A Regina doctor will pay a fine and loss of practice during August for prescribing Ivermectin for COVID-19.The Saskatchewan College of Physicians and Surgeons found that over two years, between April 2020 and March 2022, Tshipita Kabongo prescribed the drug as either a treatment or to prevent COVID-19 at the Integrated Wellness and Health Balance Centre in Regina.In a decision June 7, Kabongo was found to have engaged in unprofessional conduct for defying the policy on alternative therapies. Here, patients have a right to make decisions about their health care but doctors who choose to use complementary or alternative therapies have to do so in a way that’s informed by medical evidence and science.“It is unethical to engage in or to aid and abet in treatment which has no acceptable scientific basis, may be dangerous, may deceive the patient by giving false hope, or which may cause the patient to delay in seeking conventional care until his or her condition becomes irreversible,” according to the policy.The college ruled one or more of the prescriptions Kabongo gave weren’t medically necessary, that he failed to recommend other evidence-informed treatment options, and that he didn’t properly document giving the prescriptions in medical records.Kabongo's one month suspension starts August 1. He must have someone supervise him when he returns to practice and pay the $44,783.72 cost of the investigation and hearing against him.Ivermectin treats parasites as an oral medicine and rosacea when applied to the skin.In the fall of 2021, Health Canada and several medical groups in Saskatchewan publicly warned against the use of Ivermectin for COVID-19, especially the stronger veterinary doses.“There is no evidence that Ivermectin works to prevent or treat COVID-19 and it is not authorized for this use. To date, Health Canada has not received any drug submission or applications for clinical trials for Ivermectin for the prevention or treatment of COVID-19,” explained a public notice from Health Canada issued in October 2021.A memo from fall 2021 by the College of Physicians and Surgeons said that studies that suggested positive results from Ivermectin suffered from small sample sizes and confounding factors.On May 30, Dr. Pierre Kory, author of The War on Ivermectin, defended the drug's efficacy and safety in testimony to the National Citizens Inquiry on COVID-19 in Regina. He said meta studies had shown an 81% reduction in mortality of COVID-19 cases, with rates improving the earlier it was administered.Kory said the pharmaceutical company Merck helped invent ivermectin, but it was no longer profitable after its patent ran out."On the night of February 4 (2020), they posted on their website three brazenly false statements, warning the world that there's no scientific basis that it might work, there's no evidence that it does work, and that they were worried about its safety. This is one of the safest drugs in the history of medicine," Kory explained.Kory said he and colleagues at the Frontline COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance suffered from a "disinformation campaign" after publicizing evidence for the drug's efficacy."As soon as we started doing that, really bad things started to happen to us in our careers," Kory said.
