The hospital and doctors said that giving the man a drug from the feedstock store would turn the man into a guinea pig, without the slightest hint of irony.

The casebooks are full of court clashes where loved ones tried to force hospitals to treat family according to their wishes, though generally, cases involve decisions on whether to continue to feed and ventilate a person whose brain has died. Rarely do we see cases where a woman goes to court to try to get a judge to order doctors to give her husband a certain medicine. (It is not a terrible thought, though: “Judge, my mother is coming into town in ten days and my physician refuses to write a prescription for the sufficient amount of Xanax, clearly in violation of my right to…”)

Actually, it is a terrible thought. We don’t ask judges to order doctors to give people medicines. According to Rawstory:

Sangamon County Circuit Judge Adam Giganti on Monday denied a request for an injunction against Memorial Medical Center from the wife of 61-year-old Randy Clouse, who’s been on a ventilator for at least four weeks, according to the State Journal-Register.

It’s one of several lawsuits around the country seeking to force doctors to provide ivermectin, which is normally used to treat people and livestock for parasitic worms. Ivermectin is being pushed by COVID-19 anti-vaxxers in online forums as the latest version of the Trumpian drug hydroxychloroquine. With doctors and pharmacists refusing to provide ivermectin to treat COVID-19, some have turned to farm supply stores to obtain the drug, resulting in overdoses and prompting a warning from the FDA.

What kind of fukt up country are we giving our kids? In the wealthiest, mightiest, and most scientifically advanced nation to ever grace the earth, we not only have a vaccine that’s 99% effective, but we also have treatments that give patients a much bigger chance for success than just last summer. Yet about 25% of the country – at least – believes that the answer lies in cow de-wormer.

The wife hired “an expert.” Smart.

Dr. Alan Bain, the Chicago-based telemedicine practitioner who testified remotely in favor of Clouse’s wife, saying he “chose to ignore widespread medical advice on the use of ivermectin in COVID-19 patients.” Bain testified that ivermectin either made patients better, or gave “signs” that it was making patients better. (Whatever that means).

“He wants to make Mr. Clouse a guinea pig,” William Davis, an attorney for Memorial Medical Center, said of Bain, whom he also accused of failing to adequately review the patient’s medical history.

A guinea pig might get proper medical treatment. We suspect that a guinea pig who presents at a veterinary hospital will get “best practices” for guinea pigs, which is more than we can say for many patients in the United States. But not if the judges have anything to do about it. We are slightly amazed that this issue ever got to an actual hearing.

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