Man Whose Wife Sued to Get Him Ivermectin Died of COVID

Jeffrey Smith, the Ohio man whose wife sued to force a hospital to treat him with ivermectin, died Sept. 25, his attorney says. One judge in August ordered the hospital to give Smith the drug, which the FDA has warned against using for COVID, before another judge reversed the ruling two weeks later and said the hospital could stop providing it. Smith was diagnosed with COVID in July and had been in the ICU at West Chester Hospital prior to his death, Fox 19 reports. No major medical organizations recommend the drug, an anti-parasitic, for use against COVID, and the CDC says poisonings related to its use have tripled this year, the Cincinnati Enquirer reports.

Smith and his wife, Julie, were featured in NPR's extensive look at the "ivermectin culture wars" last month, and the outlet notes the couple had not been vaccinated against COVID because they believed the vaccines to be "experimental." Antiviral drugs, convalescent plasma, and steroids failed to help Smith, and he ended up in a medically induced coma and on a ventilator when Julie Smith took her ivermectin battle to the courts. Doctors told the court ivermectin had not improved Jeffrey Smith's condition, but Julie Smith insisted it had. (Another patient in a highly publicized ivermectin fight died last month.)