Inmates Unknowingly Treated With Ivermectin Awarded $2,000 Each in Lawsuit Settlement

Five detainees at the Washington County Detention Center in Arkansas have accepted a settlement offer after suing the detention center, its doctor, and a former Washington County sheriff for allegedly giving them ivermectin, the deworming drug pushed by some conservatives as a cure for covid, without their knowledge, Daniel Wu reports for the Washington Post. Each of the five detainees won $2,000, while the defendants did not admit wrongdoing.

Robert Karas, the doctor who provided the detention center’s health care, espoused the use of ivermectin in public statements on his clinic’s social media page and sought to conduct his own research on the drug’s efficacy, according to the lawsuit. The detainees who sued Karas were given up to six times the recommended doses of ivermectin when they were treated for covid-19 at the Washington County Detention Center. The Arkansas State Medical Board investigated Karas after he was sued, finding that in April 2022 that patients at the detention center hadn’t signed consent forms before receiving treatment for covid-19, but voted to take no action against him.