Horowitz: Here is a lifesaving COVID-19 bill every legislature should pass

As my wife chatted with a phlebotomist administering her COVID-19 antibody test, he asked her if she planned to get the vaccine if her results came up negative. She told the middle-aged man that at her age the risk of the experimental vaccine would far outweigh the benefit. The kind man drawing her blood agreed, but noted that his doctor warned him, "It's either the vaccine or a ventilator."

When my wife related this story to me, the jarring reality of just how successful the government has been with its misinformation campaign hit me like a ton of bricks. This panicked advice embodies the great lie – the false dichotomy – that is being offered to tens of millions of Americans at the behest of government and the medical establishment.

COVID-19 is not some rare illness that can be avoided, nor is it a novel, untreatable virus at this point. At least 45% of Los Angeles has already contracted it, according to serology tests, a number that is likely even higher, according to Johns Hopkins professor Marty Makary. Yet if you are someone who is at risk for serious illness, the government still has nothing to offer you but a mask and a stay-at-home order if you test positive. Then, all they have waiting for you in the hospital is worthless Remdesivir and a ventilator 7-10 days later, when it is often too late.

But now that we see this virus and its predictable effects coming a mile away, why is there no treatment protocol from government and the medical establishment? Worse, doctors are being threatened and canceled for offering lifesaving early therapeutic treatment with cheap and safe drugs like ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine mixed with other repurposed drug cocktails and natural supplements. It's time to change that.

Earlier this month, Colorado state Rep. Stephanie Luck introduced House Bill 21-1202, titled, "Off-label Use of Approved Drugs To Treat COVID-19." At its core, the bill addresses the lack of patient options both for prophylaxis and for at-home early-stage therapeutic treatment of Covid-19. We already know that doctors are hesitant to prescribe, and pharmacists are hesitant to dispense, FDA-approved drugs (for off-label use) to treat COVID-19. Medical professionals continue to be intimidated by state administrative agencies and boards that regulate and control their licenses.

The result is that people are given this false promise of somehow avoiding the virus simply by wearing a cheap cloth (worked out real well for Los Angeles!) and the false choice between getting the vaccine or winding up in the hospital if they get a serious case of the virus. It is simply insane to wait until people get to the hospital to treat a very predictable and treatable case of respiratory distress, inflammatory reaction, or thrombosis that then becomes untreatable in its late stages.

The reality is that endless studies have shown that ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine alone are lifesavers when taken early on (or possibly even later in the case of ivermectin) because they reverse the effects of the known dangerous biological reactions caused by the virus. Shouldn't patients have the right to try? If COVID-19 is really serious enough to destroy our civilization, why not actually treat it with low cost, low risk, and no destruction of our social interaction and economy?

This particular bill introduced in Colorado specifies that any health care provider authorized to prescribe medication may prescribe and dispense, and a pharmacist may dispense, therapeutic drugs already approved by the FDA for off-label use, including hydroxychloroquine sulfate and ivermectin, to provide prophylaxis or outpatient (at-home) and inpatient (hospital) treatment to an individual with COVID-19. The bill also ensures that such a prescription is not deemed unprofessional conduct or otherwise grounds for discipline.

The bill is scheduled for a hearing on March 31 in the House Health and Insurance Committee. Unfortunately, Democrats control the Colorado legislature, so the prospects of this bill are not so promising, but what about in the 31 states where the GOP controls the legislature?

Consider the fact that the vaccine, which is being touted as the greatest thing since the invention of sliced bread, is itself an experimental mRNA gene therapy that is only being authorized under experimental Emergency Use Authorization by the FDA. Hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin, on the other hand, have been dispensed billions of times since the 1970s for ailments such as parasitic infections, lupus, and rheumatoid arthritis and have been proven to be among the safest drugs.

Yet the government-media complex treats the vaccine as if it's a proven commodity and these drugs as if they are experimental. The censorship is so great that all my articles on ivermectin, which is now batting "one thousand" in terms of studies showing its efficacy, have been pulled from Facebook. Why are the people who claim to be the most concerned about COVID-19 engaging in a war against the most effective early therapeutics that not only save almost everyone who gets the virus but keep them out of the hospitals for pennies on the dollar?

Well, I think we know the answer. With a near-cure to the virus, there is no longer a pretext for shutting down people's lives, masking them, and lining the pockets of Big Pharma for either expensive or ineffective experimental treatments or gene therapy.

So many people have died because doctors have been too scared to prescribe the drugs. As Dr. Richard Urso testified before the Texas Senate Health and Human Services Committee, he was issued a cease-and-desist letter by his local medical board for successfully treating patients with a cocktail of drugs that included hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin, and budesonide. The refusal of these doctors to treat patients at home has led to needless hospitalization and irreversible cytokine storm and thrombosis that, for many, turned fatal.

Republican state legislatures need to take up this mantle in legislation or (if it's too late in the session to introduce a bill) in their respective budget bills. States are all spending billions of dollars chasing their tails on testing, tracing, and hospitalizations, when simply getting out of the way of early treatments could solve the entire problem. As Dr. Peter McCullough, a Texas-based cardiologist who has saved many COVID-19 patients, recently said on my podcast, had government promoted prophylaxis and early treatment, we could have prevented 85% of the COVID-19 casualties.

So the next time anyone tells you we need to destroy civilization and individual liberty for COVID-19 but is also standing in the way of the one thing that will effectively control the virus without collateral damage, just know they don't give a darn about the virus. They want to control your life. Lining the pockets of their political donors in Big Pharma is just the icing on the cake.