A DuPage County judge on Monday ordered Elmhurst Hospital to allow a comatose woman suffering from COVID-19 to receive a medication the Food and Drug Administration says could be unsafe, but the legal fight appears bound to escalate.
Nurije Fype, 68, of Elmhurst, has been in intensive care at the hospital since early April and is now on a ventilator, according to testimony at the court hearing. Her daughter, Desareta Fype, is pushing for her mother to receive a medication called ivermectin, normally used to treat diseases caused by parasitic worms.
Desareta Fype said in an affidavit she learned about the drug in a news article while researching treatment options for her mother. The story, published in the Buffalo News, told of an 80-year-old woman in dire shape from COVID-19 who recovered after her family sued to get her ivermectin.
The FDA, however, has cautioned against using ivermectin to treat patients suffering from the virus. It says some people have been hospitalized after self-medicating with a form of the drug intended for horses, and that large doses can be fatal.
Another federal agency, the National Institutes of Health, has taken a more measured stance, saying that while the drug is well-tolerated when used for its intended purposes, there isn’t enough information to allow a recommendation “for or against” using it to treat COVID-19.
Elmhurst Hospital’s attorney, Joseph Monahan, said at the hearing none of its doctors would agree to administer ivermectin for COVID-19, and that an internal ethics panel concluded its use couldn’t be justified. He argued that judges shouldn’t overrule medical decisions.
“(The court) doesn’t have the authority to order a medical corporation to use particular medications, particularly when it’s an off-label use, particularly when the federal government has said it could be dangerous,” he said.
He suggested Desareta Fype could transfer her mother to another facility where doctors would be willing to use the medication, but Judge James Orel seemed astonished at the suggestion.
“Let me get this right: The hospital is willing to transfer a woman in a coma with COVID?” he said. “Is that what you’re telling me?”
Orel pointed to an affidavit from Fype’s physician, Dr. William Crevier of Orland Park, in which the doctor said he has used the drug successfully for COVID-19 patients since last year. If Elmhurst Hospital’s doctors don’t want to use ivermectin, Orel said, they should allow Crevier to administer it.
“Why wouldn’t this be tried if she’s not improving?” Orel said. “Why does the hospital object to providing this medication? If someone has been in the ICU for a month and not improving, why would the hospital not consider another medication?”
It was still not clear, however, whether the hospital would allow Fype to receive the medication. Orel said he expected the case to head to an appellate court, and when he asked Monahan if the hospital was going to follow his order, the attorney replied, “I will talk to my client.”
An Elmhurst Hospital spokesman declined to comment. The parties are due to return to court Tuesday.
Like other purported COVID-19 treatments that have not gotten government approval, ivermectin has been embroiled in controversy. One of its leading proponents, Dr. Pierre Kory, a pulmonary and critical care specialist, testified in favor of the drug before a U.S. Senate committee last year, but he said YouTube later took down the video in which he made his statement, calling it medical misinformation.
That brought a charge of censorship from Sen. Ron Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican who is on the panel. YouTube did not respond to a request for comment.
A medical journal also rejected a paper Kory co-wrote with fellow members of a group called the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance, which advocates for the medication. The journal’s chief executive editor said the paper contained “a series of strong, unsupported claims based on studies with insufficient statistical significance.”
Another journal later published the paper, though, and Kory said ivermectin has proven its worth. He has treated upward of 200 COVID-19 patients with the drug and seen “dramatic” results, he said, and colleagues around the world have reported similar findings.
He said government agencies that don’t approve the drug’s use against COVID-19 “are not keeping up with the data. The data have done nothing but deepen and become more consistent.”
The FDA did not respond to the Tribune’s request for comment by press time.
Clinical trials involving the medication are underway, and in court papers, the hospital said the judge’s decision to order the use of ivermectin was “hurried and unfair” and should have waited for evidence to be presented. But Orel said given Fype’s condition, his decision had to be speedy.
“If I wait for an evidentiary hearing, she might not be around,” he said.
