Dr. Wei-Hsung Lin prescribed ivermectin to five patients.
A doctor in Washington state has been fined for prescribing ivermectin against COVID-19. He must also take continuing education classes, according to newly filed documents.
Dr. Wei-Hsung Lin must pay $5,000, according to an order signed by the Washington Medical Commission on May 2.
Ivermectin is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for treating several conditions, including parasitic worms. Prescribing medicine for unapproved usage is common in the United States, but administration officials have warned against prescribing and using ivermectin as a COVID-19 treatment. Regulators have pointed to a database of clinical trials, some of which found ivermectin did not confer a benefit against COVID-19 and some of which found ivermectin was beneficial against the illness.
Dr. Lin, who also signed the order, admitted to prescribing ivermectin to five people without detailing how the prescriptions were off-label, the risks involved, and alternative treatments.
One patient, a 71-year-old female, tested positive for COVID-19 at the emergency room on June 23, 2021. She saw Dr. Lin in a telemedicine visit the following day. He prescribed her 12 milligrams of ivermectin daily for five days after stating that a “substantial body of literature” showed ivermectin was “effective as a one-day therapy or five-day therapy.”
The woman went back to the hospital after taking ivermectin for four days but not seeing improvement. She was ultimately discharged and recovered.
In another case, Dr. Lin prescribed ivermectin to a 69-year-old male for COVID-19. Dr. Lin prescribed extra ivermectin because the man’s wife also had COVID-19. Neither the husband nor wife ended up taking the ivermectin because they went online and “observed the warnings about ivermectin for COVID-19 as well as the possible negative effects for those with heart conditions,” the order states.
