Dr. Developed Successful Treatment for Sepsis, Now He's Suing Hospital for Right to Treat COVID Patients with Ivermectin

An internationally acclaimed doctor from Norfolk, Virginia is suing Sentara hospitals for banning the use of certain drugs in the treatment of its COVID-19 patients. 

The Virginian-Pilot reports Dr. Paul Marik, professor of medicine and chief of pulmonary and critical care at Eastern Virginia Medical School, who gained international attention in 2017 for an unconventional, but successful sepsis treatment he developed, filed his injunction request last week in Norfolk Circuit Court.

Marik argues Sentara Healthcare is endangering the lives of its COVID patients by preventing doctors from using a treatment protocol developed by him and several other critical care specialists across the country, the newspaper reported. 

Among the medications included in Marik's treatment plan is Ivermectin. Ivermectin is a drug for parasites that has been promoted as a treatment for COVID despite a lack of FDA approval. 

As CBN News reported in October, interest in the drug started rising toward the end of last year and the beginning of this one, when studies – some later withdrawn, in other countries – seemed to suggest Ivermectin had some potential in the fight against COVID-19.

Marik's lawsuit asks for Sentara's medication ban to be lifted, arguing the decision is legally up to a patient and his or her doctor.  A hearing in the case is scheduled for Thursday.

"Patients at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital are dying who should not be," the lawsuit said. "They are dying because, unjustifiably and unlawfully, they are being denied potentially life-saving treatment determined to be medically appropriate for them by their attending physician." 

In a statement, Sentara said it follows "evidence-based protocols" recommended by government agencies like the Centers for Disease Control, National Institutes of Health, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. 

The statement said Sentara creates treatment guidelines by "engaging multi-disciplinary groups of clinicians to review literature, care standards and provide expert advice. In most situations, physicians are able to deviate from guidelines to individualize care for patients. However, in some scenarios, treatments that may potentially harm patients or that are widely considered to be outside the standard of care may be limited."

However, Marik's lawsuit argues that when he was allowed to carry out his treatment, the COVID-19 mortality rate in the Norfolk hospital's intensive care unit was reduced by roughly half, according to the Virginian-Pilot. 

NY Doctor Also Fought in Court to Use Ivermectin

As CBN News has reported, treating COVID-19 with Ivermectin has been successful in several instances, and has been backed up by an Israeli clinical trial. 

For example, Ralph Lorigo, an attorney from Buffalo, New York, filed his first of several Ivermectin lawsuits against medical centers that refused to consider other treatments last January after being approached by the family of an 80-year-old woman who was in the hospital on a ventilator. His second case was later that month, for a hospitalized 65-year-old woman. 

In both cases, judges ordered hospitals to allow the women to take Ivermectin as their families wanted. Both women survived their hospitalizations, according to the AP. 

Lorigo, who has taken on numerous cases since is adamant that Ivermectin works. Health experts and federal agencies say that any evidence of it being effective against COVID-19 is slim and more research needs to be done. Studies are currently underway.

Ivermectin Clinical Trial in Israel

CBN News reported in October about positive results from an Ivermectin clinical trial in Israel. In that case, a top Israeli doctor was asked by Israel's government to research treatments for COVID.  

Dr. Eli Schwartz, M.D. is the founder of the Center for Travel Medicine and Tropical Diseases at the Sheba Medical Center in Israel. It's considered one of the world's top hospitals. Dr. Schwartz is also a professor at Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University.

For decades, Schwartz has traveled the world fighting outbreaks like Dengue Fever and Ebola. At the beginning of the pandemic and months before any vaccine was available, Israel's Defense Ministry assigned Schwartz to find a medical solution for COVID-19. 

"Since Ivermectin is one of the drugs that we are using in daily life in the Tropical Institute, I knew it. I know the safety profile of it. And since there were some hints of in-vitro studies, which show the efficacy against specifically, even against COVID-19, we decided to go for it," he said. 

That meant putting the drug through a clinical trial that lasted 10 months.

"Our study, which was done here, it's a randomized controlled trial, double-blind. It's really, I would say, this is the best method that you are doing studies. And our conclusion is that it really has antiviral activities," Schwartz told CBN News.

Schwartz's clinical study found that by day four, 86% of his patients who took Ivermectin recovered. By day six, 94% recovered.

"The bottom line is… Ivermectin decreased faster the viral load, and also sterilized the culture much better compared to the placebo," he noted.

Schwartz explained to CBN News this means Ivermectin killed the virus and his patients became non-infectious. He said this development could save lives and reduce quarantines by days.

But Ivermectin is not accepted by the global health establishment. A major FDA concern is that a number of people have tried to self-medicate using a form of the drug intended for livestock.

"Don't do it. There's no evidence whatsoever that it works and it could potentially have toxicity... with people who have gone to poison control centers because they've taken the drug at a ridiculous dose and wind up getting sick," said Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

The World Health Organization advises "that Ivermectin only be used be used to treat COVID-19 within clinical trials."

The National Institutes of Health said, "Ivermectin is not approved by the FDA for the treatment of any viral infection" and that "well-conducted clinical trials are needed to provide more specific, evidence-based guidance on the role of Ivermectin in the treatment of COVID-19."

For studies to be accepted by the broader medical community, it must be peer-reviewed and published in a medical journal. That's where Schwartz hit a roadblock. Several journals turned him down, but one is currently reviewing his study. 

Schwartz added that while many health agencies want better studies, no large-scale trials on Ivermectin happened until Oxford University began one in June of this year. 

Now, the pharmaceutical company Merck, which developed Ivermectin, and Pfizer are in a race to produce an oral anti-viral drug for COVID that some believe is similar to what Ivermectin could do already.

"In my view, the whole story of Ivermectin is much beyond Ivermectin. It's even beyond the corona. The problem is that we are in the arms of the pharma and the pharma is looking for new drugs. And, therefore, all old drugs which might be with a good potential to use it for whatever you're looking for, there's not any parents to push for it," Schwartz claimed.

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