Gubernatorial candidate Dean Odle has endorsed Senate Bill 312 (SB312), which protects a doctor from retaliation and lawsuits if he or she uses a treatment for COVID-19 that is not recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). It also guarantees that pharmacies will fill prescriptions for drugs being prescribed for an off-label use to treat COVID-19.
SB312 is sponsored by Sens. Arthur Orr (R-Decatur) and Jim McClendon (R-Springville).
“Since March of 2020, I have been speaking out about the suppression of early treatment protocols for Covid-19,” Odle said in a statement. “I first brought attention to Dr. Didier Raoult’s successful treatment of Covid-19 using Hydroxychloroquine-Zinc-Azithromycin in the church I pastor as well as to a large following I have on social media. When I entered the Alabama Governor’s race, I had banners made to illustrate my point and immediately began calling out our state leaders for refusing to even mention these early treatment protocols that were saving lives. I continued to do this in every meeting, campaign event, protest, and freedom rally that I attended. I wrote an extensive and very well documented article for my Dean Odle for Governor website in August of 2020 entitled, 'Covid-19: The Cure and the Cover Up.' In stump speech after stump speech, I quote the real heroes of the 2020 “pandemic” like Dr. Peter McCullough, Dr. George Fareed (Harvard graduate), Dr. Pierre Kory, Dr. Vladimir Zelenko, and Dr. Harvey Risch (Yale Professor of Epidemiology).
“In July of 2020, Dr. Risch stated in Newsweek Magazine, “I am fighting for a treatment (HCQ-AZ-Z) that the data fully support but which, for reasons having nothing to do with a correct understanding of the science, has been pushed to the sidelines. As a result, tens of thousands of patients with COVID-19 are dying unnecessarily.
“I am the only Alabama gubernatorial candidate that has been publicly taking a stand for health freedom and the need for early treatment protocols, and I have been doing so for two years,” Odle said. “I was speaking about this when it was not popular or accepted. My YouTube channel with 24,000 subscribers and millions of views in the last few years was terminated because I was not afraid to share this truth on social media. This issue is a fire in my bones because so many people have suffered and died needlessly.”
The Alabama Policy Institute also came out in favor of SB312.
On Monday, API announced the addition of two bills, Senator Orr’s SB312 and Representative Sorrell’s HB130, to its legislative scorecard, the API Watchlist, as key 'yes' votes.
SB312 would protect physicians from adverse action from the state’s occupational licensing boards based on their COVID-19 treatment plans.
“In the ever-changing world of COVID-19, physicians should be free to act in the best interest of their patients without fear of getting their medical licenses revoked. Senator Orr’s bill would ensure Alabama’s doctors maintain their freedom,” API wrote in a statement."
HB130, meanwhile, would eliminate the Certificate of Need (CON) program.
“Although our leaders should have acted on this two years ago, it is good to see that some in the Alabama legislature are getting behind a bill that the grassroots group Focus on America brought forth to deal with this problem,” Odle said. “I applaud Senator Arthur Orr (R-Decatur) and Senator Jim McClendon (R-Springville) for sponsoring Senate Bill 312."
The bill would:
prohibit an occupational licensing board from taking adverse action against a physician who recommends a COVID-19 treatment that is not FDA-approved,
require a patient's written, informed consent to receive a physician's recommended COVID-19 treatment if the treatment is not FDA-approved,
require pharmacies to fulfill prescriptions that are not FDA-approved to treat COVID-19,
require health care facilities to provide a patient's requested off-label COVID-19 treatment,
provide a cause of action against an occupational licensing board, pharmacy, or health care facility that violates the provisions of this bill, and
provide that a health care facility, pharmacy, and licensing board that complies with this bill is immune from civil liability related to certain COVID-19 treatments.
Odle is a lee County pastor, evangelist, and schoolmaster.
Lindy Blanchard, Lew Burdette, Stacey George, Kay Ivey, Tim James, Donald Trent Jones, Dean Odle, Dave Thomas, and Dean Young are all running in the May 24 Republican primary for Governor.
The Alabama Senate could take up SB312 as soon as Wednesday. Wednesday is day 25 of the session and the legislature is limited to 30 days in a session. For SB312 to have any chance of passage, it needs to be passed by the Senate quickly so that the Alabama House of Representatives has time to get it on their calendar and pass it before the legislative session comes to a close.
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