My Conversation with an Ivermectin Prescriber

Using Ivermectin for an Unapproved Indication

I recently had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Stephen Banister. What caught my attention was Banister’s use of ivermectin during the COVID-19 pandemic. What did he know about ivermectin? Why did he use it? How often did he use it? Did his patients benefit? Did he get in trouble for using it?

Spoiler alert: All of Banister’s ivermectin patients improved. Further, he never got pushback from the medical establishment for using ivermectin for “unapproved indications.”

Banister is a newly retired MD living in Grass Valley, California. He received his medical degree from the University of Miami’s Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine and he practiced, mainly in family medicine, for more than five decades.

While on a long walk in a nearby park, he explained how he followed the news of the pandemic and the treatments that were available to infected patients, many of which didn’t seem to be very safe and effective. So, he put some time into researching various treatments and he eventually focused on ivermectin. Being evidence driven, he constructed a spreadsheet for ivermectin clinical trials and entered one on each row with the key information: date of publication, number of patients treated, location of trial, names of authors, prophylaxis or treatment, efficacy results (hospitalization, death, ventilation, etc.), safety results (adverse events from treatment), etc. In addition to reviewing published papers of clinical trials, he also read general articles and listened to podcasts on ivermectin’s history and its use for COVID-19.

He satisfied his quest for information and concluded that ivermectin appeared promising for his patients.

After finding a few nearby pharmacies that agreed to fill the prescriptions he wrote—the pharmacists had studied the same information and saw the potential—he started treating patients. Patients who went to other pharmacies were told that ivermectin wasn’t approved by the FDA for COVID-19 and were sent away empty-handed. He redirected them to his preferred pharmacies.

For every patient he treated, he instructed them to report back every day. If the patient was getting worse, Banister needed to know. That was never the case. Patients would report the next day that they felt a little or a lot better. The following day they would feel even better. He treated 100 to 200 patients and, while some got better quickly and others got better slowly, they all improved and not a single patient needed to be hospitalized.

Banister thinks the FDA should approve ivermectin for treatment of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. I agree with him but doubt it will ever happen because of many factors, which David R. Henderson and I have spelled out here, here, here, here, and here. Two of my Substack posts have been about ivermectin. See here and here.

I was fortunate to have met Dr. Stephen Banister. His COVID patients were fortunate to have a clear-thinking medical professional on their side. Maybe someday we’ll be lucky enough to have clear-thinking public health entities.