Inmates Say Prison Doc Dosed Them With Ivermectin Labeled ‘Vitamins’

// Last week, the ACLU of Arkansas sued the Washington County Detention Center and its jail doctor on behalf of four incarcerated plaintiffs who claim they were unknowingly treated with Ivermectin while suffering from coronavirus.

Dr. Robert Karas provides medical services to the WCDC through his business, Karas Correctional Health, PLLC. He also appears to spend a lot of time on Facebook, where he boasted of his success treating COVID patients in his private practice using the “Ivermectin protocol.”

The CDC and FDA have both warned that the anti-parasitic drug Ivermectin, AKA “horse paste,” is not an appropriate treatment for coronavirus. Nevertheless Dr. Karas posted as recently as December 24, 2021, that he used the same course of Ivermectin to treat WCDC inmates as prescribed in his private practice, with “[t]he slight difference between jail protocol and the clinic regimen being that we kept the .2-.4 mg/kg Ivermectin dosing on our jail patients.”

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Which is how these inmates found out that they were being treated with horse dewormer, not “vitamins,” “antibiotics,” and “steroids” as they had been told. According to the complaint, Dr. Karas neglected some the finer points of informed consent. To wit, he allegedly lied about what he was giving them and failed to tell them about the side effects, which include nausea, vomiting, vision issues, diarrhea, bloody stools, and stomach cramps.

And indeed, the plaintiffs did suffer these side effects, particularly since they were being given doses well above those recommended for the drug’s intended use in treatment of intestinal parasites or lice.

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From the complaint, which was first reported by CBS News:

“High doses” is no hyperbole. By way of example, prior to receiving the drug, Plaintiff Edrick Wooten was recorded on August 22, 2021, as being 6’1” and weighing 158 pounds (72 kg). At his size, the approved dosage of Ivermectin to combat worms (one of the approved uses in humans) is 0.2 mg/kg in a single dose, which given his size, is 14 mg. Mr. Wooten, however, received 48 mg over a period of four days, or 3.4 times the approved dosage. 27.

Similarly, Plaintiff Dayman Blackburn was recorded on August 21, 2021, as being 6’1” and weighing 191 pounds (86.6 kg). At his size, the approved dosage to combat worms is 0.2 mg/kg in a single dose, which is 17 mg. According to Mr. Blackburn’s medical records, however, he was prescribed 36 mg of the medicine on August 22 by the Karas Defendants, followed by 24 mg a day from August 23-August 25. That dosage, totaling 108 mg, is nearly 6.3 times the approved dosage.

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The plaintiffs allege that the defendants “attempted to obtain ‘retroactive’ consents to medical treatment from detainees, including for the use of Ivermectin” once the deception was discovered. Then the defendants added insult to injury by making the plaintiffs pay for their own medical examinations by Dr. Karas’s company to determine if they’d been harmed by the treatment they hadn’t consented to. And to top it all off, Dr. Karas may have had a financial incentive to prescribe these drugs in high doses since he sometimes filled prescriptions for WCDC.

It’s not a great look.

The plaintiffs argue that their due process right to voluntary and informed consent was violated and that their equal protection rights were violated, since they were treated differently from Dr. Karas’s non-incarcerated patients. They seek injunctive relief and medical treatment by another provider.

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Preferably one who doesn’t brag on Facebook about violating CDC guidance.

Edrick v. Helder [Docket via Court Listener]

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Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.

Topics

Constitutional Law, COVID-19, Government, Prisons