Science relies on facts, Dr Taban, not histrionic speculation.

By Dr EV RAPITI (General Practitioner and published author) South Africa

The comments and recommendations by Dr Emmanuel Taban (a pulmonologist practicing in Mediclinic Hospital) - that Ivermectin is the direct cause of three out of five deaths of his patients with acute respiratory disorder through liver failure, (without any constructive and scientific basis)- is puerile, histrionic and highly propagandistic, all to try and discredit a drug that is safer than aspirin or paracetamol.

The sensational manner in which he made his comments via social media comes across as attention seeking, rather than educational. His wild and unjustified claims got the widespread attention of an already captured media and left the general public confused about the safety of the drug. Quite clearly, he does not have first hand knowledge about the drug if he hasn’t used it, nor has he researched the drug properly before releasing grossly outlandish comments about an over thirty year old Nobel prize winning drug, that has one of the best safety profiles, and has been used 4 billion times, with a minimal death rate of about 340 in its history. The jab has caused over forty thousand deaths so far.

Lets talk facts, shall we?

• There have been over 50 randomised controlled trials proving the efficacy of the drug to save lives from Covid. The meta-analysis of 21 randomised controlled trials by independent and world renowned researcher, Dr Tess Lawrie, revealed that the drug has reduced deaths by 80%.
• One of the peer reviewed articles written by Dr P Kory and Dr Paul Marik, proving the efficacy of the drug was published in the journal of pharmaco-therapeutics. It will serve him well to read the article.
• Dr Andrew Hill of the WHO was busy conducting studies on the safety of the drug and during his research he strongly recommended that the entire world should stock up on the drug to fight the disease. He was, it appears, silenced for speaking up for the drug and he refused to comment on his recommendation when he was subsequently asked about it.
• In places like Mexico, Peru, and in the states of Uttar Pradesh and in Goa in India the incidence of deaths and hospitalisation plummeted drastically to near zero ever since the drug was used on a wide scale. The head of the WHO advised India not to use the drug to treat Covid, basing it on the compromised advice of Merck, clearly making her the mouth piece of a drug company, instead of being the spokesperson of the desperate citizens of the world. For her misdemeanor and unscientific advice, the Indian Bar Association has lodged a case against her for misinformation.
• Studies on the prophylactic use of the drug on health workers in Bangladesh and South America showed that the drug had a significantly lower incidence of Covid-19 in the group that used it compared to the group that didn’t use it.
• The CDC recommended the use of the drug on the elderly for scabies at a dose of 0.2mg / kg for seven days. Why would they recommend it, if it wasn’t safe especially for the elderly, who often have compromised organ function through age and chronic illness?
• Efficacy of drugs is determined through the following methods: meta-analysis, randomised controlled trials, observational, experience and expert opinion. I have thus far mentioned the results of RCTs and observational studies, which revealed that the drug is extremely effective in combating the disease.
• Prof Eli Swartz, an established infectious disease specialist, who has extensive knowledge on the drug, when the drug was widely used to treat parasites, did a recent study, where Covid positive patients were treated with the drug on about 400 patients. His study showed that the group that used the drug, had no virus in them after forty eight hours.
• When it comes to experience, a specialist physician in the Philippines testified in court that he successfully treated over 800 patients in his hospital and he did not have a single death.

My experience using Ivermectin to save lives

I have treated over 450 patients with this drug in the last two months and I have not had a single death. I have treated over 140 patients with pneumonia and all of them survived. I have sent only two patients to hospital because we could not access portable oxygen. With portable oxygen and my protocol, I have treated patients with oxygen levels of sixty and seventy percent at home. One of the patients I treated was discharged after being in the hospital ICU for two months with an oxygen level of 60% with an oxygen tank and no medications or follow up. In one month of treatment, I managed to wean him off his oxygen and bring his oxygen levels up to 95% . He is now ambulatory after being bedridden. The majority of my patients that presented early with symptoms or with early pneumonia made a dramatic recovery within three days. I have not encountered a single patient presenting with an adverse event from the drug. For the delta variant, I used very high doses early because the delta variant is a far more virulent strain than previous strains. So, I was flabbergasted when I read Dr Taban’s untested claim that his patients were dying from liver failure, without producing the evidence.

The liver problem that is NOT due to Ivermectin

I decided to research the relationship between Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome and acute liver failure. The following is an excerpt from the INSPIRES IV study, which I would urge all doctors and especially, Dr Taban to study. “Proceedings from the Fourth International Symposium on Acute Pulmonary Injury and Translation Research (INSPIRES IV) Patients with liver diseases are at high risk for the development of acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). The liver is an important organ that regulates a complex network of mediators and modulates organ interactions during inflammatory disorders. Liver function is increasingly recognized as a critical determinant of the pathogenesis and resolution of ARDS, significantly influencing the prognosis of these patients. The liver plays a central role in the synthesis of proteins, metabolism of toxins and drugs, and in the modulation of immunity and host defense. However, the tools for assessing liver function are limited in the clinical setting, and patients with liver diseases are frequently excluded from clinical studies of ARDS. Therefore, the mechanisms by which the liver participates in the pathogenesis of acute lung injury are not totally understood. Several functions of the liver, including endotoxin and bacterial clearance, release and clearance of pro-inflammatory cytokines and eicosanoids, and synthesis of acute-phase proteins can modulate lung injury in the setting of sepsis and other severe inflammatory diseases”.

Because Dr Taban’s claims are based on wild conjecture without any scientific evidence that three of his patients died of liver failure through Ivermectin, I felt it was imperative to investigate the likely pathophysiology that led to his patients’ deaths and reassure the confused public that his statement that Ivermectin caused the deaths of his patients is utterly baseless and void of justification.

• Firstly, when one makes such a bold statement condemning a drug that has an excellent safety profile, one has to produce good evidence for it.
• Secondly, raised liver enzymes does not constitute liver failure but the result of insults to the liver through drugs and infections. The relationship between Acute Respiratory distress syndrome and acute liver failure is bidirectional. What that means is that if liver is severely damaged it will lead to severe toxicity and sepsis because it can no longer produce APPS,(acute phase proteins) to rid the body of toxins and prevent clotting. This could eventually lead to respiratory failure.
• On the other hand in the case of Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome, as in SARs COV2, the alveolar cells are filled with liquid mucous and the pulmonary vessels around the cells and the vessels all over the body can be blocked through clotting. No organ, including the liver is spared. It can and often affects every organ of the body.
• When the liver is damaged through severe clotting and anoxia, it will fail and lead to liver failure. Yes, the enzymes would be raised but that would not mean that the patient has liver failure. In all likelihood, the patients die of acute respiratory failure before they can manifest signs of liver failure, so fail to fathom, how Dr Taban arrived at such a bizarre conclusion.
• Treatment of acute respiratory syndrome requires as many as ten different drugs, many of which can be hepatotoxic, so damage to the liver cannot be apportioned to one single drug. Prednisone, which is used in huge amounts to treat the inflammation, stimulate the P450 cytochrome enzyme system. This in turn enhances the metabolism of Ivermectin, reducing its levels automatically. So theoretically, the Ivermectin dose is considerably reduced and if they are under Dr Taban’s care, who does not use Ivermectin, the drug levels are even further reduced.

I hope that the above explanation makes it quite obvious that it is impossible to implicate one drug to be the cause of liver failure when it is one of many hepatotoxic drugs that are used to treat Covid pneumonia, except in Dr Taban’s unit. I feel that Dr Taban’s claim is totally unjustified, mischievous and utterly reckless. He should do the right thing and withdraw his half-baked and unscientific conclusion, and apologize to the general public for willfully misleading them.

He even managed to convince a Fleetstreet-type news broadcaster that he must be right because he is a specialist. This Fleetstreet-type local journalist must be more discerning and be reminded that there are specialists, and there are specialists. Dr Taban, you should be more aware, as a specialist, than a frontline GP like me, that before you make categoric statements in science, you need to have your facts right. You must not use conjecture and unintelligent guesswork when you deal with human life. Precision is key.

Controversy might have won Dr Taban a lot of gullible fans on social media, but he he earned himself the scorn of the discerning scientific minds. I happen to be one of them. Dr Paul Marik, a world-renowned critical care specialist, described Dr Taban’s comments as utterly fake. Dr Marik has produced more pioneer papers than Dr Taban can dream of producing in his entire lifetime, so I would much rather believe him than the sensational Dr Emmanuel Taban.

• Dr Paul Marik’s specifically addresses the misinformation from ‘certain’ South African doctors in the FLCCC’s weekly webinar last week: https://youtu.be/qSNuxetBgO8 .
• Here is why you should take this South African born seriously: Dr. Paul E. Marik MBBCh (Witwatersrand) , M.Med (Int), FCP(SA), FRCP(C), FCCM, FCCP, FACP, ABPNS, UCNS–NCC, D.Av.Med, BSc Hons (Pharmacol),DA(SA), DTM&H Founding member of the FLCCC Alliance and co-author of the MATH+ and I-MASK+ Prophylaxis and Treatment Protocols for COVID-19 Contributions to the Field of Medicine Dr. Marik has special knowledge and training in a diverse set of medical fields, with specific training in Internal Medicine, Critical Care, Neurocritical Care, Pharmacology, Anesthesia, Nutrition, and Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. Dr. Marik is currently a tenured Professor of Medicine and Chief of the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk, Virginia. Dr. Marik has written over 500 peer-reviewed journal articles, 80 book chapters and authored four critical care books. He has been cited over 43,000 times in peer-reviewed publications and has an H-index of 77. He has delivered over 350 lectures at international conferences and visiting professorships. He has received numerous teaching awards, including the National Teacher of the Year award by the American College of Physicians in 2017. He is the 2nd most published critical care physician in the world ever, and is a world renowned expert in the management of sepsis — his contributions to the understanding and management of the hemodynamic, fluid, nutritional, and supportive care practices in sepsis have transformed the care of patients throughout the world. He also led the Society of Critical Care Medicine task force on corticosteroids in sepsis. He has already co-authored 10 papers on many therapeutic aspects of COVID-19. Academic Title Professor of Medicine, with Tenure EVMS Foundation Distinguished Professorship in Internal Medicine Chief, Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine Eastern Virginia Medical School. Bibliographic Summary Academic Position Professor of Medicine (Deans’ Endowed Chair) FLCCC Alliance CV | Paul Marik 2 / 80 www.flccc.net Chief of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine East Virginia Medical School Academic Qualifications MBBCh, Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery, University of Witwaterstrand D.Hom.Med, Diploma in Alternative Medicine, Bantridge Forest school, Sussex, UK D.Av.Med, Diploma in Aviation Medicine, South African Defense Force M.Med, Master of Medicine, University of Witwaterstrand BSc (Hons) Pharmacology, University of Witwaterstrand DTM&H, Diploma in Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, University of Witwaterstrand FCP (SA), College of Medicine of South Africa DA (DA), Diploma of Anesthesia, College of Medicine of South Africa FRCPC, Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada PNS, American Board of Physician Nutrition Specialists UCNS–NCC, United Council for Neurological Subspecialities Certification South African Medical and Dental Council, General Practitioner, Specialty certification in Internal Medicine, Sub-specialty certification in Critical Care Medicine British Medical Council, General Practitioner, Specialty certification in Internal Medicine Canadian Medical Council, General Practitioner, Specialty certification in Internal Medicine, Sub-specialty certification in Critical Care Medicine American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM), Internal Medicine, Critical Care Medicine American Board of Physician Nutrition Specialists, Physician Nutrition Specialist United Council for Neurological Subspecialities (USA), Neurocritical Care Specialist Publications (Google Scholar and Harzings PoP) Publications 744 (as listed by Google Scholar) Citations 41 274 Citations/paper 44 Authors/paper 2.43 H index 97 Expertscape’s PubMed-based algorithm: “World Expert” on the topic of sepsis being top 0.1% of scholars writing about Sepsis over the past 10 years. https://www.expertscape.com/ex/sepsis Citation Metrics according to the top 100 000 scientists in all disciplines as published by Ioannidis JP et al. A standardized citation metrics author database annotated for scientific field. PLoS Biol 2019; 17(8): e3000384 World Ranking: 734 (top 0.01%) Number of publications: 524 Number Citations: 18 899 H Index: 66 FLCCC Alliance CV | Paul Marik 3 / 80 www.flccc.net Critical Care and Emergency Medicine World Ranking: 2 Academic Degrees and Fellowships 1981 University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. Graduated MB Bch 26th November 1981. 1983 Diploma Aviation Medicine, South African Defense Force, 06/15/1983. 1984 Bantridge Forest School, East Sussex, England. Diploma in Homeopathic and Alternative Medicine. 1987 College of Medicine of South Africa. Admitted as Fellow of the College of Physicians, 30th October 1987. 1989 College of Medicine of South Africa. Admitted as a Diplomate in Anesthesia, 27th October 1989. 1989 University of the Witwatersrand, Master of Medicine (Internal Medicine). Title of M.Med dissertation: “Prognostic profiles in acute myocardial infarction”. Graduated 29th June 1989. 1990 University of the Witwatersrand, Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, Graduated 29th November 1990. 1991 University of the Witwatersrand, Bachelor of Science in Pharmacology (Honors), with distinction. Title of dissertation: “The pharmacokinetics of amikacin analyzed by a two compartment model in critically ill adult and pediatric patients: A comparison of a once versus twice daily dosing regimen.” Graduated 30th April 1991. FLCCC Alliance CV | Paul Marik 4 / 80 www.flccc.net 1993 Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada. Admitted as a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, in the specialty of Internal Medicine, 18th February 1994. 1998 American College of Critical Care Medicine (FCCM), Admitted as Fellow, February 1998, San Antonio, Texas. 1998 American College of Chest Physician (FCCP), Admitted as Fellow, November 1998, Toronto, Canada. 2005 American College of Physicians, Admitted as Fellow, April 2005, Philadelphia, PA 2010 American Board of Physician Nutrition Specialists, Physician Nutrition Specialist, November 2010 2011 United Council for Neurological Subspecialities, Subspecialty of Neurocritical Care, December 2011 Undergraduate and Postgraduate Training 1975–1981 University of the Witwaterstrand Medical School, South Africa, Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery; 01/01/1975 to /11/26/1981. 1982 Rotating Internship, Departments of Medicine and Surgery, Hillbrow Hospital, Johannesburg, South Africa; 01/01/1982 to 01/30/1982 -Medicine; 07/01/1982 to 12/31/1982 — Surgery 1983–1984 Resident, Department of Medicine, H.F. Verwoerd Hospital and University of Pretoria, South Africa (seconded from 1 Military Hospital, Pretoria during compulsory National Service, South African Defense Force); 01/01/1983 to12/31/84. 1985–1988 Resident, Department of Medicine, Johannesburg Hospital and University of the Witwatersrand; 01/01/1985 to 12/31/1988. 1985–1989 University of the Witwaterstrand Medical School, South Africa, Master of Medicine; 01/01/1985–06/01/1989 1989 College of Medicine of South Africa, Diploma in Anesthesia, 0101/1989 to 06/30/1990. 1989–1990 University of the Witwaterstrand Medical School, South Africa, Bachelor of Science in Pharmacology; 01/01/1989 to 12/01/1990. 1990 University of the Witwaterstrand Medical School, South Africa, Diploma in Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, 01/01/1990 to 12/30/1990. 1991–1992 Critical Care Fellowship, Critical Care Program, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada; 07/01/1991 to 06/30/1992. Additional Training 2005 Harvard School of Public Health, Advanced Leadership Strategies for Health Care Executives. Boston, MA, November 13–18, 2005.
  Full CV here: https://covid19criticalcare.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/FLCCC-Alliance-member-CV-Marik.pdf
• For anyone who hasn’t yet, please watch this superb documentary called MECTIZAN — SOURCE OF HOPE: About how Ivermectin cured river blindness in Africa: https://vimeo.com/370322208
• You can also watch this video comparing the speech of Professor Satoshi Omura (Ivermectin founder) to Big Pharma Merck’s position on it: https://youtu.be/50vwRENdc3I%3Chttps://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/youtu.be/50vwRENdc3I__;!!Aeua5Q!BspXFBF5ICb9apzdj61-nfvH6DvHruqRF4pDPJVVjk7p7Xa9OUOT0qA94Ek6dDo$%3E

By Dr EV Rapiti (General Practitioner and published author). South Africa.