A lawsuit has been launched by a group of inmates at Washington County Detention Center in Arkansas, US, who say the jail’s medical staff gave them the anti-parasite drug Ivermectin last year without their consent to treat COVID-19.
The men were told the pills were “vitamins” and “antiobiotics”.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), on behalf of the inmates, has filed a federal lawsuit against the jail and its doctor, reports CBS News.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have repeatedly warned against the use of Ivermectin for COVID. The FDA has only approved the medication for humans to treat river blindness, intestinal strongyloidiasis (an illness caused by roundworms), head lice and rosacea.
The lawsuit claims medical staff at the jail gave the men Ivermectin as early as November 2020, and that the inmates did not become aware of what the pill was until well after they received it.
According to the lawsuit, the medical staff, under orders of the facility's Dr Robert Karas, told inmates the pills were “vitamins”, “antibiotics” and/or “steroids”. “The truth, however, was that without knowing and without voluntary consent, the plaintiffs ingested incredibly high doses of a drug that credible medical professionals, the FDA, and the CDC all agree is not an effective treatment against COVID-19,” the lawsuit says.
Washington County Detention Center has said it cannot comment on the pending litigation.
In August 2021, the lawsuit says that the plaintiffs all tested positive for COVID-19. The jail relocated them to barracks “specifically designated” for quarantine, where it is believed that 22 people were housed.
There they were given a “cocktail” of between two and 10 pills twice a day by the medical team and told they were vitamins. One inmate said they were running fevers, with vomiting and diarrhoea, so thought the medicine was to help them.
“We never knew they were running experiments on us, giving us Ivermectin.”
The inmates, alleges the lawsuit, were given excessive does of Ivermectin, up to 3,4 and 6,3 times the approved dosages for their weight and height.
People who take “inappropriately high doses” of the medication, according to the CDC, “may experience toxic effects”, including nausea, vomiting, hallucinations, seizures, coma and death.
Pharmacy records included with the lawsuit show that Karas’s team dispensed at least 200 Ivermectin pills in November 2020 alone. He also touted Ivermectin to treat COVID-19 through his healthcare facilities, the lawsuit says.
Karas said he started prescribing Ivermectin to patients and took it himself after reading information from Frontline Covid Critical Care Alliance (FLCC), a controversial group that originated at the beginning of the pandemic and which has become known as a source of COVID-19 disinformation.
Despite the FDA, CDC, World Health Organization and National Institutes of Health all saying Ivermectin should not be used for COVID treatment or prevention, FLCC says on its website it is a “core medication”.
Sarah Moore of the Arkansas Justice Reform Coalition said that it’s unclear if COVID protocols have changed at the detention centre since the lawsuit was initiated. When CBS News spoke to one of the inmates, he was in the quarantine barracks. He and other detainees did not have face masks, just black bandanas.
Moore said: “Where people are housed in this area…most of the time, no one is wearing a mask. They are heavily overcrowded at this point.”
Two-thirds of the people being held at Washington County Detention Center, Moore said, have not been convicted of their accused crime. They’re still awaiting trial.
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
Chequered history of Ivermectin rulings in US court state courts
Increased human use of veterinary Ivermectin reflected in Oregon Poison Centre calls
Ivermectin: Further claims of ‘serious errors or potential fraud’ in studies
Australian regulator bans off-label Ivermectin use as prescriptions climb