States Seek To Protect Access to Alternative COVID Therapeutics

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COLUMBUS, OH – The Ohio House of Representatives passed a bill recently protecting individual access to Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) as “alternative” therapies for treating COVID-19. Under the bill, Ohio’s health departments and medical boards would have to increase distribution of the drugs to pharmacies, while health care practitioners would be banned from suppressing them. However, they would also be protected from any penalty for prescribing them as COVID-19 treatments.

HB 73, known as the “COVID-19 Health Care Professional-Patient Relationship Protection Act,” passed 73-17 and now heads to the Ohio Senate. The measure would allow patients in Ohio diagnosed with COVID-19 to use these treatments in an “off-label” manner since the drugs have not yet been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for treating the disease. The bill states the patient or patient’s representative must consent to the treatment, and that a health care provider must first deem it necessary or beneficial before these treatments can be administered.

The bill protects four listed drugs: Ivermectin, an anti-parasitic drug; HCQ, an anti-malarial treatment; Budesonide, a steroid; and Azithromycin, an antibacterial drug.

Ivermectin is best known for its antiparasitic properties and studies show that it can help prevent COVID-19 and is especially effective as early treatment. In fact, Drs. William C. Campbell and Satoshi Ömura earned the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine for their discoveries leading to Ivermectin. The drug also has antiviral and anti-inflammatory properties and studies have shown that Ivermectin helps to lower the viral load by inhibiting replication. According to a June 2020 study published in the Antiviral Research Journal, a single dose of Ivermectin can kill 99.8 percent of the virus within 48 hours. A meta-analysis in the American Journal of Therapeutics showed the drug reduced infection by an average of 86 percent when used preventively.

A new study shows Ivermectin can reduce the chance of COVID death by 92 percent. The large prospective observational study of 88,012 people in a strictly controlled city-wide program in Southern Brazil, shows that regular use of Ivermectin as prophylaxis for COVID-19 led up to 92 percent reduction in COVID-19 mortality rate. In fact, there weren’t any COVID hospitalizations in the group of regular Ivermectin users compared to 10 in the irregular user group.

Additionally, studies show Ivermectin lowers the risk of hospitalization and death.

According to an archive of 487 HCQ studies, 395 of them peer-reviewed, these studies involving more than a half million patients found almost uniformly a reduced mortality and hospitalization rate with early HCQ treatment. Taken in totality, the studies found 62 percent of people showed improved health when taking HCQ when diagnosed early with COVID-19.

Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said, “Individuals must have the right to choose health care options that are best suitable for them. Federal agencies continue to provide inaccurate information regarding safe and effective COVID-19 treatments. Ivermectin, HCQ, and other therapeutics have been proven to help people. One thing COVID taught everyone is that the health care industry and the federal health agencies are in desperate need of reform.”

For more information about Ivermectin and HCQ, visit Liberty Counsel’s website here.

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