Connect with us
[the_ad id="89560"]

Censorship Industrial Complex

Ivermectin’s Victory Over the FDA

Published

2 years ago

13 minute read

From the Brownstone Institute

BY Sonia ElijahSONIA ELIJAH 

Over 60 studies around the world have, for the most part, found positive findings; however, the mainstream media embraced the handful that are neutral or had data problems, for example. Regardless of position, a disinformation campaign was initiated by the FDA and others to deter the use of the off-label treatment. See the email here.

FDA loses its war on ivermectin and agrees to remove all social media posts and consumer directives regarding ivermectin and [Covid], including its most popular tweet in FDA history. This landmark case sets an important precedent in limiting FDA overreach into the doctor-patient relationship.

Dr. Mary Talley Bowden

On March 21, a settlement was reached, leading to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) agreeing to remove social media posts and webpages discouraging the use of ivermectin for treating Covid-19.

This landmark case was initiated by plaintiffs Drs. Mary Talley Bowden, Robert I. Apter, and Paul E. Marik, who filed a lawsuit against the agency under the leadership of Commissioner Robert Califf, MD. The lawsuit was prompted by the FDA’s dissemination of misleading information about ivermectin, a Nobel Prize-winning anti-parasitic drug with a long history of use and inclusion in the World Health Organization’s essential list of medicines.

An FDA spokesperson told the Epoch Times that the agency “has chosen to resolve this lawsuit rather than continuing to litigate over statements that are between two and nearly four years old.”

In light of the FDA’s unprecedented loss in their war against ivermectin, I thought it was fitting to bring to my readers’ attention my Trial Site News report from November 2021 on the agency’s “most successful” viral tweet, which can be read below.

FDA’s Smoking Gun: Disinformation Campaign Targeting Ivermectin

It recently came to my attention that communication within the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) evidences the Gold Standard agency’s explicit involvement in the Ivermectin disinformation war. While the agency approves ivermectin as an anti-parasite medicine, physicians have increasingly embraced it as an off-label treatment for early-onset Covid-19. Over 60 studies around the world have, for the most part, found positive findings; however, the mainstream media embraced the handful that are neutral or had data problems, for example. Regardless of position, a disinformation campaign was initiated by the FDA and others to deter the use of the off-label treatment. See the email here.

In my investigative report about how ivermectin became a target for the ‘fraud detectives,’ published in TrialSite, I highlighted the relentless smear campaign against this life-saving generic drug by a certain group of scientists/bloggers, which has been amplified in the mainstream media. My report included the overtly biased and controversial ‘You’re not a horse’ tweeted by the FDA. However, the revelatory email communication within the FDA exposes the insidious nature of this government agency’s deep involvement as one of the major planners of this disinformation war against ivermectin.

The definition of disinformation is:

‘Deliberately misleading information announced publicly or leaked by a government or especially by an intelligence agency in order to influence public opinion or the government in another nation.’

Conflating Veterinary and Human Versions

Secured via Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by investigative reporter Linda Bonvie, the email involves esteemed members of the world’s top regulatory body bragging and boasting about how many tweets the “You’re not a horse” tweet did with engagement.

Showcasing the agency’s front and central role in promoting propaganda, the author, Erica Jefferson, an associate commissioner for the FDA’s external affairs, boasts to Dr. Janet Woodcock, the FDA’s acting commissioner, how the “Not a Horse Tweet” got 14.5 million tweets. (See below)

Jefferson expresses her excitement of the ‘FDA ivermectin/[Covid]-19 tweet’ going viral. She writes, ‘needless to say the straightforward and clever (humourous) communication…saw the tweet quickly going viral and being shared across multiple social medium platforms (where it was amplified by other influencers) and resulted in additional news coverage by: NYT, CNN, NBC News and Rolling Stone to name but a few.’

FDA as Social Media Manipulator

Jefferson’s reference to ‘other influencers’ on social media amplifying the message and helping it go viral is very revealing, including the role of mainstream media. It can be said that this speaks to a larger network of entities involved in the disinformation campaign against ivermectin- like the Trusted News Initiative, a consortium of Big Tech (Twitter, Facebook, Microsoft) and Big Media set up to combat anti-vaccine ‘disinformation’ and from what is becoming evidently clear, early-treatments for Covid-19, too.

The tweet posted by the FDA (see below) was published on August 21, 2021, with the email from Erickson to Woodstock sent the following day. Copied in were many high-ranking FDA officials, such as Julia Tierney, acting chief of staff, Melissa Safford, senior advisor to the commissioner.

FDA Purposely Creating Confusion Among Consumers

Yes, a version of ivermectin is used for veterinary purposes, but the massive increase in prescriptions that concerned the FDA was the human variety, prescribed by licensed physicians with consent from their patients. But the messaging was meant to confuse people to think that they were one and the same. Of course, those people who were involved with self-medication needed education, but what the FDA does here is try to kill two birds with one stone. The FDA doesn’t go out of its way to educate but instead spread disinformation.

Jefferson reveals in her email that the Office of External Affairs (OEA) team had spent ‘the past several weeks’ planning in how to effectively use their social media platforms ‘to share important public health information.’ She references the news coming out of Mississippi regarding the use of ivermectin to treat Covid-19 ‘and the increase in adverse events (poisonings).’

It seems the FDA seized the opportunity in the Mississippi State Department of Health’s network alert sent out on August 20 stating that ‘70% of the recent calls have been related to the ingestion of livestock formulations of ivermectin.’ This is confirmed in her email, as Jefferson writes, ‘I’m sure you saw some of the news coming out of Mississippi on Friday night [August 20]…I expressed to the team late Friday night that we take the opportunity to remind the public of our warnings for ivermectin…’

What is very alarming is not only the level the FDA has stooped to in planning and executing a smear campaign against ivermectin, but the fact that the ‘poisonings’ could be based on inaccurate data.

Nonetheless, the mainstream media jumped on the ‘poisonings’ bandwagon, citing the Mississippi department of health data. The Guardian ran with the headline, ‘A human is not a horse. So why is a livestock drug sweeping America?’ However, the department later clarified it was only 2% of calls that were made to the state’s poison control center that related to the ingestion of animal formulations of ivermectin, not 70%.

The Rolling Stone (which turned out to be a fraudulent piece), the New York Times, Washington Post, Associated Press, and indeed, the Guardian all had to print corrections regarding the false information.

Both the CDC and FDA also pointed to data from the Association of Poison Control Centers (AAPCC) that purported to show a three-fold increase in calls involving ivermectin. TrialSite secured that data and found that the number of calls went from 435 to 1,143, and the overwhelming number of them were harmless. TrialSite disclosed that 11 of the calls, or about 1%, involved a serious matter. However, it’s not clear if they were associated with any hospitalization.

TrialSite found that at least by September, there were no deaths from ivermectin—although since then, there have been a few reported. Billions of doses of ivermectin have been administered by the Mectizan program, evidencing an extraordinary safety record. Of course, self-medication without physician oversight with any drug is wrong. Still, the FDA’s social media engagement sought to appropriately dissuade the veterinary variety’s use while inappropriately confusing the consumer by making them think all of the medication is for animals.

Why Wouldn’t the FDA Also Share the Truth With Consumers?

Over 60 studies have produced some overwhelmingly positive data points for ivermectin. While the FDA and others have discounted many of those studies, the drug is used by several countries as an emergency use authorized treatment—albeit in mostly low-income countries. But the important studies demonstrated potential, including the ICON case series study in America.

The National Institutes of Health now sponsors ACTIV-6, a major clinical trial involving ivermectin. Led by Duke Clinical Research Institute, this is clear evidence that the government has enough interest in the drug to at least invest (finally) to evaluate. Although, some advisors of TrialSite have suggested the study is underdosed. The University of Minnesota, along with UnitedHealthcare, also funds an ivermectin study called Covid-Out.

Why didn’t the FDA take the time to educate the public about this and instead ‘create a unique viral moment?’ Why just the singular message that served to conflate the illicit use with legitimate use by licensed physicians and consenting patients?

Regulatory agencies should be educating people not engaging in social medial disinformation campaigns. It was this same message that was used, for example, by CNN. TrialSite covered that interview on the Joe Rogan Show where Sanjay Gupta called this kind of tactic done by the FDA as “snarky.”

If this is how the FDA hopes to ‘reach the “everyday” American to “brand” FDA’ with a disinformation campaign targeting this life-saving drug, then the American public is in deep trouble, and so are the rest of us.

Republished from the author’s Substack

Author

  • Sonia Elijah
    Sonia Elijah

    Sonia Elijah has a background in Economics. She’s a former BBC researcher and now works as an investigative journalist.

Before Post

Related Topics:

Todayville is a digital media and technology company. We profile unique stories and events in our community. Register and promote your community event for free.

Follow Author

More from this author
International / 8 hours ago

Australian PM booed at Bondi vigil as crowd screams “shame!”

Opinion / 16 hours ago

Religion on trial: what could happen if Canada passes its new hate speech legislation

Business / 19 hours ago

There’s No Bias at CBC News, You Say? Well, OK…

Censorship Industrial Complex

Canadian university censors free speech advocate who spoke out against Indigenous ‘mass grave’ hoax

Published on December 19, 2025

By

From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

Dr. Frances Widdowson was arrested and given a ticket at the University of Victoria campus after trying to engage in conversation about ‘the disputed claims of unmarked graves in Kamloops.’

A Canadian academic who spoke out against claims there are mass unmarked graves of kids on former Indigenous residential schools, and who was arrested on a university campus as a result for trespassing, is fighting back with the help of a top constitutional group.

Dr. Frances Widdowson was arrested and given a ticket on December 2, 2025, at the University of Victoria (UVic) campus after trying to engage in conversation about “the disputed claims of unmarked graves in Kamloops,” noted the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF) in a recent news release.

According to the JCCF, Widdowson was trying to initiate a “good faith” conversation with people on campus, along with the leader of OneBC provincial party, Dallas Brodi.

“My arrest at the University of Victoria is an indication of an institution that is completely unmoored from its academic purpose,” said Widdowson in a statement made available to LifeSiteNews.

She added that the “institution” has been “perpetuating the falsehood” of the remains of 215 children “being confirmed at Kamloops since 2021, and is intent on censoring any correction of this claim.”

“This should be of concern for everyone who believes that universities should be places of open inquiry and critical thinking, not propaganda and indoctrination,” she added.

UVic had the day before Widdowson’s arrest warned on its website that those in favor of free speech were “not permitted to attend UVic property for the purpose of speaking publicly.”

Despite the warning, Widdowson, when she came to campus, was met with some “100 aggressive protesters assembled where she intended to speak at Petch Fountain,” noted the JCCF.

The protesters consisted of self-identified Communists, along with Antifa-aligned people and Hamas supporters.

“When she declined to leave, she was arrested, detained for about two hours, and charged under British Columbia’s Trespass Act—an offence punishable by fines up to $2,000 or up to six months’ imprisonment,” said the JCCF.

According to Constitutional lawyer Glenn Blackett, UVic actions are shameful, as it “receives hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars annually while it facilitates the arrest of Canadians attempting to engage in free inquiry on campus.”

Widdowson’s legal team, with the help of the JCCF, will be defending her ticket to protect her “Charter-protected freedoms of expression and peaceful assembly.”

Widdowson served as a tenured professor at Mount Royal University in Calgary, Alberta, before she was fired over criticism of her views on identity politics and Indigenous policy, notes the JCCF. She was vindicated, however, as an arbitrator later found her termination was wrongful.

In 2021 and 2022, the mainstream media ran with inflammatory and dubious claims that hundreds of children were buried and disregarded by Catholic priests and nuns who ran some Canadian residential schools. The reality is, after four years, there have been no mass graves discovered at residential schools.

However, as the claims went unfounded, over 120 churches, most of them Catholic and many of them on Indigenous lands that serve the local population, have been burned to the ground, vandalized, or defiled in Canada since the spring of 2021.

Last year, retired Manitoba judge Brian Giesbrecht said Canadians are being “deliberately deceived by their own government” after blasting the former Trudeau government for “actively pursuing” a policy that blames the Catholic Church for the unfounded “deaths and secret burials” of Indigenous children.

As reported by LifeSiteNews, new private members’ Bill C-254, “An Act To Amend The Criminal Code” introduced by New Democrat MP Leah Gazan, looks to give jail time to people who engage in so-called “Denialism.” The bill would look to jail those who question the media and government narrative surrounding Canada’s “Indian Residential School system” that there are mass graves despite no evidence to support this claim.

Continue Reading

Censorship Industrial Complex

Top constitutional lawyer warns against Liberal bills that could turn Canada into ‘police state’

Published on December 19, 2025

By

From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

‘Freedom in Canada is dying slowly and gradually, not by a single fell swoop, but by a thousand cuts,’ wrote John Carpay of the JCCF.

One of Canada’s top constitutional legal experts has warned that freedom in the nation is “dying slowly” because of a host of laws both passed and now proposed by the Liberal federal government of Prime Minister Mark Carney, saying it is “up to citizens” to urge lawmakers to reverse course.

In an opinion piece that was published in the Epoch Times on December 15, John Carpay, who heads the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF), gave a bleak outlook on no less than six Liberal laws, which he warned will turn Canada into a “police state.”

“Freedom in Canada is dying slowly and gradually, not by a single fell swoop, but by a thousand cuts,” he wrote.

Carpay gave the example of laws passed in the United Kingdom dealing with freedom of online speech, noting how in Canada “too few Canadians have spoken out against the federal government gradually taking over the internet through a series of bills with innocuous and even laudable titles.”

“How did the United Kingdom end up arresting thousands of its citizens (more than 30 per day) over their Facebook, X, and other social media posts? This Orwellian nightmare was achieved one small step at a time. No single step was deemed worthy of fierce and effective opposition by British citizens,” he warned.

Carpay noted how UK citizens essentially let it happen that their rights were taken away from them via mass “state surveillance.”

He said that in Canada Bill C-11, also known as the Online Streaming Act, passed in 2023, “undermines net neutrality.” Bill C-11 mandates that Big Tech companies pay to publish Canadian content on their platforms. As a result, Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, blocked all access to news content in Canada.

“The Online Streaming Act undermines net neutrality (all online content being treated equally) and amounts to an aggressive expansion of government control over the internet and media companies. The CRTC now has broad power over what Canadians watch, hear, and access online, deciding what is discoverable, permissible, or even visible,” noted Carpay.

Carpay also warned about two recent bills before the House of Commons: Bill C-2, the Strong Borders Act, Bill C-8, and Bill C-9, as well as the Combating Hate Act.

“Bill C-2 should be called the Strong Surveillance Act, as it gives sweeping powers to a host of non-police government officials to conduct warrantless searches,” warned Carpay.

He observed how Bill C-2 would grant law enforcement “unprecedented powers to monitor Canadians’ digital activity,” without any “judicial oversight.”

“Any online service provider—including social media and cloud platforms, email domain hosts and even smaller service providers—would be compelled to disclose subscriber information and metadata,” he warned.

When it comes to Bill C-8, or The Critical Cyber Systems Protection Act, Carpay warned that if passed it would “allow government to kick Canadians off the internet.”

“The government’s pretext for the Critical Cyber Systems Protection Act is to ‘modernize’ Canada’s cybersecurity framework and protect it against any threats of ‘interference, manipulation, disruption or degradation,’” wrote Carpay.

“Sadly, it remains entirely unclear whether ‘disinformation’ (as defined by government) would constitute ‘interference, manipulation, disruption or degradation’.”

Lawyer warns new laws ‘grant government unprecedented control’

Bill C-9, the Combating Hate Act, has been blasted by constitutional experts as allowing empowered police and the government to go after those it deems have violated a person’s “feelings” in a “hateful” way.

Carpay, who has warned about this bill and others, noted that when it comes to Bill C-9, it affects Canadians’ right to religious freedom, as it “removes needed protection from religious leaders (and others) who wish to proclaim what their sacred scriptures teach about human sexuality.”

“Marc Miller, Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture, has stated publicly that he views certain Bible and Koran passages as hateful. Bill C-9 would chill free speech, especially on the internet where expression is recorded indefinitely, and particularly for activists, journalists, and other people expressing opinions contrary to government-approved narratives,” he wrote.

“This law also vastly increases the maximum sentences that could be imposed if a judge feels that the offence was ‘motivated by hatred,’ and creates new offences. It prohibits merely displaying certain symbols linked to hate or terrorism in public, and extends criminal liability to peaceful protest activity.”

Carpay said that both C-8 and C-9 together “collectively grant government unprecedented control over online speech, news, streaming services, and digital infrastructure.”

He said that the Liberal federal government is “transforming Canada’s centuries-old traditions of free speech and privacy rights into something revocable at the pleasure of the CRTC, politicians, and bureaucrats,” adding that Canadians need to wake up.

“Laziness and naivete are not valid reasons for failing to rise up (peacefully!) and revolt against all of these bills, which are slowly but surely turning Canada into a police state,” he wrote.

Carpay said that Canadians need to contact their MPs and “demand the immediate repeal of the Online Streaming Act and the Online News Act,” and “reject” the other bills before the House.

When it comes to Bill C-9, as reported by LifeSiteNews, the Canadian Constitution Foundation (CCF) launched a petition demanding that a Liberal government bill that would criminalize parts of the Bible dealing with homosexuality under Canada’s new “hate speech” laws be fully rescinded.

The amendments to Bill C-9 have been condemned by the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, who penned an open letter to the Carney Liberals, blasting the proposed amendment and calling for its removal.

Continue Reading

Trending

X