The Alabama Senate Health Committee voted to give a favorable report to legislation that would protect a doctor’s right to prescribe medication to COVID-19 patients even when those medications are not fedarally-approved protocols.

Senate Bill 312 is sponsored by Sens. Arthur Orr (R-Decatur) and Jim McClendon (R-Springville).

The committee heard from doctors who were concerned that the official protocols for treating COVID-19 were either ineffective or worse.

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David Williams told the Committee, “I am a family practitioner in Tuscaloosa.”

Williams said that if a motorist went to a mechanic with a check engine light on and was told, "We are going to wait until the engine gives out and then tow it in here and then we will rebuild the engine," that would be the last time you go to the mechanic.

Williams said that is what the official protocols were with COVID-19, to go home with Tylenol and call the hospital if their oxygen levels drop.

“I found that very strange,” Williams said. “I started looking at hydroxychloroquine,” Williams said. "Later, I heard about Ivermectin and it worked really, really good. Delta was a very different bug.”

Eventually, Williams said he was able to adjust his protocols for the new strain.

“There are people in other states who have lost their licenses [for using off-label medications on COVID-19],” Williams said.

Williams said that the negative side effects of Ivermectin are dwarfed by the negative effects reported for the COVID-19 vaccine.

“All we are asking for is protection of the patient-doctor relationship,” Williams said.

Dr. Ryan McWhorter told the committee, “I cannot get Ivermectin in Montgomery, Alabama.”

McWhorter admitted that using Ivermectin to treat COVID-19 is an off-label use of the drug.

“I use off-label stuff every day,” McWhorter said. “Not everything is studied for every little thing.”

McWhorter recommended Vitamin B if given early as advantageous for the survivability of COVID-19 patients.

Dr. Stewart Tankersley said, “We can all agree that the last two years have been truly tragic with all the thousands who have died.”

Tankersley said that Johns Hopkins records the mortality rate weekly of COVID-19 patients across the country and that the United States is in the bottom 20 out of 185 nations.

“With all the science and technology and medical advances that we have here, we are definitely doing something wrong,” Tankersley said.

Tankersley said doctors have been expected to follow the “edicts of the CDC,” even when the CDC protocols are not working.

"The new science like the new math of Common Core doesn’t add up no matter what we want to believe,” Tankersley said.

An attorney for the Alabama Association for Law and Justice spoke in opposition to the bill.

“We understand the angst we hear from the other side, but we are in opposition to this bill as written by the unanticipated consequences of this bill,” the attorney said. “To even be able to receive treatment there must first be a liability release."

State Sen. Dan Roberts (R-Mountain Brook) said, “This is very personal to me. My wife didn’t win this battle, but I have seen so many who have."

Roberts said that he has spent a year and a half trying to help doctors get the drugs that they need to treat COVID patients.

“I have read more about this topic than any other,” that comes before the legislature, Roberts said. “This is not going away. We have not had an event that affected more people than this in my lifetime.”

The Senate Healthcare Committee is chaired by McClendon.

“I spent time in the hospital with COVID myself,” McClendon said. “I was at a point where I did not have the energy to push the buttons to raise and lower the bed...The last thing I would want to have is handcuffs put on a physician."

Sen. Tom Butler (R-Madison) said, “I agree with Tankersley about no one should get in between the patient-doctor relationship. That is sacrosanct to me as a pharmacist. I currently have the right to refuse to fill a physician for any reason."

Butler said that he opposed the provision that pharmacists must fill a prescription for alternative drugs for COVID-19.

Senate Bill 312 was given a favorable report and can now be addressed by the full Senate.

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