THE anti-parasitic drug ivermectin has been hailed by many reputable medical sources as an effective prophylactic and treatment for Covid-19. But it is still officially banned for use in Britain.
Now it seems the authorities here are going all-out to stop anyone attempting to get hold of ivermectin – which it is not illegal to possess or use – as the worrying case of one TCW Defending Freedom reader graphically illustrates.
He ordered a supply from India, but it was seized in the post by the UK Border Agency, which passed the case on to the watchdog Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency.
The reader told us: ‘After friends had successfully ordered 1,000 x 12mg ivermectin for 100-150 US dollars including postage from reputable pharmacies in India, I did the same.
‘But the package was intercepted and the MHRA wrote to me asking if I had a valid reason for importing it.’
The letter said the consignment of ivermectin was not authorised under the Human Medicines Regulations 2012, which could lead to an unlimited fine or two years in prison.
‘I explained by email that it was for personal use only and they emailed back to say that was okay and they would release the package.
‘When it did not arrive, I emailed again, only to be told: “The MHRA is currently consulting Government solicitors and will issue a further response as soon as we are in a position to do so.”
‘Having heard nothing more for a month, I have made an official complaint, but have had no human response yet. I’m no drug expert, but I’d be amazed if ivermectin – rated for safety (adverse reactions) with paracetamol and hand sanitiser apparently – is prohibited for any safety reasons. If it was, why did they not tell me in their original letter?
‘In my response to that letter, I emailed to explain how I would use the ivermectin, why I was using it, the medical research into its efficacy, the dosage and the two people (my partner and I) who would be taking it.
‘I said the 1,000 tablets would last us two to three years if necessary. I stated that I would not be selling it. They accepted that explanation, but within a week had changed their mind.
‘Two local friends who also ordered 1,000 x 12mg ivermectin each, from different suppliers in India, both received their parcels in the last 24 hours. One supplier was the same as I used and the other was different.
‘I am wondering if someone in the MHRA has got my number. Or maybe the parcel they undertook to return to me has got lost, and simply staying silent is the least embarrassing strategy for them.’
Three months ago, the reader ordered and received from India fluvoxamine, another drug said to help in Covid cases. He said: ‘Fluvoxamine is an antidepressant of the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) class. It is primarily used to treat major depressive disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), which could be argued is far more prone to misuse than ivermectin.
‘Anyway, it’s all very strange and does nothing to dampen my suspicion that there is more to the Covid pandemic than a viral respiratory illness.
‘I have heard nothing from MHRA despite emailing four times in a month requesting an update. I told them: “This is not acceptable treatment of a retired couple merely wishing to protect their health with an extremely safe medicine which the World Health Organisation describes as one of the world’s “essential medicines”.
‘Something stinks and it’s not our septic tank.’
Just as worrying, but bordering on the farcical, is the experience of Ivan Pupak, a doctor’s son from Slovakia. He found himself almost having to self-identify as a sheep in an attempt to obtain ivermectin. Ivan writes …
HERE is my ivermectin story. With some Slovak specifics, as we say over here.
At the start of this Covid thing, ivermectin was not among officially approved drugs in Slovakia. Not even to treat scabies. When reports about its effectiveness with respect to Covid emerged, pressure by some doctors managed to obtain emergency use authorisation for prevention and treatment of the virus.
So far so good, right? Well, here comes the first of our local Slovak specifics. Although theoretically available in pharmacies under prescription, in reality it was next to impossible to get it. Most of its supplies ended up in hospitals and whatever had ended up in pharmacies was pretty quickly gone.
My mother, a general practitioner with about 60 years of experience, was sceptical about ivermectin. ‘I do not trust it,’ were her exact words. Honestly, I was quite amazed to hear the word ‘trust.’ Ivermectin is a drug, not a religion, and as well as any drug, it either works or it doesn’t. No room for trust here, in my opinion. At least I thought so.
‘Fair enough,’ I told her. ‘But if I get Covid, what will you prescribe me?’ A list of vitamins was not reassuring enough to me. I asked her how many of her patients had ivermectin. It turned out that the two out of her about 2,000 patients who had taken it were pretty quickly okay.
Sure, two hardly qualifies as a representative statistical sample, but I did not understand how this could possibly be an argument against ivermectin. If both of her patients died, then I could have somehow understood her scepticism.
I started to be curious about her attitude. One day I happened to help her attend a Zoom meeting about Covid – at the age of 83 she is not really into these things – organised by a local hospital. Many other doctors attended.
I was curious, so I followed it as well. At one point, the doctor giving the presentation said that they had tried ivermectin and it did not work. That was all he had to say about it. They had tried it and it did not work.
I expected some follow-up questions from the attending doctors. Something like: How many patients have you treated with ivermectin and how many died? What dosages have you used?
What other medications other than ivermectin have been administered? What was the overall health status of the patients? At what stage of the infection have you started to administer ivermectin? And I am sure doctors could come up with many other relevant questions. Therefore I was truly astonished to find out that not a single question was asked.
Here we go. Trust. The attending doctors evidently decided to trust their colleague. No matter that ivermectin must have evidently been administered late into the game, to say the least. Remember, the doctor was working in a hospital where people usually do not show up right after they notice the first symptoms.
From that moment I decided to get ivermectin to have it ready the minute I come down with Covid.
Pharmacies did not have a single pack available any more, so I decided to get a veterinary one after reading a blog post of one local doctor describing his experience with it. It turned out that veterinary ivermectin is produced not far away from the place where I live.
The prescription obtained from my veterinarian neighbour stated my name at the top with the word ‘sheep’ right underneath it. For a moment I entertained the idea to pay a visit to a pharmacy dressed as a sheep, just for the fun of it.
It also turned out that the company producing veterinary ivermectin also runs its own pharmacy. I was very pleased to find out that the pharmacist wore no mask and when asked whether I should wear one, she just shrugged: ‘Forget it.’
I handed her the prescription, she took a look at it and then at me, saying: ‘Do you really want it for a sheep or for yourself?’ I was pleased even more. As I told her the truth, she handed me a piece of paper with dosages: ‘This is how we took it.’ I was really delighted and told her: ‘I guess you must know what you are doing, since you are producing it.’
If our government thinks we are sheep, then sheep we are. We had a good laugh.
Luckily, I have managed to escape Covid so far. In the meantime, human ivermectin was officially approved but only to treat scabies. It is hard to get your doctor – who happens to be your mother – to prescribe it when you do not actually have scabies. Apart from being an obvious lie, doctors are required to send special reports to various authorities whenever they have patients with scabies.
So I am stuck with my sheep ivermectin. Still better than nothing.
A few days ago, I ran out of my vitamin D supplies. So I decided to visit the pharmacy which, apart from veterinary products, supplies human drugs.
It felt very good again to see faces with no masks on. I got my vitamin D and asked about prophylactic use of ivermectin. I was again handed a piece of paper referencing the website of a hospital in Central Slovakia stating required ivermectin dosages for prophylactic purposes. When I mentioned that one would need to get scabies in order to get human ivermectin, the pharmacist just smiled, saying: ‘We all have scabies, don’t we?’
The ladies are good sports and my two visits there felt like a short vacation on an island of common sense and freedom in the wide and deep sea of Covid craziness.
Anyway, I was thrilled to find out that a state hospital advertises ivermectin on its website. I could not help but check it out myself.
Sure enough, the website mentions and hyperlinks FLCCC (Front Line Covid-19 Critical Care Alliance) protocols, lists vitamins and recommends dosages as stated by FLCCC, but not a single word about ivermectin, despite the fact that the FLCCC website on its front page states: ‘In October 2020, we added ivermectin as a core medication in the prevention and treatment of Covid-19.’
The hospital page was updated just the day before. So my guess is that the pharmacy had the previous version of the page that included ivermectin at that time.
Apparently somebody at the hospital then decided to ditch ivermectin to avoid the obvious question: ‘If a state hospital recommends ivermectin for Covid, how come that the same state allows it only to treat the scabies and not Covid? ‘
So we kind of ended up with FLCCC protocol with Slovak specifics – without ivermectin.
I love this country.
