‘Miraculous Impact’
Kory had gained fame among anti-vaccine activists after a Dec. 8, 2020, hearing for the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs where he testified about the use of ivermectin for COVID, saying, “We have a solution to this crisis. There is a drug that is proving to be of miraculous impact.”
A clip of his testimony racked up millions of views on C-SPAN’s YouTube channel, and was subsequently taken down nearly two months later for what the video site called “COVID-19 misinformation.” That led Johnson, the senator from Wisconsin who has publicly supported using ivermectin to treat COVID, to write a Wall Street Journal op-ed called “
YouTube Cancels the US Senate,” using Kory as his first example and adding fuel to the conspiratorial fire.
Kory, for his part, admitted his testimony was not helpful to the cause at the time, but then added, “I still stand by it, and I think history will prove it to be [true].”
Despite being invited by Johnson, a staunch Republican and the Senate’s most vocal anti-vaxxer, Kory, who was at the time the Medical Director at the University of Wisconsin’s Trauma and Life Support Center, told HuffPost he has traditionally been more of a Democrat — though the pandemic has cast doubt on everything, including his political views.
Kory’s and the FLCCC’s stars began to rise after that. Controversial figures like Bret Weinstein, a popular anti-vaccine podcast host, and tech giant Steve Kirsch, who has put many of his millions toward clinical trials of various medicines over the years and has spread misinformation about the COVID vaccine causing infertility, were taking note of their work and promoting ivermectin themselves.
Shortly before the Senate hearing, Osgood himself referenced ivermectin on the “Michael Brooks Show” podcast, mentioning his belief that it would prove effective in COVID treatment and referring to the FLCCC doctors as “folk heroes.” The next day, he received a call from Kory, in which he reportedly told Osgood that the jury was still out on ivermectin, but from what he could tell in the small studies he’d reviewed so far, he felt confident in its ability to ameliorate the most severe effects of COVID. And, coupled with its low price tag, it was worth continuing to push it.
Osgood called himself and Kory “kindred spirits” and, after their first conversation, felt, “If we found out in a year that this worked, that would be quite a tragedy. You don’t want to leave people to die when you could’ve done something that was very safe.” So he joined up with the alliance and began prescribing ivermectin to his patients who were hospitalized with severe COVID cases, knowing it could be months until a vaccine was widely available.
In his mind, once every American had access to the jab, ivermectin would take a backseat in the FLCCC guidance. He was wrong.
Horse Paste Goes Mainstream
It didn’t take long before scattered news reports indicated people were indeed taking the horse paste to both treat and prevent COVID. In a February
local news segment, a Midland, Texas, woman describes how she learned about ivermectin back in October from the internet, and she and her family had been taking it — the animal form — ever since. Though she wasn’t taking the tablets for humans, as the FLCCC recommends, in a way she was taking it as intended: as a bridge to the vaccine. “I just got my first vaccine shot a few days ago, so no more horse paste!” she told the reporter.
Though ivermectin has been used and prescribed by some doctors for the better part of a year now, the FDA noticed a recent uptick in the amount of prescriptions being filled by SpeakWithAnMD.com and others, as well as the animal version flying off shelves at livestock and tractor supply stores. The agency issued
a tweet on Aug. 21, writing, “You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y’all. Stop it.” linking to
its own post reiterating its earlier guidance that ivermectin in any form is not approved for use to treat and prevent COVID.
With more than 10 percent of adults 18 and older hesitant to get the vaccine, according to US Census Bureau estimates, online misinformation can fill a dangerous trust gap.
Kory claims to be distraught that his organization’s protocols have been misconstrued — ”I am literally deteriorating watching what’s happening,” he told HuffPost. But he but feels the FDA’s failure to approve the use of ivermectin for COVID is what’s driving the hysteria, not the FLCCC protocols.
“We don’t need their effing approval to prescribe during COVID. It’s called off-label use,” he said. “And now by saying this, you’re injecting the fucking idea of taking animal ivermectin into the population? Now more people are going to run at it. And I’m sorry, but I am not responsible for this fucking insanity. And I can’t correct it.”
But any survey of anti-vaccination communities online clearly show Americans started using horse paste to create their own COVID treatments long before the recent FDA tweet — and with intellectual support from the FLCCC.
And as the delta variant continues to infect the nation, even Kory admits that ivermectin (the human kind) is no match for it,
tweeting on Aug. 9, “I have experienced and am getting reports from FLCCC Alliance members that Delta variant patients crashing into ICU’s ... are not showing responses to MATH+. We are demoralized and frightened. Early treatment is CRITICAL. Every household should take I-MASK+ upon first symptoms.”
Yet despite ivermectin’s reported weakness against the delta variant, the FLCCC doctors continue to recommend it.
After Julie Smith’s husband was hospitalized with COVID-19 in July, she came across Ivermectin on the internet and connected with Dr. Fred Wagshul, another founding member of the FLCCC, who wrote a prescription for her husband, Jeffrey. When the hospital refused to fill it, Smith filed a lawsuit, and just this week,
a Cincinnati judge ordered the hospital to administer ivermectin to her husband despite its lack of approval. Wagshul alleges this delay is a “conspiracy” by the FDA and CDC to provide cover for vaccines.
Merging With The Anti-Vaxxers
Meanwhile, the FLCCC has still refused to take a firm pro-vaccine position.
“Most of what we feel — and especially me — is that the data on vaccines is moving so fast and it’s non-transparent,” Kory said. “I just really don’t know what to say about these vaccines. I just don’t feel comfortable with the kind of data that we’re getting.” Kory himself took ivermectin for eight or so months preemptively, recently caught and recovered from the delta variant, and will not be getting vaccinated because he believes he now has “natural immunity.”
Vaccines, of course, remain the best available precaution against severe COVID outcomes. “At this point we literally have mountains of data on the ultimate outcome and endpoint of clinical trials: death,” said Walker. “The vaccines prevent people from getting COVID sick enough to die from. I don’t know a harder, more binary outcome than dead-or-not.”
But nearly a year after ivermectin’s introduction into the COVID conversation in the U.S., and with vaccines now readily available to all who seek them, doctors like Osgood and Walker see it as unconscionable that the FLCCC hasn’t changed course. That was the final straw for Osgood, leading to his departure from the organization in late August.
“[Ivermectin] shouldn’t have been promoted as a vaccine alternative or a miracle cure,” he said. “People are drinking sheep drench! If that’s not a call to use your clout and influence to say, ‘Enough is enough! Get your shots!’ then I just don’t know.”
And people like Caleb Wallace, a former state coordinator of right-wing anti-vaxx West Texas Minutemen, are learning the hard way that unlike the vaccine, ivermectin will not save you. Wallace, who was not vaccinated, began experiencing COVID symptoms on July 26. He self-medicated with a cocktail of Vitamin C, zinc, aspirin and ivermectin. On Aug. 28 he died. He was 30 years old.