‘WHO’s recommendation against Ivermectin is mired in suspicion’ – Andrew Bannister

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Andrew Bannister’s article ‘Don’t mention Ivermectin; it’ll upset the vaccine rollout’ was published on BizNews.com in May. The article gained an extensive amount of traction, which isn’t all that surprising considering mainstream media’s lack of coverage on alternative Covid-19 treatment. Bannister, a photographer and hotelier by trade, wrote a follow-up article titled ‘Conflict of Interest in WHO Recommendation Against Ivermectin’ which takes a deep dive into the sordid nature of the ‘financial and ideological conflicts of interest that have blocked the usage of this life-saving medication.’ BizNews spoke to Bannister about the various conflicts of interest which he outlines in his article as well as the various studies which have been released – both advocating for and against the use of Ivermectin as treatment for Covid-19. Bannister states that the World Health Organisation needs to ‘prove that it followed a scientific and ethical process in its recommendation against the use of Ivermectin’ and that without the minutes of the meeting in which the organisation made its recommendation on Ivermectin ‘the recommendation against the use of Ivermectin remains mired in suspicion of corporate overreach.’ As global citizens all facing the same unprecedented crisis, surely – at the very least – we have a right to information which may assist us in making the best decisions possible for our health. – Nadya Swart

Andrew Bannister on what drew his interest to Ivermectin:

Well, as a hotelier, my business has been pretty disastrous over the last year and a half. And I’ve been looking for ways that we could come out of the pandemic. And then when I saw Dr [Pierre] Kory’s presentation to the U.S. Senate, it was the first time I actually heard properly about it. I think I’d seen it mentioned, but I’d never looked at it before – and then I sort of started looking at. And I can see that with early use of ivermectin, we won’t have these huge pandemics.

On the various conflicts of interest that make the World Health Organisation’s recommendation against Ivermectin suspicious:

Well, essentially, the WHO has been looking at Ivermectin. They first appointed Dr Andrew Hill, who (I think he said) started looking at it in March, March 2020. And then he submitted his paper to them [in the] middle of January. He was saying 74% less deaths. They seem to have thrown his paper away. And then they received another paper, which was done by McMaster’s University, which they then used in their recommendation to say that we should not be using Ivermectin, even though that same paper shows an 81% reduction in deaths, but with low confidence. So, the biggest conflict of interest there is that the WHO receives by far the largest funding from Bill Gates.

So each country around the world is supposed to give the WHO a proportion of their budget every year, but that doesn’t happen. So currently, America is the biggest donor, then Bill Gates, then I think it’s the U.K., then Germany, then the Vaccine Alliance. But when it comes to special projects, so not just determining who gets a salary every month, but what projects the WHO does – that funding is the voluntary contributions. Now, when you combine the Bill Gates and the Vaccine Alliance GAVI, which he founded and funds, that combined funding is almost a third bigger than the next biggest funder, which is the American government. So Bill Gates is extremely powerful in the WHO. To me, it’s a huge conflict of interest that Bill Gates has huge ideological and financial interest in vaccines. He seems to be giving them the advice through McMaster’s, which is a favourite university of his for funding. And the guy he uses to run his trials is also a McMaster’s associate professor.

So it seems Bill Gates and McMaster’s University is telling the WHO what to say on Ivermectin. I mean, everyone knows or should know that one of the main things Bill Gates has been pushing since at least 2012 is vaccines. So Bill Gates seems to believe that health systems are not that important, that we can resolve major diseases – not by having functioning health systems – but by having a vaccinated population.

On whether – apart from Ivermectin upsetting the vaccine rollout – he has any objections against Covid-19 vaccination:

No, no. I mean, some of my friends and family are vaccinated. I think if you are vulnerable, it’s probably a good idea to get vaccinated. But if you’re not particularly vulnerable, then I think it’s better to wait until they complete their trial. And that’s something we’ve always been told – ‘Don’t take drugs until they’ve passed the trial.’ If I was diabetic or something, I would probably have a vaccine, but I’ve got a fairly healthy immune system and I’m not particularly worried about it. Especially that I can see now, if you use Ivermectin early – you recover very quickly.

On treating his 89-year-old mother with Ivermectin when she had Covid-19:

So my mom is half vaccinated. She was meant to go have the remainder of the vaccine this last week. And I had suggested she prophylax on Ivermectin, which was basically a pill a week. But then I had noticed the week before that the dose had increased to 80 milligrams, which was bigger than the dose she was prophylacting on. So I said that she should take an extra half a pill, but she didn’t. I saw her last Sunday. Then on Sunday evening, she became ill. She, unfortunately, didn’t tell me or my sister – but elderly people become confused very quickly when they become ill. So she didn’t tell my sister or me that she had fallen ill until Wednesday when she phoned me and told me she had taken three three Ivermectin and [asked if it] was a good idea. And that was the first time I heard that she was sick.

And then – when I saw her on Thursday – she was in quite a lot of trouble, her oxygen was low 80s. I again gave her four Ivermectin, which works out to a dose of about 0.4 milligrams per kilogram body weight. On Friday, she had slipped – she was getting worse. So I was getting quite worried now. But I called E.R. 24. They were fantastic. They came round. They said that she wasn’t sick enough to go to hospital and the hospitals were full anyway. But anyway, before they arrived, I thought they might take her away. So I thought, well, she’s not going to get Ivermectin in hospital, so let me give her some before she goes. So, I gave her an extra two doses. Then in the evening, I thought, well, it’s not going to hurt her, so let me give another two doses. So I gave her a total of one milligram per kilogram dose and I did that knowing that a trial has recently started on 1.2 milligrams per kilogram dose, so I know that that level is pretty safe.

Then on Saturday morning, she had turned around substantially. Her oxygen had gone up to above 90. So I continued with that 0.1. I spread it out over the course of the day; two pills in the morning, two at lunch, two in the evening. And by Sunday, she was a lot better. My main thing was [that] I had to avoid my mom getting into what Dr. Chetty has called the eighth day; the eighth day is when people develop breathing problems. So, I had missed – because my mom hadn’t told me on time – I’d missed those first few days, so I had three days really to work with. So I’m glad I gave her that high dose and it has turned her around. The disease seems to be getting more aggressive and possibly more dangerous.

So, currently the FLCCC, which is the Frontline Covid Critical Care group operating out of the States – their recommendation for hospitalised or sick people is 0.4 to 0.6. The dose I used is above the recommended doses, but I could just see that she wasn’t turning with the lower doses.

On whether there is any credibility to the criticism that the pro-Ivermectin study conducted by the FLCCC was based on ‘cherry-picked’ studies:

I think everyone’s probably going to cherry pick certain studies. Probably a more intellectually accurate study is the one by Bryant and they’re also using the Cochrane method. I think researchers and scientists are going to cherry pick the stuff that suits them best.

On the study published in Clinical Infectious Diseases, which found that Ivermectin did not reduce all cause mortality and what makes this study inferior to the pro-Ivermectin studies:

So, from what I understand, this is the first paper that this person has authored. I see that a group of 40 physicians have written to the publication, asking for it to be retracted. They took one quite prominent paper by Nai and then they incorrectly interpreted his figures. And when it was pointed out, they re-corrected it, but they didn’t correct what the overall correction did to the conclusion. They apparently state that they have no conflict of interest in their paper, but one of them is affiliated to Cello Health. His website says they provide services such as brand and portfolio commercial strategy for biotech and pharma, and their clients are 24 of the top 25 pharmaceutical companies.

So they do have a conflict of interest if you’re working for an industry that is championing the top 24 of the 25 companies. But I think that Dr. Tess Lawrie also does a detailed take down of the paper. She’s also head of evidence based Medicine UK, and she also developed the BIRD group, which is the British Ivermectin Recommendation Group. So most of her work has been actually doing meta analysis for the WHO on approving medicines.

On the WHO’s conflict of interest:

I wrote to the ethics department or the ethics email of the WHO, asking the various questions about their recommendation against the use of Ivermectin, and they basically refused to answer questions. They basically refuse to release minutes of the meeting, refuse to tell me who was at the meeting. Your own figures say an 81% reduction in deaths, but you decide to not recommend Ivermectin. But you refuse to tell us who was at that meeting. You refused to give us the minutes of the meeting. That’s not transparent.

I would imagine that it should be [transparent] that if you are the WHO and you’re being called out to [answer] questions on why you’re not recommending medicine, I think it should be transparent.

On what we should be doing in South Africa:

We should be doing what states like Uttar Pradesh and Mexico City are doing, where – if you go for a test – you are given medicine to take and medicine to give to your family. This is the earliest way you can treat a disease.

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