Introduction
Earlier this month, the group America’s Frontline Doctors (AFLDS) sent an email to its subscriber list with the subject line “Ivermectin over the counter. We’re still fighting.”
While it’s unclear what “requested our petition” means, it is true that AFLDS filed a petition with the FDA – which is, of course, a part of HHS – in June 2025 to make ivermectin available over the counter as a treatment for COVID-19. It is also true that ivermectin is a “Nobel Prize medicine.” However, it won the Nobel Prize in 2015 for dramatically lowering the incidence of river blindness (onchocerciasis) and lymphatic filariasis, both diseases caused by parasites, not viruses or non-parasitic diseases.
The FDA’s website on ivermectin and COVID-19 makes it clear that “the FDA has not authorized or approved ivermectin for use in preventing or treating COVID-19 in humans or animals” and that “the FDA has determined that currently available clinical trial data do not demonstrate that ivermectin is effective against COVID-19 in humans.”
In December 2025, the FDA gave AFLDS its interim response to their petition saying, “FDA has been unable to reach a decision on your Petition because it raises complex issues requiring extensive review and analysis by Agency officials.”
There is no indication that the FDA is moving forward with making ivermectin available over the counter and her contention that HHS is looking into their petition is unsubstantiated and seemingly to be fabricated. The email appears to simply be part of a multi-pronged fundraising scam where AFLDS donors are led to believe that the federal government is taking their petition seriously in order to induce them to send money.
A Brief History of AFLDS
AFLDS was formed in the summer of 2020 by a group called Council for National Policy Action (CNPA), a shadowy right-wing coordinating group. CNPA was vetting doctors as early as May of that year to form a coalition to support former President Trump’s hasty efforts to reopen the country, even as COVID-19 deaths were surging.
A short time later, AFLDS made its first public appearance with Dr. Simone Gold as the founder:
On July 27, 2020, the Tea Party Patriots hosted and funded a press conference in Washington, D.C., in front of the Supreme Court Building, dubbed the “White Coat Summit”, which featured a group led by Gold that referred to themselves as “America’s Frontline Doctors”. The group claimed that a cocktail of hydroxychloroquine, Zithromax, and zinc could be used as a “cure” for COVID-19, and that public health measures such as lockdowns, social distancing, and mask mandates were therefore unnecessary.
After spending the rest of 2020 giving cover to Donald Trump for his botched response to what was becoming the most deadly pandemic in over a century, AFLDS shifted their attention in early 2021 to spreading disinformation about the newly approved COVID-19 vaccines. Calling the vaccines “experimental biological agents,” they falsely claimed that, not only were they not effective at preventing COVID-19 infections, they were actually killing people. In addition to attacking vaccines, AFLDS also promoted unproven “cures” for COVID-19 like ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, claiming that studies showing their effectiveness were being censored.
AFLDS soon pivoted to making a profit from their COVID-19 disinformation campaign. They began to offer a telemedicine session to obtain a prescription for Ivermectin for $90. A TIME magazine investigation found hundreds of victims of the AFLDS grift, some of them racking up hundreds of dollars in charges for phony COVID-19 treatments, often without ever receiving them. In some cases, people with COVID-19 became sicker as they waited for treatments that never arrived.
Jake Scott, MD, shed light on the scope of the AFLDS grift:
During a two-month window in late 2021, a single network linking America’s Frontline Doctors to the telemedicine platform SpeakWithAnMD generated approximately $6.7 million in consultation fees. Consultations cost $90 each. Some lasted only minutes; congressional investigators found that some never occurred at all. Prescriptions were routed to a partner pharmacy, Ravkoo, which filled over 340,000 prescriptions representing $8.5 million in drug revenue. Ivermectin that cost $20 to $50 at retail was sold through these networks for $80 to $700, markups of 300 to 3,400 percent.
As they raked in millions of dollars from their ivermectin scam, AFLDS and Gold repeatedly claimed that the one known effective treatment for COVID-19, the anti-viral drug remdesivir, was killing people.
The Grift Didn’t Stop With COVID-19
Gold has expanded her telemedicine platform into GoldCare Health & Wellness which claims to be a one-stop shop for health care consultations, medications, and medical mandate waivers.
Gold’s new Florida company, GoldCare Health & Wellness LLC , is recruiting physicians, pharmacists and others and marketing to consumers online. It is described as a “private membership association” that costs $1,000 a year to join, $2,000 for a family. No private or government insurance is accepted for consultations that cost up to $100 per 15 minutes via telemedicine, according to marketing materials. Lab tests and prescriptions cost extra. Hospital care is not covered.
The idea, according to the website, is to “serve each patient’s best interest and promote medical freedom … Because we don’t allow government or insurance to control healthcare decisions, the patient-physician relationship can flourish.”
Attempts to learn more were rebuffed. A staff member identified only as Miriam wrote, “At this time we are not doing any media interviews.”
It probably won’t surprise you that one of GoldCare’s medication offerings is ivermectin. Their “Covid Pack” – which includes ivermectin – costs $295 if you have a monthly GoldCare membership and $245 for annual and lifetime memberships. Their $300 “Premium Acute Viral Treatment” and $300 “Hantavirus Acute Viral Treatment” Med-Packs also contain the drug.
According to Gold, COVID-19 isn’t the only illness that can be cured by ivermectin. In 2024, she published a pseudo-science piece on her GoldCare website titled, “From Fighting Parasites to Conquering Cancer: The Ivermectin Journey.” In it, you can “discover the surprising potential of ivermectin in fighting cancer and how it could revolutionize treatment” and “learn more about this groundbreaking research and its implications.”
As the hantavirus outbreak made headlines across the country last spring, Gold promoted ivermectin as the cure:
What is Simone Gold’s Game?
It’s not clear what Gold’s motivations are in promoting the AFLDS petition to make ivermectin available without a prescription. Her company continues to make money by selling prescriptions for the drug online and she continues to disparage actual treatments for COVID-19. If her false claims that it can cure cancer and hantavirus were actually true, she’d make even more money if a prescription was required to obtain it.
Perhaps she knows that even Trump’s FDA is never going to authorize ivermectin for over the counter use. But, making a big show of their request legitimizes it to gullible people looking for easy answers to deadly diseases. Gold surely knows that legitimizing her organization’s claims about the drug means they can continue to profit from selling it.
Conclusion
There are efforts across the country to hold medical professionals accountable for spreading medical disinformation. State medical boards have issued statements saying doctors who do so should lose their medical licenses.
Sadly, that didn’t happen in Gold’s case. Despite being one of the nation’s top purveyors of medical disinformation, she still holds a medical license in California although the state’s medical board has reprimanded her:
About 3 years after being arrested for participating in the January 6 Capitol riots, America’s Frontline Doctors founder Simone Gold, MD, JD, received a public reprimand from the Medical Board of California (MBC) in connection with the resulting federal crime.
The 31-page order, which went into effect on February 2, requires Gold to pay back the state $26,739.25 in “reasonable costs of investigation and prosecution.”
It also includes a requirement that Gold take “educational courses in professionalism and ethics approved by the Board.”
The state licensing agency filed an accusation against her license a year ago, arguing that her actions at the Capitol building in Washington, D.C. constituted “unprofessional conduct” and demonstrated “an unfitness to practice medicine.”
While Gold was in prison for her January 6th activities (NOTE: AFLDS raised nearly a half million dollars from their “Free Dr. Gold” campaign and she’s been given a “full and unconditional” pardon by Trump), the state of Florida awarded her a medical license, as well. This isn’t all that surprising considering that the state’s surgeon general, Joe Ladapo, is a member of AFLDS.
It seems unlikely that Simone Gold’s grift will end any time soon. In the meantime, she’ll continue to use every avenue at her disposal to fleece gullible people using medical disinformation, preying upon their hopes and fears and distrust of government. Sadly, thanks to the efforts of HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and others in Trump’s orbit, many people have a heightened distrust of the medical community, as well, exacerbating the problem.
In the face of the anti-health care efforts of groups like AFLDS who hide behind the shield of the white coat, there has never been a more important time for a pro-health care organization of doctors like the Committee to Protect Health Care to be fighting back. Studies have shown that doctors are the most trusted source for medical information. From the safety of vaccines to the safety of abortion medications like mifepristone and the importance of putting patients above profits, most Americans still turn to doctors for the facts. Unfortunately, dark money-funded groups like AFLDS are intentionally muddying the waters, most often to financially enrich themselves.
It’s important to note that this isn’t a story about the dangers of ivermectin which is a truly wondrous and life-saving drug. Rather, it is a story about harnessing the power of medical disinformation, deceit, and fear for self-enrichment. This grift is dangerous and can even be deadly if people who need actual medical treatments don’t receive them because they are relying on bogus treatments peddled by bad actors like Simone Gold.
If you discover AFLDS doctors or any other similar types of efforts active in your state, be sure to contact your Committee state organizer to alert them about it.
Shocking! Thanks for the information.