If you will remember, the FDA tweeted that people should stop taking ivermectin because “you are not a horse.” It was labeled the FDA’s Horse Paste Scam.
The FDA implausibly just told a federal district court that those tweets did not contain medical advice. The court told the FDA to stop practicing medicine.
Never trust any government agency – no one’s providing adequate oversight of these bloated agencies. They’re ungovernable. Read the decision on this link.
The FDA isn’t supposed to practice medicine, but the judge found they did erroneously in this case which was brought by three doctors.
“We conclude that the first path is open: the Doctors can use the APA to assert their ultra vires claims against the defendants. FDA can inform, but it has identified no authority allowing it to recommend consumers “stop” taking medicine. The Doctors can therefore use the APA to assert their ultra vires challenge to the Officials’ actions, and to overcome the sovereign immunity that would otherwise protect the Agencies.”
For instance, one of the Doctors’ foremost arguments under the ultra vires doctrine is that FDA has statutory authority to share data, facts, and knowledge, but not to recommend treatments or give other medical advice. The argument proceeds along these lines: (1) FDA cannot act without express statutory authority, (2) **FDA does not have express authority to recommend against off-label uses of drugs approved for human use, (3) the Posts recommend against ivermectin, therefore (4) the Posts are beyond FDA’s authority. We agree that, at this stage, FDA has not offered even a “colorable basis” for rejecting this argument.**27
FDA is not a physician. It has authority to inform, announce, and apprise—but not to endorse, denounce, or advise. The Doctors have plausibly alleged that FDA’s Posts fell on the wrong side of the line between telling about and telling to. As such, the Doctors can use the APA to assert their ultra vires claims against the Agencies and the Officials. Even tweet-sized doses of personalized medical advice are beyond FDA’s statutory authority. We REVERSE the district court’s judgment of dismissal, and we REMAND for further proceedings.
EMPHASIS ADDED