If Ivermectin Recognized, Justification for Lockdowns and Vaccine Mandates Would Evaporate: Doctor

Dr. Leland Stillman in an interview with The Epoch Times in Arizona in December, 2021. The Epoch Times

Federal health agencies haven’t recognized ivermectin as an effective treatment for COVID-19 patients. According to Doctor Leland Stillman, the reason is more political than scientific, because otherwise there would be no basis for lockdowns or vaccine mandates.

“If ivermectin were recognized by the public health and academic establishment as the drug that it is, that treats acute viral illnesses, one of which is COVID-19, the entire justification for lockdowns, mandates, let alone vaccine research and development would evaporate overnight,” Stillman told The Epoch Times in a recent interview.

According to Section 564 of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (pdf), the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) can only issue emergency use authorization if certain criteria are met, including “there is no adequate, approved, and available alternative to the product.”

So if there’s an approved alternative, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)—an agency in HHS—can’t issue emergency use authorization for COVID-19 vaccines.

Stillman said it’s not a conspiracy theory or even an isolated opinion that ivermectin works for treating COVID-19, because tens of thousands of physicians all over the world have recognized its effectiveness.

File photo: A package of ivermectin tablets. Natasha Holt/The Epoch Times

The Frontline COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC), a nonprofit organization working on protocols to treat patients with COVID-19, regards ivermectin as a core medication used in the prevention and treatment of COVID-19. Its website cites 142 studies, among which 93 are peer-reviewed, and 75 with results comparing treatment and control groups showing ivermectin works.

However, the FDA has repeatedly said that “currently available data do not show ivermectin is effective against COVID-19.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) directed The Epoch Times to contact the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for COVID-19 treatments. NIH referred to their online guidelines about ivermectin: “There is insufficient evidence for the COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines Panel to recommend either for or against the use of ivermectin for the treatment of COVID-19. Results from adequately powered, well-designed, and well-conducted clinical trials are needed to provide more specific, evidence-based guidance on the role of ivermectin in the treatment of COVID-19.”

Stillman explained why many doctors are silent on recognizing ivermectin as an effective drug for COVID-19, a disease caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus.

“And the reality that’s really important for people to understand is that doctors can lose their licenses or lose their board certification, which is very important for their income based on insurance guidelines, for speaking out as I have chosen to,” Stillman said.

Stillman said he is able to speak up because he’s one of very few doctors in the country who takes cash and doesn’t work with insurance companies.

Graduated from University of Virginia School of Medicine in Charlottesville, Virginia, Stillman is now practicing medicine in Kissimmee, Florida. His focus is to help people achieve health with integrative medicine, which combines a number of different modalities, such as traditional Chinese medicine, herbs, nutrition, diet, exercise, and lifestyle changes.

Two prominent scientists, Martin Kulldorff, previously a professor at Harvard Medical School, and Jay Bhattacharya, a professor of Medicine at Stanford University, also explained why many scientists are silent on this issue as well.

In an article published in The Epoch Times last month, the two professors said NIH and its National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), which is headed by Anthony Fauci, control a scientific research budget of billions of dollars every year, and “channel research dollars to nearly every infectious disease epidemiologist, immunologist, and virologist of note in the United States and UK.” So it would be unwise for scientists to upset these health agencies.

“There’s a lot of politics on this,” Stillman said, referring to the COVID-19 vaccine mandate. “And the way it’s been politicized is really disgraceful and unfortunate. At the end of the day, it’s all about how these corporations who are profiting immensely off of the pandemic.”

Stillman said freedom is the way out of the current problem.

“Freedom is absolutely the solution,” Stillman said. “Because if you really allow doctors to treat patients on their own terms, without insurance companies, without all this, it can be very affordable, and it can be very effective.

“Because the reality is that a lot of the care being provisioned right now, it’s just being provisioned based on some bureaucrat’s idea of what’s good medicine, not based on what the patients actually want and think is worth it to them.”