Thomas Goetz

Just days later, another paper appeared, proposing even stronger evidence for ivermectin.

This paper claimed it had data from a company called Surgisphere, based in Chicago.

Supposedly, they had records from nearly 1,400 COVID patients from hospitals around the world.

Half of these patients, the paper claimed, had been treated with ivermectin in the first days of the pandemic.

Remarkably, the ivermectin patients showed a much lower mortality rate than patients who had not taken ivermectin.

Just over 1% of the ivermectin patients died, compared to more than 8% of the non-ivermectin patients.

This was a staggering result.

But the data was sloppy and inconsistent.

And when other researchers asked to see it, the Surgisphere researcher demurred.

And he eventually disappeared.

It was all fake.

All made up.

The doctor behind Surgisphere, Sapan Desai, he was discredited.

he holds the dubious honor of being among the first hustlers to try to exploit COVID for fame and fortune.

The only trouble was that the headlines were already out there.

These two papers and others published with fake Surgisphere data, they have been cited by other researchers thousands of times.

The damage was done.

Here's a Senate hearing from December 2020 into quote-unquote hidden treatments for COVID, convened by the Honorable Ron Johnson of Wisconsin.

The speaker was a Wisconsin doctor named Pierre Corey.

In August 2023, the American Board of Internal Medicine revoked Dr. Corey's board certifications for spreading false or inaccurate medical information.