Court Lets Lawsuit Over Refusal To Give Dying Woman Ivermectin Proceed

 by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A court has rejected a hospital system’s claim that its refusal to continue giving ivermectin to a dying woman was covered by federal law, stating that the law does not apply to the actions in question.

Mount Sinai South Nassau in New York City was twice forced to give COVID-19 patient Deborah Bucko, who was close to death after the system’s normal treatment failed, ivermectin under court order. Mrs. Bucko’s condition improved after she began taking ivermectin.

However, the system stopped the second round of treatment before the prescription ended, and Mrs. Bucko then died.

After being sued, Mount Sinai said the lawsuit should be thrown out because it’s immune under the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act (PREP Act), which covers health care workers administering drugs and vaccines during a health emergency, such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

“There is no refuting that the complaint is a frontal attack on the use of COVID-19 countermeasures as defined by the PREP Act,” lawyers for the hospital system said in a filing. “The complaint expressly implicates conduct encompassed by the PREP Act by alleging a claim for loss that has a causal relationship with the dispensing and administration of covered countermeasures to treat COVID-19. As such, the law requires its dismissal.”

The act has been successfully invoked in a range of COVID-19-related cases. Workers who injected a child with a COVID-19 vaccine without parental consent, for instance, recently won the dismissal of a lawsuit by citing the law.

The motion to dismiss by Mount Sinai, though, was rejected by New York Supreme Court Justice Randy Sue Marber.

Justice Marber wrote in a May 17 order that Mount Sinai, its workers, and ivermectin, fit under the definitions of “covered person” and “covered countermeasure” under the law. But the suit against the system does not bring a claim relating to the use of ivermectin to treat COVID-19, she said.

“Rather, in stunning contrast to South Nassau’s assertions, the complaint alleges, with particularity, that South Nassau ‘acted wrongfully and negligently, by repeatedly refusing to administer ivermectin to ... [the decedent]’ notwithstanding it ‘having been prescribed” ... and ’despite clear evidence in the medical records that ... [the decedent’s] condition showed significant improvement once the ivermectin treatment was initiated,'” the justice said, quoting from the complaint.

That means the immunity conferred by PREP “is inapplicable,” she added later.

The ruling means the case will move forward. The next hearing is scheduled to take place on June 3.

“Scott and I are extremely pleased that the judge denied the hospital’s motion and has given us a fighting chance to obtain justice for Debbie,” Steven Warshawsky, a lawyer representing Scott Mantel, Mrs. Bucko’s husband, told The Epoch Times via email.

Mount Sinai did not respond to a request for comment.

Federal regulators say people should not take ivermectin against COVID-19, although a number of doctors have said patients who received the drug, approved by regulators for other uses, have recovered quickly. Some studies have found evidence of a benefit, while others have not.

Deborah Bucko and Scott Mantel in a file photograph. (Courtesy of Scott Mantel)

Background

Mr. Mantel sued Mount Sinai in 2023, alleging the hospital system violated a law that enables representatives of decedents to sue over “wrongful act, neglect or default causing [the] death of [the] decedent.”

According to the suit, after being admitted to Mount Sinai with suspected COVID-19, Mrs. Bucko’s condition was not improved by the system’s standard treatment protocols, including supplemental oxygen. She was ultimately placed on a ventilator.

Mr. Mantel researched alternative treatments and read about how some patients recovered after being treated with ivermectin. He learned that the Front Line Covid-19 Critical Care Alliance features ivermectin in its COVID-19 treatment protocol.

Mr. Mantel presented what he had learned to doctors at Mount Sinai. Dr. Robert Clark, one of the doctors, said that he was “all out of bullets” and that ivermectin might be able to help Mrs. Bucko. He wrote a prescription on April 7, 2021, for five days. Mount Sinai’s pharmacy department, though, placed the prescription on hold and the system’s stewardship committee rescinded the prescription.

Mr. Mantel took the matter to court, resulting in an order to immediately start giving Mrs. Bucko ivermectin.

After being treated with ivermectin, Mrs. Bucko’s condition improved, according to the suit. The initial prescription ended, and her recovery stalled. Mr. Mantel went back to Dr. Clark, who was said to have acknowledged ivermectin helped Mrs. Bucko get better and could keep helping her improve. He wrote another prescription, this time for 35 days.

The hospital rescinded the prescription again, prompting the family to seek legal redress. The system was ordered again to enforce the prescription.

Mrs. Bucko improved further with the second round of ivermectin, but the system changed the prescription and stopped administering it after five days. Dr. Clark also informed Mr. Mantel he was being prevented from writing any additional ivermectin prescriptions.

Once Mrs. Bucko stopped receiving ivermectin, her condition deteriorated, her family says. She died on on May 16, 2021.

Mount Sinai “committed medical malpractice and/or otherwise acted wrongfully and negligently, by repeatedly refusing to administer ivermectin to Ms. Bucko, who was suffering from severe COVID-19 illness that was not responding to the hospital’s standard treatment protocols, despite the ivermectin having been prescribed by her treating infectious disease doctor ... and despite clear evidence in the medical records that Ms. Bucko’s condition showed significant improvement once the ivermectin treatment was initiated,” the suit stated.

The family is seeking damages as determined by the court and a jury.

“This fight is not just about Deborah and our family, but also for ALL Americans that will one day need a hospital to treat them,” family members said in a fundraiser. “What happened to Deborah must never ever be allowed to happen again, and those responsible for her tragic death must be held accountable.

https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/court-lets-lawsuit-over-refusal-give-dying-woman-ivermectin-proceed

Republicans Call For Drug Testing Ahead Of Presidential Debates

 by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

Several Republicans are calling for Joe Biden to undergo drug testing before taking part in the presidential debates with Donald Trump scheduled for June and September.

South Carolina Senator Tim Scott was asked to comment on the issue on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” and responded “Why not?” when asked if substance tests should be carried out. 

“The truth of the matter is if you saw the State of the Union and you watched that performance, it was surreal,” Scott noted of Biden’s speech in March.

“There was something going on, and if we could find the truth of what it was, we’re all better off,” Scott added.

If it takes artificial stimulation to make the President of the United States perform, how often can he do that?” The Senator further pondered.

Representative Anna Paulina Luna of Florida also called for Biden to be drug tested, noting “We’re talking about someone who has the ability to launch nukes.”

Luna also referred to questions over Biden’s mental competence following the comments of former special counsel Robert Hur who described Biden as an “elderly man with a poor memory.”

North Carolina Representative Greg Murphy, who is also a trained surgeon, commented that Biden “must have been jacked up on something” during the SOTU speech.

“I absolutely believe that from a medical viewpoint, actually I have a little bit of good knowledge that that happened,” Murphy asserted, adding that Biden “can’t stand it. He can’t stand under the lights for that long. And I don’t think he can keep a concept in his brain that long.”

Trump himself has called for Biden to take a drug test, noting “I don’t want him coming in like the State of the Union. He was high as a kite.”

“I said is that Joe up there? … And by the end of the evening … he was exhausted, right? No, we’re going to demand a drug test,” Trump added.

The proposal has moved further into the spotlight spurred by a bizarre video that circulated Friday of Biden wide eyed and looking completely different to his usual squint while making a short recorded statement.

As we have highlighted, Biden has agreed to take part in only two debates, despite Trump accepting two more proposals from Fox News and NBC/Telemundo, and calling for further debates to be scheduled.

Vivek Ramaswamy believes that the Democrats are allowing Biden one last “Hail Mary” by allowing him to participate in a debate against Donald Trump, but that if he fails, as he inevitably will, they will swap him out for a new candidate.

*  *  *

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/republicans-call-drug-testing-ahead-presidential-debates

US FDA staff says Guardant's test may fail to detect some pre-cancerous tumors

 The U.S. Food and Drug Administration's staff reviewers on Tuesday raised concerns that Guardant Health's blood test for a cancer of colon or rectum may fail to detect some types of tumors that can later become cancerous.

The reviewers, however, said the test may increase compliance with screening for colorectal cancer and help detect it in earlier stages, potentially helping cure patients and prolong survival.

Shares of the company fell 2.5% in the afternoon.

The comments come ahead of the FDA's meeting with outside advisers on Thursday. While the FDA typically takes decisions based on the advisers' recommendations, it is not obligated to do so.

If approved, the test, Shield, could become the second blood-based colorectal cancer test in the U.S.

Colorectal cancer occurs in about 150,000 patients in the U.S. annually and leads to more than 50,000 deaths each year, the FDA said.

Screening for colorectal cancer is a nearly $20 billion market in the U.S., and despite material progress, 60 million individuals remain unscreened, TD Cowen analyst Dan Brennan had written in a note in March.

Guardant's application for Shield was based on a study, which showed that the test detected 83% of colorectal cancers and 13% of advanced adenomas, the pre-cancerous tumors.

The low performance of detecting advanced adenomas could be in focus during the meeting and "it appears that FDA is seeking mitigation strategies" for it, Leerink Partners analyst Puneet Souda wrote in a note.

The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, according to its guidelines, reimburses blood-based colorectal cancer tests with a minimum sensitivity of 74%, if they are approved by the FDA.

Epigenomics' Epi proColon was the first such test to get FDA approval in 2016, but was rejected for reimbursement by the CMS in 2021 due to its 68.2% sensitivity.

Epigenomics was bought by New Day Diagnostics last year and the test was renamed ColoHealth.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-fda-staff-says-guardants-133409217.html

LA police probe how 'Friends' star Matthew Perry obtained lethal ketamine dose

 Los Angeles homicide detectives and federal agents are investigating how "Friends" star Matthew Perry obtained the high dose of the powerful prescription drug ketamine that was found in his body and determined to have caused his death, police said.

The disclosure on Tuesday of an ongoing criminal probe by police and two federal agencies came five months after the Los Angeles County medical examiner concluded Perry succumbed to an accidental drug overdose and drowning, with no foul play suspected.

The Dec. 15 autopsy report concluded Perry died from the "acute effects of ketamine," which combined with other factors caused the actor to lose consciousness and slip below the water in the hot tub at his Los Angeles home.

"Based on the medical examiner's findings, the Los Angeles Police Department, with the assistance of the Drug Enforcement Administration and the United States Postal Inspection Service, has continued its investigation into the circumstances of Mr. Perry's death," the LAPD said in a statement.

A police spokesperson said detectives from the LAPD's robbery-homicide division were conducting the police inquiry.

Toxicology tests found ketamine, a short-acting anesthetic with hallucinogenic properties, in Perry's body at dangerously high levels well within the range typically associated with general anesthesia used in monitored surgical care, the autopsy said.

Coronary artery disease, the effects of the opioid-addiction medicine buprenorphine - also detected in his system - and drowning were listed as contributing factors in his Oct. 28 death.

Perry, 54, who publicly acknowledged decades of drug and alcohol abuse, including the years he starred as Chandler Bing on the hit 1990s television sitcom "Friends," had been sober for 19 months with no known relapses before his death, according to interviews cited in his autopsy.

Witness interviews in the report said he had been undergoing ketamine infusion therapy for depression and anxiety. But his last known treatment was a week and a half before his death, so the ketamine found in his system by medical examiners would have been introduced since that last infusion, the autopsy said.

"The exact method of intake in Mr. Perry's case is unknown," the report said, adding that trace amounts of ketamine showed up in his stomach. No needle marks were found on his body, it said.

How the actor might have obtained ketamine on his own or who might have supplied it to him were left open questions and, according to an LAPD spokesperson, are the focus of the ongoing investigation.

A DEA spokesperson declined to comment on the investigation, referring media inquiries to the LAPD.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/la-police-probe-friends-star-230906185.html

Biden's approval rating falls to lowest level in nearly two years-Reuters/Ipsos poll

 U.S. President Joe Biden's public approval rating this month fell to its lowest level in almost two years, tying the lowest reading of his presidency in a warning sign for his reelection effort, a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed.

The four-day poll, which closed on Monday, showed just 36% of Americans approve of Biden's job performance as president, down from 38% in April. It was a return to the lowest approval rating of his presidency, last seen in July 2022. While this month's drop was within the poll's 3 percentage point margin of error, it could bode poorly for Biden as he faces off with Republican Donald Trump in the Nov. 5 presidential election.

Biden, a Democrat, has been largely tied with Trump in national polls asking voters how they will vote. But Trump has had slight leads over Biden in many polls in the states seen as most likely to determine the winner in the U.S. Electoral College.

The poll laid out Biden's weaknesses as well as a few strengths. The state of the economy was seen as the top issue, picked by 23% of respondents as the most important problem facing the country. Some 21% saw political extremism as the top issue and 13% picked immigration.

Some 40% of respondents in the poll said Trump, who was president from 2017 to 2021, had better policies for the U.S. economy, compared to 30% who picked Biden, while the rest said they didn't know or didn't answer the question.

Trump had a significant edge on immigration, with 42% of respondents preferring his approach to the issue, while 25% picked Biden.

Biden had a modest advantage on the issue of political extremism, with 34% of respondents picking the president's approach and 30% saying Trump was better on the issue.

Respondents said they thought Trump had the better approach to foreign conflicts and terrorism, with 36% favoring Trump in that area, compared with 29% who favored Biden.

The state of the U.S. economy looms as one of the larger factors weighing on Biden's hopes of reelection.

Voters have been stung by several years of fast-rising consumer prices, though inflation has slowed in recent months and the jobless rate has been below 4% for more than two years. Biden's age, at 81, is also a concern for voters.

Also weighing on the president, a separate Reuters/Ipsos poll this month showed that many Democrats disapprove of Biden's response to Israel's war on Hamas militants. The poll published on Tuesday did not ask if Americans approve of Biden's support for Israel's war effort in Gaza, which sharply divides Democrats.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/bidens-approval-rating-falls-lowest-182159986.html

Justice Merchan's gagged witness goes public with what he would have told the jury

 By Monica Showalter

After Michael Cohen's disastrous testimony, it would seem that the case against President Trump over the bookkeeping entry in a hush-money payment case would be in tatters as it goes to the jury. Many legal eagles have said as much.

But the politically partisan New York justice in this case, Juan Merchan, doesn't give up that fast and clearly wants to salvage the case. He's instructing the jury to ignore the detail about the 'underlying crime' and treat the case the same way a burglary case is treated.

According to Newsweek:

A hush-money payment is not illegal, and under New York law, falsifying business records is considered a misdemeanor unless it is done to conceal another crime, in which case it can be a felony.

Merchan said the prosecution did not need to prove that Trump committed additional crimes, like campaign finance or tax violations. Instead, it must show that Trump intended to commit or conceal these crimes.

"You must remember, the People are not required to prove these offenses beyond a reasonable doubt; therefore, that reduces the need or the burden to define every term and every phrase," Merchan said, per Vance's blog. Merchan made the comment while discussing whether the defense could call an expert in campaign finance law.

We'll get to the burglary analogy in a minute from the character named Vance, but the bottom line is, Merchan is trying to slant the jury the prosecutor's way, telling them not to bother about the little detail about what the underlying crime was that makes the hush money payment a jailtime felony. They can make it up, if they like.

That's what he's getting away with now -- he actually broke the law when he made campaign donations to Joe Biden, which is explicitly and clearly prohibited by New York law, but not a problem for him -- he knows that anything illegal he does gets a slap on the wrist, a 'caution' as the New York Times put it.

Except that the voice of the critical suppressed witness for President Trump's side has come out with the real law to make mincemeat of the judge's flawed instructions:

The tweets are a doozy, he points out that his testimony would have clearly pointed out that there was no 'underlying crime' and the agency he once headed to regulate elections, the Federal Election Commission, never prosecuted such issues, because they simply weren't crimes.

This one stands out:

Picture a jury in a product liability case trying to figure out if a complex machine was negligently designed, based only on a boilerplate recitation of the general definition of “negligence.” They’d be lost without knowing technology & industry norms. /3

...and this...

/4 Someone has to bring that knowledge to the jury. That—not the law—was my intended testimony. For example, part of the state’s case is that they wrongly reported what they knew to be a campaign expenditure in order to hide the payment until after the election.

He was the guy to bring that kind of knowledge, as he stated here, but here's the guy who got that job instead:

/7 but While judge wouldn’t let me testify on meaning of law, he allowed Michael Cohen to go on at length about whether and how his activity violated FECA. So effectively, the jury got its instructions on FECA from Michael Cohen!

Which he noted, shows just how rigged Justice Merchan's courtroom really is:

/9 So you’ve got a judge who contributed to Trump’s opponent presiding over a trial by a prosecutor who was elected on a vow to get Trump, for something DOJ and FEC chose not to prosecute, on a far-fetched legal theory I which the prosecution has been allowed …

 

 

/10… To repeatedly misstate the law or elicit incorrect statements of law from witnesses (and unlike Cohen’s, my testimony would not have gone to the ultimate legal issue). The judge’s bias is very evident.

 

As for the faulty instructions, the burglary analogy comes from this legal commentator cited by Newsweek:

On May 21, Joyce Vance, a former U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, wrote in her Civil Discourse blog about a comment Judge Juan Merchan made while discussing jury instructions. A judge gives such instructions to explain the laws a jury must use to decide a case.

...and...

"If I enter your home without permission, that's trespass, a misdemeanor. But, if I do it with the intent to commit another crime while I'm there, it's burglary, a felony. The false records violation works the same way," she wrote.

The underlying "crime" of course is trying to influence an election. Apparently no one is allowed to influence an election, and especially not a candidate.

The prosecutorial and judicial argument goes that since Trump did this payment and got elected, it was entirely because this hush money was paid and the election would have gone the other way if he had ignored then-lawyer Michael Cohen's bad advice to make it and instead didn't make it.

The laws against election influence by foreign actors are suddenly being called into service in this case because hiding one's dirty personal laundry while trying to get elected is unthinkable, a felony, as the prosecution argues, as if no pol had ever done such a thing in the past. Right, John Edwards? Right, Bill Clinton? Grover Cleveland was unavailable for comment.

What Smith demonstrates is just how valuable his testimony would have been to that jury about what the law is and how regulators enforce it, which instead has to take Michael Cohen's word for it that Trump, who didn't even know about the hush money paid according to another witness, somehow broke the law.

Sound like a fair trial we have here? Only in a banana republic.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/05/justice_merchan_s_gagged_witness_goes_public_to_school_him_and_it_s_a_doozy.html

Pedestrians may be twice as likely to be hit by electric/hybrid cars as petrol/diesel ones

 Pedestrians may be twice as likely to be hit by an electric or hybrid car as those powered by gasoline or diesel, finds a study of 2013–17 casualty rates in Great Britain, and published online in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health.

The risk is greater in urban areas, and governments must take steps to mitigate this safety hazard as they proceed to phase out fossil-fueled vehicles to improve air quality and curb climate change, urge the researchers. Road traffic injuries are the leading cause of death for children and young people, and 1 in 4 road traffic deaths are of pedestrians, they note.

Amid the ongoing shift to electric and hybrid cars, concerns have been raised that these vehicles may pose more of a safety hazard to pedestrians than fossil-fueled cars because they are quieter, particularly in urban areas where background ambient noise levels are higher.

To explore this further, the researchers compared the differences in pedestrian casualty rates for every 100 million miles of road travel in Great Britain between electric/hybrid and fossil-fueled cars, using Road Safety Data (STATS19). They estimated annual mileage from National Travel Survey (NTS) data. These only started including hybrid as a vehicle fuel type in 2013 while an archiving glitch has precluded uploading relevant data since 2018—hence the selected study period of 2013–17.

In total, 32 billion miles of electric/hybrid vehicle travel and 3 trillion miles of gasoline/diesel vehicle travel were included in the analysis.

Between 2013 and 2017, there were 916,713 casualties from reported road traffic collisions in Great Britain. Of these, 120,197 were pedestrians, 96,285 of whom had been hit by a car or taxi.

Three-quarters of these pedestrians—71,666 (74%)—-had been hit by a car or taxi powered by gasoline or diesel. Some 1,652 (2%) had been hit by an electric or hybrid vehicle. But in nearly 1 in 4 (22,829; 24%) of the pedestrian casualties the vehicle type code was missing.

Most collisions occurred in urban areas, a greater proportion of which involved electric or hybrid vehicles than gasoline/diesel vehicles: 94% vs. 88%. This compares with 6% and 12%, respectively, in rural areas.

Based on these data, the researchers calculate that between 2013 and 2017, the average annual casualty rates of pedestrians per 100 million miles of road travel were 5.16 for electric and hybrid vehicles and 2.40 for gasoline and diesel vehicles.

This indicates that collisions with pedestrians were, on average, twice as likely with electric and hybrid vehicles as they were with gasoline and diesel vehicles, and three times as likely in urban areas than in rural areas, say the researchers.

They acknowledge several caveats to their findings, including the lack of data beyond 2017 and the absence of vehicle coding in nearly a quarter of cases.

Additionally, younger, less experienced drivers are more likely to be involved in a road traffic collision and are also more likely to own an electric car, possibly accounting for some of the observed heightened risk associated with these vehicles, they suggest.

"More pedestrians are injured in Great Britain by gasoline and diesel cars than by electric cars, but compared with gasoline and diesel cars, electric cars pose a greater risk to pedestrians and the risk is greater in urban environments," the researchers write.

"One plausible explanation for our results is that background ambient noise levels differ between urban and rural areas, causing electric vehicles to be less audible to pedestrians in urban areas," they suggest.

"From a public health perspective, our results should not discourage active forms of transport beneficial to health, such as walking and cycling; rather, they can be used to ensure that any potential increased traffic injury risks are understood and safeguarded against," they emphasize.

To this end, they conclude that the heightened safety risk posed to pedestrians by electric and hybrid cars "needs to be mitigated as governments proceed to phase out gasoline and diesel cars."

More information: Pedestrian safety on the road to net zero: cross-sectional study of collisions with electric and hybrid-electric cars in Great Britain, Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health (2024). DOI: 10.1136/jech-2024-221902

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-05-pedestrians-electrichybrid-cars-petroldiesel.html