Doctor who promoted ivermectin has advised Florida’s governor
TALLAHASSEE, FLA. >> A California psychiatrist who has advised Gov. Ron DeSantis on the coronavirus pandemic recently promoted a drug for COVID-19 patients that federal disease experts have strongly warned against after a spike in calls to poison control centers.
The surge of interest in the parasite drug, ivermectin, prompted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday to issue a national alert advising against its use to treat coronavirus. The maker of the drug, Merck, has also said there is “no scientific basis” to claim that ivermectin is effective against COVID-19.
Dr. Mark McDonald of Los Angeles is among a fringe group of outspoken medical professionals who have pushed ivermectin as an alternative to widespread vaccination against coronavirus. McDonald called ivermectin an “effective, safe, inexpensive treatment” in a Aug. 5 Twitter post, and he shared an article by the Jerusalem Post citing a recent study of the drug in Israel.
A wave of online misinformation about ivermectin has led to increased demand, and some people have turned to a version of the drug meant for farm animals. That sparked the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to tweet: “You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y’all. Stop it.”
Florida’s Poison Control Center, a state-funded nonprofit, has treated 27 ivermectin-related cases in August, with most involving drugs made for livestock. That’s more cases tied to the drug than the center saw in all of last year.
McDonald called people who think ivermectin is a drug for horses “ignoramuses” in a tweet posted Monday. (The drug can treat parasites in both humans and animals like horses.)
In a phone interview, McDonald made clear Friday that people “should not get (ivermectin) from a feed lot.” But he said people are ingesting livestock medicine out of desperation because the federal government was preventing doctors from making the drug available.
McDonald accused the Food and Drug Administration of sidelining ivermectin because it already has spent billions of dollars to “mass vaccinate the population.”
“If the goal of these people is to advance public health and make the public well, why have none of them spoke a single word about prevention and making one healthy to prevent an infection or hospitalization or death?” McDonald said. “I think there is a lot of dishonesty here and cancellation of people who support truth.”
Dr. John Sinnott, the chairman of internal medicine at University of South Florida’s Morsani College of Medicine and an epidemiologist at Tampa General Hospital, said it was “evil” for people to promote ivermectin as a COVID-19 treatment “because it detracts from appropriate care.”
“Any physician who espouses this should be reported to their state medical association,” Sinnott added.
McDonald was one of several doctors summoned by DeSantis for a July closeddoor discussion on mask policies in schools. In his comments, he argued that “masking children is child abuse,” according to video of the meeting later released by the governor’s office. He also likened mask mandates to apartheid, South Africa’s racist system of segregation during the 20th century.
At this week’s trial in Tallahassee over the governor’s ban on school mask mandates, attorneys for the state included McDonald’s comments as evidence. But in his ruling against DeSantis on Friday, Leon County Circuit Judge John Cooper was dismissive of McDonald’s opinion.
McDonald is one of several medical professionals from outside the state’s network of public health experts who DeSantis has leaned on for guidance throughout the pandemic. DeSantis has also regularly turned to Dr. Scott Atlas, a Stanford neuroradiologist favored by former President Donald Trump. Atlas reportedly clashed with other White House coronavirus task force members last year for urging Trump to let the virus run its course without government interventions.
And at the mask trial, Florida attorneys called on Stanford University professor Dr. Jay Bhattacharya to defend DeSantis’ order — not state Surgeon General Scott Rivkees. Bhattacharya, an early opponent of business restrictions aimed at curbing the virus’ spread, testified he has been an “informal adviser” to the governor since last September.
In a Friday statement to the Times/Herald, DeSantis spokeswoman Christina Pushaw said McDonald’s inclusion on the school mask panel “does not imply that Governor DeSantis endorses (or opposes) any of Dr. McDonald’s opinions on other subjects.”
“The panel was not about ivermectin,” she said. “It was about forced masking of schoolchildren.”