The state attorney general in Nebraska has issued an opinion that physicians can prescribe hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin as treatments for COVID-19 without violating any of the state’s laws or regulations.
The opinion had been requested by the state Department of Health and in his opinion, AG Doug Peterson not only said such prescriptions would be reasonable if the physician first obtained “informed patient consent,” but he also pointed out the agenda-driven opposition from the elite in the pharmaceutical and medical industries, as well as government.
“Considering the evidence … we do not find that clear and convincing evidence would warrant disciplining physicians who prescribe hydroxychloroquine for the prevention or early treatment of COVID-19 after first obtaining informed patient consent,” the opinion said.
“Based on the available data, we do not find clear and convincing evidence that a physician who first obtains informed consent and then utilizes ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19 violates the UCA,” he wrote, referring to the state’s Uniform Credentialing Act.
Doctors could be subject to discipline should they fail to obtain consent, “deceive their patients, prescribe excessively high doses” or “fail to check for contraindications.”
“Also, though an opinion from our office about possible UCA violations would ordinarily focus on healthcare practices within Nebraska, the context of a global pandemic necessitates looking for evidence far beyond our state’s borders, as we have done here.”
He said his office “is not recommending any specific treatments for COVID-19. That is not our role. … Rather, we address only the off-label early treatment options discussed in this opinion and conclude that the available evidence suggests that they might work for some people. Allowing physicians to consider these early treatments will free them to evaluate additional tools that could save lives, keep patients out of the hospital, and provide relief for our already strained healthcare system.”
The request from the health department came because of the flood of conflicting and inaccurate information about the treatments. The AG cited a report in the prominent medical journal Lancet that condemned the treatments, but then was admitted to be a “fabrication.”
The AG said his office reviewed studies on the use of ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine only, but there may be other “off-label drugs” that “might show promise,” too.
The analysis noted that the National Institutes of Health has recognized that ivermectin has been widely used and generally well tolerated for decades, for the treatment of scabies.
Adverse side effects, the NIH said, are “primarily minor and transient.” And the number of people who report adverse events “is vanishingly small.”
And while the NIH has been “neutral” on its use, “officials within its agencies have sent contradictory messages,” the opinion explained.
Citing Joe Biden’s medical adviser, Anthony Fauci, who claimed, “there is no evidence whatsoever” that ivermectin works, the AG said that statement “directly contradicts the NIH’s recognition that ‘several randomized trials … published in peer-reviewed journals’ have reported data indicating that ivermectin is effective as a COVID-19 treatment.”
He said the FDA is similarly charting a “course of confusion,” telling people not to use it, without a basis.
The evidence similarly suggests hydroxychloroquine, which has been prescribed for malaria since the 1950s, might help. In fact, it was prescribed 5.4 million times in the U.S. alone in just 2019.
Likewise, the opinion noted, “public health agencies” are against its use, even though the FDA initially provided an Emergency Use Authorization for it to be prescribed for COVID.
It cited four reasons for its later cancellation of that permission, but none of those reasons “establishes … that hydroxychloroquine is ineffective as an early treatment of COVID-19,” the AG said.
At the NOQReport blog site, a report said Dannette Smith, CEO of the state Department of Health and Human Services, asked for the opinion.
The report also noted Peterson cited studies showing the treatments cut mortality “by up to 75%, suggesting hundreds of thousands of lives could hae been saved had the drugs been widely used in America.”
Peterson also pointed out that ivermectin no longer is under patent, so drug companies do not make millions, or hundreds of millions, of dollars when they produce it.
Also, he pointed out, the maker, Merck, “has a significant financial interest in the medical profession rejecting ivermectin as an early treatment for COVID-19. [T]he U.S. government has agreed to pay [Merck] about $1.2 billion for 1.7 million courses of its experimental COVID-19 treatment, if it is proven to work in an ongoing large trial and authorized by U.S. regulators.”
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