The attorney who defended the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) when doctors sued the FDA over its anti-ivermectin social media posts during the COVID-19 pandemic admitted the FDA’s war against ivermectin was a mistake and an abuse of governmental authority, according to an investigation by Project Veritas.
The nonprofit, which focuses on exposing corruption through undercover video, on Aug. 27 released footage of U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) attorney Isaac Belfer telling an undercover Project Veritas journalist that what the FDA did was “unquestionably beyond its authority.”
Although Belfer defended the FDA’s actions in court, he told the Project Veritas journalist that there was a “legitimate problem” with the agency’s actions.
“If you remember during the pandemic,” Belfer said, “FDA issued some tweets that said, ‘You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Stop it with ivermectin.’ … They’ll often use tweets to pursue a broader agenda.”
In this instance, the tweets were part of a larger agenda of discouraging people from using ivermectin — a drug the FDA approved in 1996 for treating several diseases — to treat COVID-19.
But the FDA “really shouldn’t be saying, ‘Don’t take this drug,’” Belfer said, because the FDA — as a federal agency — can do only what it has statutory authorization from Congress to do.
The FDA is authorized to provide information about drugs, but it cannot recommend what drugs to take or not take. “That’s the practice of medicine and the FDA can’t practice medicine,” Belfer said.
Hellbound and Down 