Democratic presidential candidate Robert Kennedy Jr. made a compelling case that Ivermectin was effective at combating COVID-19 by pointing to its widespread use in countries like Nigeria.
“There are now 100 studies that show that Ivermectin had profound benefits. Generally speaking, a 70 percent to 85 percent reduction in hospitalizations and deaths. It was really a miracle drug,” Kennedy told The Hill’s online program “Rising” on Friday.
Countries that used Ivermectin widely to treat bodily parasites had that added benefit of low COVID death rates, the presidential candidate contended.
Kennedy offered Nigeria as an example, “which has the highest river blindness burden in the world,” but also had “the lowest COVID death rate in the world.”
“They also have the biggest malaria burden so virtually the entire population is on hydroxychloroquine and a large part of the population is on Ivermectin for the river blindness,” he explained.
“And they had almost no vaccination, something like 1.3 percent vaccination, so they did very well,” Kennedy added.
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“[T]here are states in India, sort of side-by-side states, like Kerala and Uttar Pradesh, where Kerala used our protocol and had the same comparable death rates and Uttar Pradesh used Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine and ended the pandemic overnight,” Kennedy said.
Let’s take a look at some of Kennedy’s claims so far.
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RFK Jr. said that Nigeria had the lowest death rate in the world.
According to the Johns Hopkins University of Medicine tracker Nigeria is near the very bottom of COVID death rates in the world at 1.53 fatalities per 100,000 of its population.
That figures tracked closely with the fellow central African nation of Sierra Leone at 1.58 deaths per 100,000.
By comparison the death rate in the U.S. was about 341 deaths per 100,000, which is obviously much higher than these African countries.
New York Times reporter Stephanie Nolen noted in a March 2022 piece that it is a “mystery” why many nations in Africa, including Sierra Leone had such low death rates coupled with low vaccination rates.
She pointed out that about two-thirds of the population in sub-Saharan countries have the antibodies, so they have had COVID. In Sierra Leone, 78 percent of the people had the antibodies.
Nolen recounted that some researchers have speculated the overall youth of the population or the climate reason as potential reasons for the low death rates, but that does not explain why India and nations in Asia with similar climates and age demographics had much higher death rates than many in Africa.
The median age in Africa is 19 years versus 38 in the U.S. and 28 in India.
Another explanation some have offered for the low death rate is that African countries simply did not keep records of the deaths, but Nolen wrote that scientists tracking the pandemic on the ground do not believe hundreds of thousands or millions of deaths could have gone unnoticed.
“We have not seen massive burials in Africa. If that had happened, we’d have seen it,” said Dr. Thierno Baldé, who runs the World Health Organization’s COVID-19 emergency response in Africa.
“A death in Africa never goes unrecorded, as much as we are poor at record-keeping,” said Dr. Abdhalah Ziraba, an epidemiologist at the African Population and Health Research Center in Nairobi, Kenya. “There is a funeral, an announcement: A burial is never done within a week because it is a big event.”
Kennedy mentioned the differences the number of deaths even between certain states in India like Uttar Pradesh versus Kerala.
India Express reported in May 2021 the Uttar Pradesh government introduced large-scale use of Ivermectin as a “prophylactic and therapeutic” and that is helped the state maintain lower fatality and positivity rate as compared to other states.
Whereas Kerala — which used the U.S. COVID-19 treatment protocol as RFK highlighted — experienced the most COVID cases and death in the country, The Times of India reported in April 2023.
Kennedy cited Yale University professor of epidemiology Dr. Harvey Risch to further bolster his case Ivermectin is effective against COVID.
Dr. Risch told Fox News contributor Lisa Boothe in October 2022, “Hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin, and others do work…very well for keeping people out of the hospital and for keeping people from dying from COVID.”
Dr. Harvey Risch: “Hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin, and others do work…very well for keeping people out of the hospital and for keeping people from dying from COVID…suppressed at all counts by economic interests…the media was completely complicit.” https://t.co/G8mbgZqc1w pic.twitter.com/MMydLN7PYK
— Lisa Boothe 🇺🇸 (@LisaMarieBoothe) October 5, 2022
RFK Jr said that there are nearly 100 studies on the benefits of Ivermectin in treating COVID-19.
One published in 2022, which was conducted in Brazil with over 88,000 subjects, found a 92 percent reduction in COVID-19 mortality among those taking Ivermectin.
Kennedy conceded there are studies that have reached the conclusion that using Ivermectin had no effect in treating COVID-19.
The Food and Drug Administration recommends against Ivermectin being used to treat or to prevent the sickness.
Kennedy concluded, “There are a handful of studies that are government produced, WHO produced, financed by Bill Gates, that say there was no benefit, but those studies have a lot problems.”
It’s hard to deny that the Democratic candidate put some persuasive information on the table.
Why the federal government felt compelled to weigh in so heavily against Ivermectin is a mystery — for now. Perhaps the government was driven by economic interests. Perhaps it was driven by genuine ignorance.
Regardless, Americans deserve to know the uncensored truth and Kennedy appears committed to helping make that happen.
