Judge orders hospital to use Ivermectin COVID patient, 80-year old woman recovers

The following news was reported by Dan Herbeck at The Buffalo News last January 29, 2021.

Judith Smentkiewicz, an 80-year old woman, contracted COVID-19 and was “on a ventilator, literally on her death bed” and had a 20% chance of survival. The doctors at the hospital also told the family that Smentkiewicz will be on a ventilator for at least a month.

The patient’s son said he did his research and then pressured a doctor at the Millard Fillmore Suburban Hospital Intensive Care Unit (ICU) to give one dose of Ivermectin. The patient’s family said that Smentkiewicz made a “complete turnaround. In less than 48 hours, [the patient] was take off the ventilator, transferred out of the ICU, sitting up on her own and communicating”. When the patient was transferred to another wing, the doctor refused to give her any more doses of the drug and her condition quickly declined. It was then that the family took the hospital to court and won. According to the family, Smentkiewicz’s condition is better.

Editor’s Note: The case for Ivermectin is gaining ground as more and more individuals are coming out testifying on the effectiveness of the drug for the treatment of COVID-19. On the other hand, government regulation agencies continue to discredit the drug, but several doctors and citizens who have first-hand experience of the drug have started to push back.

In the Philippines, as in the rest of the world, the fight for Ivermectin continues. The resistance to allow the use of Ivermectin for COVID-19 opens us to many questions. Why are regulatory agencies raising the issue of safety when Ivermectin has been listed by the World Health Organization (WHO) as an essential medicine, and is also included in the Philippine National Drug Formula (PNDF). Why are they citing limited clinical trial results, when they are actively promoting experimental vaccines that have even more limited clinical trial and safety data? Why is the FDA allowing hospitals to still use the more expensive remdesevir, when it has been proven to be ineffective against COVID-19 [see WHO advises against use of remdesevir for COVID patients]? Why are pro-vaccine doctors citing the fact that Ivermectin has not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of COVID-19, when experimental vaccines are being rolled out aggressively and none of these vaccines have been approved by the FDA as well? [Take note that all COVID vaccines around the world are experimental and are only under an emergency use authorization or EUA, see What’s the difference between FDA approval and authorization?].

The issue of Ivermectin drives home the point that profit and control, not health and well-being, is the primary agenda of many government actors. Must we also go to court to fight for our loved ones’ right to an effective drug like Ivermectin?