MADISON, WI (WSAU) – The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled Tuesday morning that a hospital could not be forced to administer Ivermectin to a COVID-19 patient.
Only Justice Rebecca Bradley dissented from the panel’s 6-1 decision in favor of Aurora Health Care, which was supported by three liberal and three conservative judges.
During the pandemic, ivermectin gained popularity among a wide range of individuals, and some doctors from all over the world even promoted it as a miraculous treatment for the coronavirus and other ailments. According to the Food and Drug Administration, which has not approved it for use in treating COVID-19, Ivermectin, like many other drugs, can be hazardous and even lethal if taken incorrectly.
The judgment upholds a lower court’s ruling against Allen Gahl, who sued Aurora in October 2021 after doctors refused to give his uncle John Zingsheim ivermectin. Gahl was given the power to make medical decisions for Zingsheim after the COVID-19 issues were treated by placing him on a ventilator.
The Supreme Court began hearing this case’s arguments began in January after the Waukesha County Circuit Court ordered hospital staff to give Zingsheim the medication, but later changed its ruling to require Gahl to supply the medication himself and a doctor to deliver it. After Aurora’s attorneys argued that a judge could not order a medical professional to provide care that they had determined to be not up to the standard of the organization, an appeals court agreed with their attorneys and ruled to reverse that decision.
According to a recent press release, Sen. Ron Johnson sent a letter to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra last week requesting unredacted copies of 106 pages that show U.S. public health officials sharing information about ivermectin.
The heavily redacted documents were released to Judicial Watch according to a Freedom of Information Act request and contain a February 26, 2021 email from Dr. Tess Lawrie to HHS and Food and Drug Administration officials sharing information from the British Ivermectin Recommendation Development organization that concluded that “ivermectin should be approved immediately for the prevention and treatment of covid-19.”
“The public has a right to know what information HHS, FDA, NIH, and NIAID officials reviewed regarding the effectiveness of ivermectin and how it considered or dismissed certain data. It’s past time for HHS to lift the redactions on the enclosed 106 pages and be transparent with the American people,” Johnson said in the letter.
This is not the first legal battle to compel hospitals to provide COVID-19 patients with ivermectin. The medication has been used to treat animals such as cattle and has also been given the go-ahead for usage in humans to treat a few different types of parasite infections and skin disorders such as onchodermatitis. The FDA cautions that self-administration of the medication without a doctor could be dangerous due to potential dose misunderstanding between those indicated for humans and those for animals.
