Republican Congress should use its new power to hold hearings and push for early treatment strategies to address COVID.

It’s clear the mass vaccination strategy hasn’t worked as its proponents promised. CDC Director Rochelle Walensky declared last spring that “vaccinated people do not carry the virus,” a view even the most strident vaccine proponents no longer dare touch. That is not a political statement—I am a lifelong Democrat who voted for Joe Biden in 2020. It’s a demonstrable fact. 

Not only have the taxpayer-funded jabs failed to stop transmission and contagion of the virus, the COVID death rate of the vaccinated outpaced the unvaccinated for the first time in August. So much for Biden’s “pandemic of the unvaccinated.”

Yet even as the United States averages more than 50,000 new cases per day (which is likely a large underestimate due to the uncounted home tests), there are other available and cost-effective solutions to slow the spread—if only they are given the chance. 

Consider ivermectin, a widely used and readily available over-the-counter drug. It has been safely used for decades to treat a variety of illnesses, including river blindness, and has been studied in countless clinical trials. In 2015, ivermectin was awarded the Nobel Prize for its effectiveness treating infectious diseases in humans. The drug is approved for use by humans by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), but not for treating COVID, though it can be prescribed off label. 

In the early stages of the COVID pandemic, evidence emerged of ivermectin’s effectiveness in combating the virus. In fact, the mortality rate dropped by 70 percent in one study in Brazil. Most importantly, and most ignored, is the fact that the strongest form of medical evidence is the result from a “meta-analysis” of clinical trials, that is, the estimate of benefit derived from combining all studies of ivermectin. When combining all the studies, either from just the randomized controlled trials and/or the observational studies, these studies show overwhelming benefits in reducing infections, hospitalizations, and deaths. These study results are consistently ignored because they deviate from their preferred narrative and financial sponsors.

As a lung specialist who has assisted nearly 500 patients to recover from COVID, I’ve seen what ivermectin can do.

Yet despite this evidence, the mainstream media goes out of its way to denigrate and discredit the drug by only focusing on less than a handful of supposedly “rigorous,” “large” trials that they claim definitively “prove” the drug ineffective. One example is their citing of a compromised and unreliable study, which prompted the New York Times to declare “Ivermectin Does Not Reduce Risk of Covid Hospitalization, Large Study Finds” in a March 2022 headline. Fauci predictably piled on, urging CNN viewers against taking the drug, falsely claiming, “there’s no evidence whatsoever that it works.” Anyone who dared discuss the drug in a favorable light was framed as a crackpot or conspiracy theorist. 

It seems the outrage against misinformation only applies for those challenging the group think and status quo.

Unfortunately, the deep state’s war against generic drugs did not stop with ivermectin. We all remember the mockery of hydroxychloroquine, another repurposed drug dismissed by Fauci as “not effective” in treating COVID by “every single good study,” despite data indicating the opposite.

The story was the same for fluvoxamine, a common and cost-effective antidepressant. 

In November 2020, a randomized controlled trial proved the drug’s effectiveness. A similar study in October 2021 showed fluvoxamine cutting deaths by more than 90 percent and hospitalizations by more than two-thirds.

Meanwhile, public health officials actively suppressed information, even censoring their opponents by meddling in medical trials and mispresenting the results. They were tactics straight out of the Communist Chinese Party, which has taken to spamming social media to drown out attention on the mass uprisings against their government’s draconian and ineffective COVID policies.

The war against cheap repurposed drugs had a very clear objective: eliminate all competition for the expensive new treatments and vaccines being pushed by the likes of Pfizer, whose $81.3 billion dollar revenue in 2021 doubled from the previous year, fueled by the development and production of its COVID vaccine. 

Not only was the President of the United States using his bully pulpit and even his State of the Union address to promote the product of a for-profit company, his allies were preventing alternative treatments and vaccines from securing FDA Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) to preserve their market monopoly. Remember, COVID vaccines are available only under EUA. 

One of the most egregious recent actions was the brazen manipulation of the NIH’s Activ-6 Ivermectin Trial published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. As I’ve explained in detail, financially conflicted investigators changed the trial endpoint to one that did not achieve statistical significance, so the powers-that-be could continue to bury alternative treatment options. 

Our government’s support for vaccines knows no bounds, best evidenced by the unanimous approval of the COVID vaccine for toddlers while numerous countries around the world have specifically recommended against it. 

The Food and Drug Administration has amended its EUA for Pfizer’s and Moderna’s updated, bivalent COVID-19 vaccines, allowing children as young as 6 months old to receive a booster. At this point, we’ve all seen the flashy commercials pushing their vaccines and treatments, which at no point mention possible side effects or EUA. Because of official government sanctioning, these companies received free advertising with none of the drawbacks or accountability for liabilities.

It shouldn’t be this way. As House Republicans plan to take power in January, they are saying the right things about shining a light on the Biden-Fauci COVID strategy. Pandemic-instituted proxy voting for members is on the chopping block. The origins of COVID are poised to play a leading role in forthcoming investigations.

These are positive steps, but more must be done. The American public deserves answers about why promising alternatives like ivermectin were suppressed. Who was making these decisions and what steps can be taken to prevent it from ever happening again? COVID will not be the last public health emergency, and we must learn from the mistakes of the past to better prepare for the future. 

Further, it’s clear the process for studying and recommending repurposed drugs needs major reform and overhaul. It’s long past time for an independent body free from the pressures of politics to oversee this process and conduct impartial research on an ongoing basis. 

Dr. Fauci and his supporters often remind the rest of us about the need to “follow the science.” It’s a fine-sounding slogan, but actions speak a lot louder than words. A true commitment to following the science means changing course when evidence suggests otherwise and keeping an open mind to alternative points of view. Most importantly, it means analyzing data from studies and sources outside of the trials and journals heavily funded by the pharmaceutical industry. Even the CCP, no one’s idea of a model representative government, is easing lockdown policies in major Chinese cities as it becomes clear its “zero COVID” policy has failed.

No such admission from Dr. Fauci. When asked in a recent media interview if there was a moment in his career he could do over, he flatly stated “no”. His hubris knows no limit. 

The incoming Congress was handed a mandate to restore normalcy to the American way of life. Holding those responsible for ill-fated COVID public policy decisions that have wrecked our country is an important piece of that puzzle.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. Epoch Health welcomes professional discussion and friendly debate. To submit an opinion piece, please follow these guidelines and submit through our form here.

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Pierre Kory is a Pulmonary and Critical Care Specialist, Teacher/Researcher. He is also the President and Chief Medical Officer of the non-profit organization Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance whose mission is to develop the most effective, evidence/expertise-based COVID-19 treatment protocols.