Doctor sued for giving Ivermectin without consent fights back in court

Jail staff allegedly hid the fact that they were giving the inmates the drug by calling it vitamins, steroids or antibiotics

A group of inmates sued an Arkansas jail and its doctor for giving them Ivermectin to treat Covid-19 without their consent. Now the defense is moving to have the case tossed out of court.

According to The Associated Press, the defense attorneys representing the jail and doctor believe that the case should be thrown out as the plaintiffs are no longer living in the county facility where the alleged incidents occurred.

The motion, filed Tuesday, notes that all four inmates involved in the lawsuit have been moved from the Washington County jail to state prisons. That jail - as well as Dr Robert Karas - are named as defendants in the lawsuit.

Washington County Sheriff Tim Helder revealed in August that Dr Karas had prescribed Ivermectin to some of the jail's inmates who tested positive for Covid-19.

Ivermectin is most commonly used as a dewormer, both in people and animals. It became the focus of public debate after anti-vaxxers and some influential right-wing media figures began pushing it as an alternative Covid-19 treatment.

Because Ivermectin requires a prescription, some vaccine sceptics tried to side-step their doctors by using a version of the dewormer intended for livestock. This resulted in numerous hospitalisations as the livestock variant was not intended for human consumption.

According to the US Food and Drug Administration and the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention repeatedly issued warnings against using Ivermectin to treat Covid-19. Individuals who used Ivermectin meant for animals ran the risk of overdosing on the drugs.

The National Poison Data System, which collects data from the nation’s 55 poison control centres, reported there was a 245 per cent leap in reported exposure cases related to Ivermectin between July and August of 2021, from 133 to 459.

Despite the lack of evidence that Ivermectin was remotely useful in treating Covid-19 and the stories of individuals being hospitalised for taking incorrect doses of the paste, some believers sought to prove that the drug was an effective Covid-19 treatment.

The inmates from Washington County jail claim that Dr Karas used the facility as his own laboratory, giving them Ivermectin without their knowledge or consent.

“The truth, however, was that without knowing and voluntary consent, Plaintiffs ingested incredibly high doses of a drug that credible medical professionals, the FDA, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, all agree is not an effective treatment against COVID-19,” the lawsuit claims.

Dr Karas told the Arkansas State Medical Board during a hearing in early April that all inmates who enter the jail are made to fill out medical consent forms, and said he was surprised to learn that none could be found for the group of inmates alleging they were given Ivermectin.

According to the inmates, the jail staff told them they were being given vitamins, antibiotics or steroids during their medication sessions. In reality, they were being given Ivermectin.

CBS News spoke with one of the inmates, Edrick Floreal-Wooten, who said that he and others were given the drugs without their consent.

“It was not consensual. They used us as an experiment — like we’re livestock,” he said. “Just because we wear stripes and we make a few mistakes in life, doesn’t make us less of a human. We got families, we got loved ones out there that love us.”