Prolific COVID misinformer Joel Hirchhorn served up more ranting in his Nov. 30 WorldNetDaily column:
By now millions of Americans well-informed about the pandemic know that the cheap, safe and effective generic medicine ivermectin (IVM) was blocked for wide-scale use from the very beginning by the federal government. It was a critical but medically wrong tactic within the wait-for-the-vaccine strategy. Preventing early use of IVM has surely killed and harmed hundreds of thousands of Americans. A few courageous doctors have successfully been using IVM during the pandemic, but most feared punishment as they lost their medical freedom.
Now comes a mind-boggling statement from an attorney defending the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in a lawsuit brought by three doctors. The following statement should be copied and used by both doctors and individuals to freely prescribe and use IVM in the earliest stage of COVID infection as an antiviral. It always should have been seen as an alternative to experimental, unsafe and ineffective COVID vaccines.
Here are the amazing words of the federal attorney:
“The cited statements were not directives. They were not mandatory. They were recommendations. They said what parties should do. They said, for example, why you should not take ivermectin to treat COVID-19,” Isaac Belfer, a lawyer defending FDA, told the court. “They did not say you may not do it, you must not do it. They did not say it’s prohibited or it’s unlawful. They also did not say that doctors may not prescribe ivermectin.”
Imagine that! So, let truth prevail. Let national access to IVM begin!
As we’ve pointed out, the doctors who brought the lawsuit were never actually barred from prescribing ivermectin (despite the fact that there’s little credible evidence that it works on COVID) and that the FDA lawyer’s statement does not constitute a change in position.
Nevertheless, Hirschhorn managed to twist this to his own person anti-Fauci obsession: “No matter what is now being said as some type of excuse for killing people, what should remain a priority is criminally prosecuting Anthony Fauci.”
Hirschhorn had more bogus claims to peddle in his Dec. 12 column:
Dr. Eric Nepute is the very first doctor the federal government has come after, accusing him of violating the 2020 COVID Consumer Protection Act. His case takes the form of civil action by the Federal Trade Commission.
According to the commission’s complaint, Nepute and his company marketed vitamin D and zinc products under the brand name “Wellness Warrior” and claimed they were as effective – or more – than vaccines that are currently available.
The FTC said among Nepute and Quickwork’s bogus claims were that “COVID-19 patients who get enough vitamin D are 52% less likely to die,” those who get enough vitamin D are 77% less likely to get the disease and that his Wellness Warrior vitamin D product is more effective at preventing COVID-19 than approved vaccines.
It’s not until the seventh paragraph of his column that Hirschhorn mentions in passing one significant issue (not that he sees it as one, of course): Nepute is a chiropractor, not a medical doctor. Hirschhorn never asks any anyone should take advice on infections from a chiropractor whose field of study has nothing whatsoever to do with treating COVID. Meanwhile, here in the real world, actual medical doctors say zinc and vitamin D in and of themselves cannot prevent or treat COVID, though maintaining recommended levels of them may help reduce disease severity.
Further, Hirschhorn’s overly narrow focus on what Nepute said about vitamin D and zinc (though no evidence is provided to back up the numbers they cite) hides the fact that Nepute has spread many other lies as well. According to FactCheck.org, Nepute has falsely claimed thatthe Delta variant was not more contagious than original COVID (in fact, it was twice as contagious), falsely claimed that children were being taken from their parents in Australia over COVID safety and spread misinformation about mask mandates and masks themselves.
If Nepute is willing to lie and mislead about so many other things, why should anyone trust that his pills work against COVID? Hirschhorn doesn’t answer that, of course; instead, he called for readers to read the FTC complaint against Nepute, adding: “See how your government works so hard to defend COVID vaccines against effective and safer alternatives. What a disgrace. Meanwhile, COVID vaccines will keep harming and killing people.”
Of course, linking to the complaint doesn’t exactly help Nepute’s (or Hirschhorn’s) cause, given how it documents how the claims he makes about his pills aren’t supported by the evidence. Hirschhorn also made no mention of the fact that Nepute is in further trouble because he continued to make false claims about his pill despite having previously agreed in a consent decree with the FTC not to claim his pills could treat or cure COVID.
Then again, when has Hirschhorn ever been constrained by facts and reality about COVID?