The Health and Youth Inspectorate (IGJ) has fined sixteen doctors for having prescribed medication that is not permitted for corona patients. During the corona pandemic, they recommended the drug ivermectin or (hydroxy)chloroquine for the treatment of corona complaints. That reports the inspection Monday.
All fines were issued in the period between July and October this year. A doctor who prescribed the illegal medication about 150 times received the highest fine of 13,000 euros. Last year, the IGJ imposed one fine on a doctor who prescribed a drug that is not intended for the corona virus, a spokesperson said. At that time it was an amount of 3,000 euros.
The antimalarial (hydroxy)chloroquine and the anti-parasite agent ivermectin were touted at the start of the corona pandemic as agents against corona complaints. Last year, the Inspectorate announced that it would issue fines to doctors who prescribed the drug to their patients, because it had now been proven “that (hydroxy)chloroquine is not effective against Covid-19 and at the same time can cause serious side effects such as cardiac arrhythmias”. There was also no scientific basis for the treatment of corona complaints for the use of ivermectin.
As a rule, doctors in the Netherlands do not prescribe medicines that have been marketed for other diseases. An exception to the rule is so-called ‘off-label prescribing’, where a medicine may be used for another disease. For this, protocols or standards must first have been developed within the professional group. This is not the case with (hydroxy)chloroquine and ivermectin.