Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Paul Hennessy/SOPA Images/LightRocket through Getty Images

A California psychiatrist who lately advised Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on COVID-19 has peddled ivermectin, the anti-parasitic drug usually used to deworm horses, as a remedy for COVID-19 regardless of warnings in opposition to its use by US well being businesses.

LA-based Dr. Mark McDonald was tapped in July by DeSantis, a Republican, as a part of a closed-door panel on masks in faculties, in accordance to the Tampa Bay Times. DeSantis has been firmly opposed to permitting faculties to require masks of scholars, trying to strip funding from districts who require them.

McDonald, who didn’t instantly return Insider’s request for remark, earlier in August tweeted the drug was an “effective, safe, inexpensive treatment” for COVID-19. He later tweeted that these who questioned its use in people had been “ignoramuses.” While the drug is commonly used to treat animals, like horses, it can be used to treat parasitic infections in people.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday issued a well being advisory that detailed a rise in extreme sickness brought on by the drug.

He informed the Tampa Bay Times that he believed the US Food and Drug Administration, which has advised in opposition to utilizing the drug to forestall or treat COVID-19, had downplayed the drug as a result of it had spent billions of {dollars} to “mass vaccinate the population.”

“If the goal of these people is to advance public health and make the public well, why have none of them spoke a single word about prevention and making one healthy to prevent an infection or hospitalization or death?” McDonald informed the Times in an interview Friday. “I think there is a lot of dishonesty here and cancellation of people who support truth.”

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Merck, the producer of the drug, has mentioned there’s “no scientific basis” and there was “no meaningful evidence” that the treatment can be utilized to treat COVID-19.

As the Times famous, McDonald has additionally espoused different questionable views, together with his opposition to the sporting of face masks. He in February shared a meme on Twitter calling individuals who used them “retarded.” He additionally in contrast masks mandates to South African apartheid, per the report.

McDonald has additionally downplayed the efficient COVID-19 vaccines, writing on Twitter: “Immunity is best achieved naturally, not through a failed, unsafe, experimental vaccine.”

A spokesperson for DeSantis informed Insider Saturday that McDonald advised DeSantis “about forced masking of schoolchildren” and never about ivermectin.

“Dr. McDonald’s participation in the school masking panel and testimony in the mask trial does not imply that Governor DeSantis endorses (or opposes) any of Dr. McDonald’s opinions on other subjects,” she added.

McDonald can be linked to American Frontline Doctors, the Times first famous, a corporation that NBC News this week linked to the spreading ivermectin as a COVID-19 remedy.

A decide on Friday struck down DeSantis’ blanket ban on masks necessities after a number of main faculty techniques defied his ban. At the July dialogue, McDonald mentioned requiring college students to put on masks in faculties was “child abuse,” the Tampa Bay Times reported, citing video of the assembly.

McDonald’s feedback had been utilized by attorneys for DeSantis at the trial earlier this week the place the ban was struck down.

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