A PROMINENT doctor, who is currently under investigation for practising online without a licence, is helping people to acquire a horse drug to treat Covid-19, the Irish Mail on Sunday can reveal.

Dr Andrew Rynne is advising followers where to purchase the dewormer ivermectin from agricultural and equine suppliers in the midlands.

Dr Rynne, who is no longer registered as a physician, is the focus of ongoing Medical Council and Garda inquiries following complaints that he provided telemedical services without a licence last year.

Dr Rynne disabled his telemedicine business – Medicaladviceforyou.com – earlier this year after the Medical Council began investigating on foot of a complaint.

The site, which initially dealt with sexual health and fertility problems, first went live in 2013 when Dr Rynne was on the Medical Register.

At the time, Dr Rynne described the enterprise as ‘a secure and confidential online consultancy service for both men and women who require medical help’.

However, in recent years he continued to operate the site as a commercial business after he had deregistered himself as a doctor with the Medical Council.

‘I deregistered from the Medical Council about two years ago,’ he told a YouTube broadcast last year.

The site remained live until the Medical Council launched their inquiry. It was taken down by Dr Rynne this year after he was contacted about the regulatory action.

Under the Medical Practitioners Act it is illegal for a doctor to practise medicine in Ireland without being registered with the Medical Council. These rules are intended to safeguard patients and to ensure public confidence in doctors.

The Medical Council’s professional conduct and ethics rules for doctors also state: ‘If you provide telemedicine services to patients within the State, you should be registered with the Medical Council.’

Receipts and banking records – seen by the MoS – confirm Dr Rynne took payment for online consultations last year at a time when he was no longer a registered doctor.

The documents show he charged and was paid a consultation fee via Pay- Pal to a patient in Ireland who sought medical advice from him online.

Following a complaint late last year, the Medical Council launched an investigation into Dr Rynne’s activities.

Earlier this year they forwarded the case to gardaí under Section 105 of the Medical Practitioners Act. This section of the Act allows gardaí to prosecute doctors who are no longer Medical Council members and therefore not subject to its regulations. Gardaí are understood to be gathering evidence for the case.

A prominent member of the medical community, Dr Rynne established Clane General Hospital in Co. Kildare, before selling it to UPMC two years ago.

A former chairman of the Irish Family Planning Association, he pioneered the introduction of vasectomies in Ireland and was famously shot by an aggrieved former patient. He was also active in right-to-contraception campaigns in the 1980s and deliberately sold condoms publicly to ensure he would be prosecuted.

Dr Rynne describes himself as a human-rights activist and has indicated that he is glad he deregistered from the Medical Council.

‘It was something I found difficult to do but I’m glad I did now because I’m a free agent and I can express my views without the Medical Council breathing down my throat,’ he told an interviewer last year.

Meanwhile, during the pandemic, Dr Rynne has become a prominent anti-lockdown and anti-vaccination figurehead who has branded Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan ‘the prince of darkness’.

‘He’s a dark cloud over all of us,’ he said of Dr Holohan.

‘Injecting healthy people is not just wrong, it’s evil’ Dr Rynne told a public protest in Cork last year. At the same protest he said the Covid vaccination of children was akin to Nazi concentration camp experiments.

‘Experimental treatment on children is what Josef Mengele did,’ he told the crowd.

‘Injecting healthy young people, and particularly children, with an experimental gene therapy is not just wrong; it’s evil.’

While rejecting approved Covid vaccines, Dr Rynne has become one of a number of Irish doctors who publicly favour the use of ivermectin as a Covid cure.

Ivermectin is a deworming parasitic medication originally intended for horses and cattle, but it is also used – in much smaller concentrations – for parasite infestations in humans.

Ivermectin is not licensed as a Covid treatment – something that has not stopped many seeking it from agricultural suppliers where it can be obtained without a veterinary prescription.

Last night the Health Products Regulatory Authority (HPRA) confirmed that a loophole allowing anyone to buy agricultural ivermectin without prescription will be closed on January 28, when Ireland implements a 2019 EU regulation.

Meanwhile, Dr Rynne has continued to promote the use of ivermectin to his thousands of followers on social media. In recent weeks he has suggested that followers could seek ivermectin from a number of named agricultural outlets in the midlands.

When approached by the MoS at his home this week, Dr Rynne initially refused to speak about his views on ivermectin.

‘I would prefer not to talk to you. I don’t think it’s actually in my interest,’ he said.

Later, in a series of written responses, Dr Rynne said he did not promote ivermectin ‘in the accepted meaning of that term’.

He told the MoS: ‘I may of course give an opinion on it.… Since when do you need to be registered in order to have an opinion?’ He added that ‘Telemedicine differs from practising medicine’.

Asked about the regulatory action being taken against him, Dr Rynne denied he had practised medicine while not registered. ‘Telemedicine is providing medical opinion remotely. It differs greatly from practising medicine.

‘I honestly thought that telemedicine was outside the remit of the Medical Council. I still think that it is and would have challenged them had it not been for the fact that the enterprise was not a viable one and that I was at the point of closing down my website anyway.’

Dr Rynne said he would cooperate with any investigation, but said he had not yet heard from Gardaí.

Last night a Medical Council spokesman, said: ‘We do not comment on matters relating to individuals that are related to an ongoing regulatory or legal proceeding.’

Animal medicine is anti-vaxxers’ choice

‘YOU are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y’all. Stop it.’

That’s how the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) implored people not to take ivermectin to treat Covid on its Twitter feed two months ago.

Ivermectin is a blockbuster deworming drug originally intended to kill parasites in farm animals.

In much lower concentrations it subsequently became licensed for use against parasite infestations in humans such as those that cause ailments such as river blindness and scabies.

First discovered in 1975 by Derry researcher William Campbell and Japanese scientist Satoshi Omura, ivermectin has prevented untold human misery.

As such, it is on the World Health Organisation’s list of essential medicines, has been prescribed safely to millions of people in the low concentrations it is licensed for and has earned its developers a Nobel Prize in 2015.

But the drug, which is now available generically, has not been authorised anywhere for Covid.

‘Currently available data do not show ivermectin is effective against Covid-19,’ the FDA warned in a factsheet linked to its eyecatching Tweet.

‘Taking large doses of ivermectin is dangerous,’ the warning continued. ‘Never use medications intended for animals on yourself or other people. Animal ivermectin products are very different from those approved for humans. Use of animal ivermectin for the prevention or treatment of Covid-19 in humans is dangerous.’

The European Medicines Agency issued similar warnings.

Drugs firm, Merck, which originally patented the drug, issued the following warning in February: ‘It is important to note that, our analysis has identified:

• No scientific basis for a potential therapeutic effect against Covid-19 from pre-clinical studies;
• No meaningful evidence for clinical activity or clinical efficacy in patients with Covid-19 disease;
• A concerning lack of safety data in the majority of studies.’

But none of this has stopped anti-vaccine advocates from promoting the use of ivermectin as a medicine they believe can prevent and treat Covid.

In doing so they cite early studies, showing that the drug could kill the virus in test tube conditions and at concentrations many times higher than authorised for humans.

Their followers are frequently advised to buy online or procure the drug from agricultural suppliers – who stock far stronger versions of the medicine intended only for use on large animals.

Just this week the New England Journal Of Medicine published a study of 21 people who had contacted a poisoning helpline in Oregon having consumed ivermectin as a Covid treatment in August.

Of those, 17 had purchased veterinary formulations, six were hospitalised and four ended up in an intensive care unit. All of those hospitalised had taken the drug as a preventative measure and did not have Covid.

In Ireland, the National Poisons Information Centre reported last month that one person had been hospitalised as a result of ivermectin poisoning.

Meanwhile, the Health Products Regulatory Authority has seized 5,000 units of ivermectin between July 2020 and July 2021 in Ireland.