Testimony by three physicians to a Republican-led legislative committee Monday painted a picture of government-corporate domination over doctors in choosing COVID-19 treatments, but the committee’s top Democrat called the discussion a distraction from a needed focus on vaccines.
The comments came during a House Health Committee hearing on a bill that would allow doctors to prescribe and pharmacists to dispense government-approved medicines in “off label” fashion to treat COVID-19, without being penalized.
Dr. Pierre Kory, a critical care physician who is part of the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance, a group that advocates the use of ivermectin in treating COVID-19, said the medical system’s approach to the virus has been corrupted by profit-seeking.
“I see profits at the core of almost every behavior” in that approach, Kory said, including the suppression of effective medicines that do not generate those profits.
The committee, like both chambers of the Legislature, is controlled by Republicans.
The top Democrat on the committee, Rep. Dan Frankel of Allegheny County, said that calling the entire medical community “rotten to the core” was a political statement and the whole discussion was a distraction from the need to focus on COVID-19 vaccinations.
Kory pointed to the situation surrounding ivermectin — an inexpensive, off-label drug commonly used to treat parasitic intestinal infections that has proven in some studies to have helped COVID-19 patients — as evidence of out-of-control profit-seeking.
Ivermectin is approved for certain uses by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, but fighting COVID-19 is not one of them. Other medicines commonly are used in ways not specifically approved by the FDA in a practice known as “off label” use.
The FDA website says doctors generally can prescribe drugs off label when “they judge that it is medically appropriate for the patient.”
Ivermectin has been the topic of warnings from government agencies.
Advisories from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the state Department of Health on Aug. 26 both said, “Adverse effects associated with ivermectin misuse and overdose are increasing, as shown by a rise in calls to poison control centers reporting overdoses and more people experiencing adverse effects.”
Dr. Chaminie Wheeler of Upper Macungie Township, and Elk County physician Dr. Robert Schmidt supported Kory’s contentions.
All three said doctors’ attempts to get ivermectin into the hands of COVID-19 patients who might benefit from it have been suppressed.
Wheeler said any proposal to carry out COVID-19 treatments that go “against the narrative that has been established by our CDC and our Department of Health” is considered “misinformation.”
Until recently, Wheeler supervised a newborn nursery and taught medical students at St. Luke’s University Health Network. She told a crowd at a rally last month that she was notified she was losing access to work inside St. Luke’s three hours after the airing of a television interview in which she spoke out against vaccine mandates.
Frankel indicated that the physicians who spoke against the system on Monday likely sympathized with the small minority of doctors who are not vaccinated for COVID-19.
More treatments sought
The prime sponsor of the bill, Republican Rep. Dawn Keefer of York County, said she believed there were not enough treatments for people who are sick with early-stage COVID-19.
Keefer read from a hospital’s long list of medications that it would not use in treating COVID-19 when the patient reached the hospital — and one of them was ivermectin.
She said she has heard complaints that the state medical board is investigating doctors because they are prescribing ivermectin.
Keefer said, “We are intermingling government and our medical profession, and that’s where it gets hairy.”
Republican Rep. Kathy Rapp, the committee chairperson, said many people do not believe they are getting full information concerning COVID-19 from the CDC and state Department of Health.
“That is why we are looking at Representative Keefer’s piece of legislation,” Rapp said.
Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and an infectious disease specialist, testified that he does not prescribe ivermectin for COVID-19.
He said the bill could not be justified and would put the state medical board in a bad position. It could, he said, inadvertently “cause bad medicine to be practiced.”
Frankel spoke in a similar fashion. He said frustration and scientific uncertainty surrounding COVID-19 have opened the window for “misinformation” that is having a dramatic effect on health.
Lisa Robin, chief advocacy officer for the Federation of State Medical Boards, said it would set a “dangerous precedent” by inhibiting the board from fulfilling its mission.
Rapp indicated the bill would not get a vote before January.
Need for scientists
The state’s physician general, Dr. Denise Johnson, said scientists worldwide have looked at new and old medicines for potential benefits in treating COVID-19, and that any potential use has to include weighing risks and potential side effects.
Johnson said individuals can do their own research on COVID-19 treatments but the amount of information makes it difficult to get an accurate picture.
That, she said, was part of the justification for having scientists at the CDC and other agencies figure out which medications actually impact specific conditions.
Meanwhile, the wife of a hospitalized, 52-year-old York County COVID-19 patient who went to court to clear the way for him to receive ivermectin said in an online post that he died Sunday evening.
Keith Smith, a structural engineer and father of two, had been hospitalized for more than two weeks with the disease when his wife, Darla Smith, got the final clearance via a court ruling and legal negotiations to have a non-hospital nurse administer the drug.
Morning Call Capitol correspondent Ford Turner can be reached at fturner@mcall.com
