An American prison treated its inmates from “Corona” with a strange drug... and the judiciary intervenes

A number of prisoners, in a prison in the US state of Arkansas, filed a lawsuit in which they said that the prison administration prescribed to them, without their knowledge, a drug intended to treat horses from worms as a treatment for their infection with Covid-19.

The prisoners, in the lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on their behalf, said that after they contracted Covid, the prison gave them a "medicine mixture" and told them that it contained vitamins, antibiotics and steroids.

The lawsuit added that the prisoners took the drug ivermectin without their prior consent.

The lawsuit named the prisoners as Edric Florell-Woten, Jeremiah Little, Julio Guzalez and Damon Blackburn.

She added that the prisoners had side effects after taking the drug, including poor vision, diarrhea and stomach cramps.

"No one, including prisoners, should be deceived into medical experiments," Gary Sullivan, legal director of the Arkansas Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement carried by the BBC.

"The prison failed to use safe and appropriate treatment for Covid-19, even at the height of the pandemic, accountability must be," he added.

The defendants in the case, Washington County Jail, County Mayor Tim Helder and healthcare physician Robert Karas, have not commented on the lawsuit yet.

However, in a letter his lawyer sent to investigators last September, when the charges were first revealed, Karas denied that the prisoners had been forced to take medication or had been defrauded, according to the Associated Press news agency.

Karas said 254 prisoners had been treated with the drug since November 2020.

And the US Food and Drug Administration issued a statement last year, urging citizens not to take the drug “Ivermectin” to treat Covid-19.

The summer of 2021 witnessed an increase in the promotion of prescription drugs in the United States, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that contacts with poison control centers throughout the United States, due to citizens taking ivermectin, recorded a sharp increase at that time.

Ivermectin, which is mainly a veterinary anthelmintic treatment, can be used in small doses to treat some human conditions, such as infections caused by some parasitic worms, head lice, and some skin diseases.

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