Attorney who backs election decertification enters attorney general race to investigate doctors who won't prescribe ivermectin
MADISON – A Chippewa Falls attorney who is a key player in a movement to take the impossible step of decertifying the 2020 election is running for attorney general on a platform of using the office to prosecute doctors who did not administer the anti-parasite drug ivermectin to dying COVID-19 patients and instead gave them other treatments.
Karen Mueller is joining the race's Republican primary after unsuccessfully suing in November 2020 to overturn the presidential election result and writing a memo in January supporting state Rep. Tim Ramthun's call to decertify the election, an analysis that has been widely circulated among decertification supporters. Other attorneys and legal experts have concluded the idea is impossible and illegal.
Mueller said in an interview she is launching a campaign in order to investigate six Wisconsin hospitals for their doctors' decisions to not administer ivermectin to COVID-19 patients. She would not disclose the names of the hospitals or reveal details of her allegations.
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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has not approved the use of ivermectin to prevent or treat COVID-19 infections and has warned users about its potential risks to those who are infected.
Mueller said the CDC and FDA are "liars" and that families have called her "begging for help, trying to figure out what to do because their loved ones were in hospitals and the families believed that those loved ones were basically being murdered. And they had the drugs withheld from them."
"I am running for attorney general because of potential homicides in hospitals, because of vaccines — so-called vaccines," she said.
Mueller, who said she took ivermectin last year while infected with COVID-19, said she did not consult a doctor or scientist to analyze whether the deaths or illnesses could have been prevented by the drug that doctors and researchers say has not been proven to be effective against the coronavirus. She said a trial would root out the facts of the situation.
Patrick Remington, director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Preventive Medicine Residency Program, said doctors who do not prescribe ivermectin to COVID-19 patients are upholding the Hippocratic oath to do no harm to patients by making decisions according to the consensus of available credible medical research.
"We strive to get it right. We do the best job we can to do no harm, and this is an example that would be unthinkable to me to ask a physician to prescribe a medicine that is at best ineffective and at worst harmful," Remington said.
"There are valid debates about the best ways to treat serious illnesses and science is iterative, that as we go along we learn by experimentation, we learn by carefully conducted research," he said.
"Ivermectin has undergone that scrutiny from early anecdotal evidence that it might be effective to well-conducted scientific studies that show that not only is it not effective but it can be harmful, and no credible medical organization or professional organization recommends it," Remington said.
A large clinical trial published Wednesday involving about 3,500 people infected with COVID-19 showed ivermectin did not lower the incidence of medical admission to a hospital due to progression of COVID-19 or of prolonged emergency department observation among outpatients with an early diagnosis.
The study compared about 1,300 people in Brazil who received either ivermectin or a placebo. The rest received a different treatment.
Retail prescriptions for ivermectin surged in late 2020 before vaccines were widely available and after a catastrophic surge of COVID-19 cases. In December 2020, U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson held a Senate hearing in which physician witnesses touted the drug as a COVID treatment and claimed positive research about ivermectin was being ignored.
Pierre Kory, a Wisconsin physician and one of ivermectin's most vociferous promoters, testified at Johnson's hearing that if people took the drug they would not get sick. Eight months later, despite taking ivermectin weekly, Kory came down with COVID-19.
Mueller cites Kory's opinion in her effort to pursue civil penalties, and if elected, criminal charges against doctors who have refused to prescribe the drug in cases where patients died.
"What I would do if I became attorney general is I would open investigations into those deaths and if the facts were substantiated, I would probably bring charges against the people that were responsible for this," Mueller said.
She said she is working on a civil lawsuit against multiple health care systems with multiple plaintiffs but declined to disclose details.
In October, Mueller represented the family of a Waukesha County man who was infected with COVID-19 in their pursuit of an order forcing Aurora Health Care officials to honor a prescription for ivermectin written by a doctor not authorized to practice medicine at the Aurora hospital where the man was in a drug-induced coma and breathing with a ventilator.
In a split decision, the Wisconsin Supreme Court rejected Mueller's petition to bypass an appeals court and bring the case to the state's highest court. The man is now recovering, Mueller said.
Asked Supreme Court to invalidate the 2020 election
In November 2020, Mueller asked the state Supreme Court to throw out the results of the presidential election because the use of ballot drop boxes were illegal, in her view.
The court rejected the petition from Mueller but in a recent ruling barred the use of drop boxes in the April 5 and subsequent elections because state law is silent on whether they are allowed. A final ruling is pending.
Mueller said she is running because she has not seen enough interest from the other Republican candidates — former state Rep. Adam Jarchow and Fond du Lac County District Attorney Eric Toney — in COVID-19 and election issues. She said Attorney General Josh Kaul, the Democratic incumbent, should investigate doctors' decisions surrounding COVID-19 infections.
Kaul and Toney declined to comment. Jarchow did not respond to a request for comment.
Contact Molly Beck at molly.beck@jrn.com. Follow her on Twitter at @MollyBeck.
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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Attorney who backs election decertification, ivermectin enters AG race
