Anti-vaccine group uses telehealth to profit from unproven COVID-19 treatments : Shots

February 17, 2022 Vera

Ben Bergquam was hospitalized with COVID in January. He says he brought his own prescription for ivermectin — an unproven COVID therapy.

Screenshot by NPR/Facebook

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Screenshot by NPR/Facebook

Ben Bergquam was hospitalized with COVID in January. He says he brought his own prescription for ivermectin — an unproven COVID therapy.

Screenshot by NPR/Facebook

Just before Christmas, a right-wing journalist named Ben Bergquam became seriously ill with COVID-19.

“My Christmas gift was losing my [sense of] taste and smell and having a 105-degree fever, and just feeling like garbage,” Bergquam said in a Facebook video that he shot as he lay in a California hospital.

“It’s scary. When you can’t breathe, it’s not a fun place to be,” he said.

Bergquam told his audience he wasn’t vaccinated, despite having had childhood asthma, a potentially dangerous underlying condition. Instead, he held up a bottle of the drug ivermectin. Almost all doctors do not recommend taking ivermectin for COVID, but many individuals on the political right believe that it works.

How ivermectin became the new focus of the anti-vaccine movement

The details revealed in Bergquam’s video provide a rare view into the prescription of an unproven COVID-19 therapy. Data shows that prescriptions for drugs like ivermectin have surged in the pandemic, but patient-doctor confidentiality often obscures exactly who is handing out the drugs.

Bergquam’s testimonial provides new and troubling details about a small group of physicians who are willing to eschew the best COVID-19 treatments and provide alternative therapies made popular by disinformation — for a price.

Ivermectin is usually prescribed to treat parasitic worms, and the best medical evidence to date shows that it doesn’t work against COVID-19. The Food and Drug Administration, National Institutes of Health, American Medical Association and two pharmaceutical societies all discourage prescribing ivermectin for COVID-19, and many doctors and hospitals will not give it to patients who are seeking treatment.

But fueled by conspiracy theories about vaccine safety and alternative treatments, many on the political right incorrectly believe ivermectin is a secret cure-all for COVID. As millions of Americans fell ill with COVID last summer, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported ivermectin prescriptions were at 24 times pre-pandemic levels. The agency says prescriptions again rose during the latest omicron surge.

A significant number of these prescriptions come from a small minority of doctors who are willing to write them, often using telemedicine to do so, according to

Nursing Home Residents Overlooked in Scramble for Covid Antibody Treatments

November 7, 2021 Vera

JoNel Aleccia, Kaiser Wellbeing Information

Of the dozens of clients Dr. Jim Yates has treated for covid-19 at his long-phrase care center in rural Alabama, this a single made him especially nervous.

The 60-12 months-previous male, who experienced been absolutely vaccinated, was diagnosed with a breakthrough an infection in late September. Nearly straight away, he essential supplemental oxygen, and lung exams confirmed ominous indicators of worsening disease. Yates, who is clinical director of Jacksonville Wellness and Rehabilitation, a competent nursing facility 75 miles northeast of Birmingham, realized his affected individual wanted extra powerful interventions — and quickly.

At the 1st signal of the man’s indications, Yates had placed an order with the Alabama Department of General public Well being for monoclonal antibodies, the lab-made proteins that mimic the body’s skill to combat the virus. But six days handed just before the vials arrived, almost missing the window in which the remedy performs best to avert hospitalization and demise.

“We’ve been pushing the limitations because of the time frame you have to go by,” Yates reported. “Fortunately, after we received it, he responded.”

Across the state, clinical administrators of skilled nursing and long-phrase treatment web pages say they’ve been scrambling to acquire doses of the potent antibody therapies pursuing a transform in federal policy that critics say limits materials for the vulnerable inhabitants of frail and elder people who stay at best danger of covid an infection even just after vaccination.

“There are men and women dying in nursing properties suitable now, and we never know irrespective of whether or not they could have been saved, but they did not have entry to the product,” said Chad Worz, CEO of the American Society of Guide Pharmacists, which signifies 1,500 pharmacies that serve extended-phrase care web-sites.

Just before mid-September, doctors and other vendors could get the antibody therapies straight by way of drug wholesaler AmerisourceBergen and acquire the doses inside 24 to 48 hrs. Even though early variations of the licensed treatments expected hourlong infusions administered at specialty centers or by properly trained team customers, a much more latest solution permits doses to be administered by way of injections, which have been fast adopted by push-thru clinics and nursing homes.

Prompt entry to the antibody therapies is critical because they perform by quickly cutting down the total of the virus in a person’s process, decreasing the likelihood of critical sickness. The therapies