Loading ...Doctors Appeal Ruling In Favor Of FDA Over Ivermectin Posts, Urge Court To Intervene
A group of doctors is urging a U.S. court to block the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) from issuing guidance on using ivermectin, in an appeal lodged after a district court judge rejected their bid.
The FDA “cannot advise whether or for what purpose a doctor should prescribe, or a patient should take, an approved drug,” lawyers for Drs. Paul Marik, Mary Talley Bowden, and Robert Apter said in a February brief to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
Ivermectin is approved for several uses, including treating parasites. It is not approved for COVID-19, but prescribing drugs for a different purpose from which they were approved is common and known as off-label use.
The FDA in 2021, for instance, told people on social media to “stop” using ivermectin against COVID-19. That guidance violated the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FDCA), which says the FDA is not authorized to “limit or interfere” with the practice of medicine, the doctors alleged in their lawsuit.