Plaintiffs filed a FOIA lawsuit after the FDA and HHS failed to turn over records showing why government officials discouraged the COVID-19 treatments.
Administration (FDA) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for failing to turn over documents related to the government’s suppression of the COVID-19 treatments hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) and ivermectin.
According to the lawsuit, AFL filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request in August 2022 with HHS and the FDA seeking information related to the anti-malarial drug HCQ from March 1 to Sept. 1, 2020. AFL received confirmation and tracking numbers from both agencies that its request had been received.
AFL filed similar FOIA requests in September 2022 with the same agencies seeking information on ivermectin—a popular antiparasitic medication—and also received confirmation that the requests were received, along with tracking numbers, according to an AFL press release.
AFL, a nonprofit “working to promote the rule of law in the United States, prevent executive overreach, and ensure due process and equal protection for all Americans,” sought information to determine when and why government officials, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, discouraged and suppressed the use of HCQ and ivermectin to treat COVID-19. Neither agency complied with the requests.
“COVID-19 exposed the public health establishment to be highly politicized and shockingly inept. To this day, precisely why the bureaucrats suppressed HCQ and Ivermectin remains an unanswered question. In filing this suit, AFL has taken a first step toward exposing the truth and holding accountable the individuals responsible for denying patients access to these potentially useful drugs. Americans have a right to know if it was the political animus of leftist government workers toward former President Trump, rather than the science, that was driving decision-making,” Reed D. Rubinstein, AFL’s senior counselor and director of Oversight and Investigations told The Epoch Times in an email.
Despite hundreds of peer-reviewed studies supporting the effectiveness of both medications, the FDA has cautioned against using HCQ and ivermectin to prevent and treat COVID-19. On its website, the FDA states that “currently available data do not show ivermectin is effective against COVID-19,” yet half of the studies the agency uses to support its position support using ivermectin against COVID-19, according to a 2022 review by The Epoch Times.
