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Dec. 13, 2020 - Jim Fetzer
10:07
Senate Testimony on COVID-19: "I can't keep doing this!"
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Time Text
Thank you.
Thank you, Dr. Ryder.
Our next witness is here in person, Dr. Pierre Corey.
Dr. Corey is the former Associate Professor and Chief of the Critical Care Service and Medical Director of the Trauma and Life Support Center at the University of Wisconsin, and recently joined the ICU service at Aurora St.
Luke Medical Center in Milwaukee.
He is board certified in critical medicine, pulmonary diseases, and internal medicine.
Dr. Corey has traveled across multiple states in the U.S.
to care for COVID-19 patients throughout the pandemic.
He is also the president of the Frontline COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance, a nonprofit organization of critical care specialists led by Professor Paul Merrick, whose mission over the last nine months has focused on the research and development of effective treatment protocols for COVID-19 using repurposed drugs.
He received his M.D.
from St.
George's University School of Medicine, and I'll only add that We added Dr. Corey very late to our, I think, a hearing in May because I'd heard of his development of, I guess, anti-inflammatory steroids in critical care on COVID.
And Dr. Corey, I have to tell you, I've had doctors come up to me and thank me for holding that hearing where they listened to you change their thinking.
They believe they've saved their patients' lives because of your testimony at that hearing.
I hope your testimony will be as impactful today, Dr. Corey.
Senator, thank you and thank you for holding this hearing.
I just want to start out, I didn't think I'd have to say this, but I want to register my offense at the Ranking Member's opening statement.
I was discredited as a politician.
I am a physician and a man of science.
I have done nothing, nothing but commit myself to scientific truth and the care of patients.
And to hear that I'm here because of a political angle, I am not a politician, I'm a physician.
I want to start out by saying that I'm not speaking as an individual.
I'm speaking on behalf of the organization that I'm a part of.
We are a group of some of the most highly published physicians in the world.
We have near 2,000 peer-reviewed publications among us, led by Professor Paul Maric, who is our intellectual leader, We came together early on in the pandemic, and all we have sought is to review the world's literature on every facet of this disease, trying to develop effective protocols.
You just mentioned that I was here in May, and I touted, I wouldn't say touted, I recommended that it was critical that we use corticosteroids in this disease, when all of the national and international healthcare organizations said we cannot use those.
That turned out to be a life-saving recommendation.
I am here again today with a new recommendation.
In the last nine months, in our review of all of the literature, as a group, again, we are some of the most highly published physicians in our specialty and the world.
We have done nothing but try to figure out how to identify a repurposed and available drug to treat this illness.
Now, come to the conclusion, after nine months, and I have to point out, I am severely troubled
by the fact that the NIH, the FDA, and the CDC, I do not know of any task force that was assigned
or compiled to review repurposed drugs in an attempt to treat this disease.
Everything has been about novel and or expensive pharmaceutically engineered drugs,
things like tocilizumab and rendesivir and monoclonal antibodies and vaccines.
We have 100 years of medicine development.
We know, we are expert in all the medicines we use, and I do not know of a task force
that has been focused on repurposed drugs.
I will tell you that my group and our organization, I will say that we have filled that void.
That is all we have done is focus on the things we know and things we do.
And I'm here to tell you, Dr. Reiter, he just presented.
He has one study of the many that I want to talk about.
And I want to talk about that we have a solution to this crisis.
There is a drug that is proving to be of miraculous impact.
And when I say miracle, I do not use that term lightly.
And I don't want to be sensationalized when I say that.
That is a scientific recommendation based on mountains of data that has emerged in the last three months.
When I am told, and I just had to hear this in the opening sentence, That we are touting things that are not FDA or NIH recommended.
Let me be clear.
The NIH, their recommendation on Evermectin, which is to not use it outside of controlled trials.
is from August 27th.
We are now in December.
This is three to four months later.
Mountains of data have emerged from many centers and countries around the world showing the miraculous effectiveness of ivermectin.
It basically obliterates transmission of this virus.
If you take it, you will not get sick.
I want to briefly summarize the data.
My manuscript, again, published by some of the most... We have contributed more to the medical knowledge of our specialty in our careers than anyone else can claim as a group.
And our manuscript, which was posted on Medicine Preprint Server, Details all of this evidence.
I want to briefly summarize it number one We have evidence that ivermectin is effective not only in Prophylaxis in the prevention if you take it you will not get sick We just came across a trial last night from Argentina by the lead investigator of ivermectin in Argentina dr. Hector Carvalho They prophylaxed 800 healthcare workers.
Not one got sick.
In the 400 that they didn't prophylax with ivermectin, 58% got sick.
237 of those 400 got sick.
If you take it, you will not get sick.
It has immense and potent antiviral activity.
We know that from the first study in Monash, it has made the bench to the bedside.
Prophylaxis.
We now have four large randomized controlled trials totaling over 1,500 patients.
Each trial showing that as a prophylaxis agent, it is immensely effective.
You will not get sick.
You will be protected from getting ill if you take it.
In early outpatient treatment, we have three randomized controlled trials and multiple observation as well as case series showing that if you take ivermectin, the need for hospitalization and death will decrease.
The most profound evidence we have is in the hospitalized patients.
We have four randomized control trials there, multiple observation trials, all showing the same thing.
You will not die, or you will die at much, much, much lower rates.
Statistically significant, large magnitude results if you take ivermectin.
It is proving to be a wonder drug.
It has already won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2015 for its impacts on global health in the eradication of parasitic diseases.
It is proving to be an immensely powerful antiviral and anti-inflammatory agent.
It is critical for its use in this disease.
We again stand by our manuscript.
It is a scientific manuscript.
It's been submitted for peer review.
But please recognize, peer review takes time.
It takes months.
We do not have months.
We have 100,000 patients in the hospital right now dying.
I'm a lung specialist.
I'm an ICU specialist.
I've cared for more dying COVID patients than anyone can imagine.
They're dying because they can't breathe.
They can't breathe.
They're on high flow oxygen delivery devices.
They're on non-invasive ventilators and or they're sedated and paralyzed and attached to mechanical ventilators that breathe for them.
And I watch them every day.
They die.
By the time they get me in the ICU, they're already dying.
They're almost impossible to recover.
Early treatment is key.
We need to offload the hospitals.
We are tired.
I can't keep doing this.
If you look at my manuscript, and if I have to go back to work next week, any further deaths are going to be needless deaths, and I cannot be traumatized by that.
I cannot keep caring for patients.
When I know that they could have been saved with earlier treatment and that drug that will treat them and prevent the hospitalization is ivermectin.
I am here today, I'm calling to action.
The NIH, their last recommendation was August 27th.
August 27th.
I want to be clear.
I am not here as a politician or a dramatist or sensationalizing what I'm recommending.
I'm going to be very clear and very simple.
All I ask is for the NIH to review our data that we've compiled of all of the emerging
data.
We have almost 30 studies.
Everyone is reliably and reproducibly positive, showing the dramatic impacts of ivermectin.
Please, I'm just asking that they review our manuscript.
It is a serious manuscript by serious, highly experienced physicians and researchers.
We have – I cannot call on more credibility than we have.
We're not just a random doctor who's saying that we have a cure.
I don't want to say I have a cure.
I'm just asking review our data.
We have immense amounts of data to show that ivermectin must be implemented and implemented now.
Senator, the last thing I want to say is You know who's dying here?
It's our African American and Latino and elderly.
It's some of the most disadvantaged and impoverished members of our society.
They are dying at higher rates than anyone else.
It's the most severe discrepancy I've seen in my medical career.
And we are responsible to protect those disadvantaged members.
We have a special duty to provide countermeasures.
The amount of evidence to show that ivermectin is life-saving and protective is so immense and the drug is so safe.
My colleagues have talked about it.
It must be instituted and implemented.
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