dailymail | A jail doctor in Washington County, Arkansas, has been using an animal deworming drug to treat inmates with Covid-19 even though the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has specifically warned against it.
Ivermectin is often used as a dewormer in animals including cows and horses, and is not recommended for treating the virus. The FDA said it 'can cause serious harm'.
During a finance and budget committee meeting for Washington County on Tuesday night the jail's physician Dr Rob Karas asked for a 10 per cent increase in the medical services contract, even after the county sheriff confirmed that the jail health provider had been prescribing the drug.
Dr Karas has faced calls to resign over the revelation.
County-elected Justice of the Peace Eva Madison brought the issue back up towards the end of the meeting after jail officials presented their 2022 budget. 'I learned today that Dr Karas is giving ivermectin - cow dewormer - to the inmates at the jail,' she said.
Madison told members of the Washington County quorum court - the county's governing body - that a jail official and county employee, who asked to stay anonymous, told her they had been sent to the jail's clinic to get tested for Covid-19.
When the unidentified person tested negative they told Madison they were given a $76 prescription for ivermectin, as reported by CBS News.
'They were concerned about the prescription, asked their primary care physician about it and the doctor told him to 'throw that in the trash,' she said.
'(The person) tested negative, was given a prescription for ivermectin, was told to go to Dr Karas's pharmacy just off campus to have it filled,' Madison told the committee.
She added: 'He's out $76 because of Dr Karas prescribing dewormer to a county employee for treatment of a condition that he didn't have.
'The employee had the good fortune to have a physician that he could go to and ask for a second opinion. Our inmates do not have that choice.'
Washington County Sheriff Tim Helder did not say how many inmates at the 710-bed facility had been given ivermectin and defended Dr Karas, who has been prescribing the medication.
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