Cuyahoga republicans call for passage of blocked health freedom bill

Dave and Angie Plant passed away eight days apart at Wooster (Ohio) Community Hospital after the hospital refused a treatment that was not on its “protocol."

The Republican Party of Cuyahoga County (RPCC) last night passed a resolution to encourage the passage of a medical freedom bill that would require pharmacists and hospitals to dispense an off-label treatment when it is prescribed by a person’s physician

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HB73, the Dave and Angie Patient and Health Provider Protection Act, passed the Ohio House of Representatives in June 2023—16 months ago—by an overwhelming 75-17 vote. But the bill is now being blocked from passage in the Ohio Senate by Sen. Stephen Huffman, chairman of the Senate Health Committee. If the bill doesn’t pass the senate and isn’t signed into law by Gov. Mike DeWine by the end of the year, it will die.

Dave and Angie Plant, a married couple, passed away eight days apart in September 2021 at Wooster (Ohio) Community Hospital after the hospital refused a covid treatment that was not on its “covid protocol.” According to House and Senate testimony from Crystal Boles, Angie’s sister, the hospital went so far as to tell her that it didn’t have access to budesonide—an inhaled corticosteroid that Texas physician Dr. Richard Bartlett has called a “silver bullet” for covid-19. Crystal said she had confirmed two days earlier that the hospital’s in-house pharmacy did, indeed, carry the treatment.

Hours after Dave passed in Wooster Hospital, my wife, Amy, passed at Southwest General Health Center, in Middleburg Heights, Ohio after an apparent case of covid. In her case, it wasn’t the hospital, but local pharmacies who played God and refused to fill doctors’ prescriptions for safe, FDA-approved medications like hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin.

Testifying to the Senate Health Committee in May 2024, Bartlett, a 33-year physician and past advisor to Texas Gov. Rick Perry, said more than 90 percent of covid deaths could have been prevented with budesonide—an opinion that he said was shared by Dr. Ben Carson, a member of the White House coronavirus taskforce.

Budesonide is part of government covid protocols in India and Australia but can still be denied Ohio patients without the passage of HB73, Bartlett said.

Among other provisions, the legislation that Huffman is blockading would:

• authorize a doctor to prescribe an off-label drug and generally require a pharmacist to dispense—and a hospital or inpatient facility to allow—the dispensing of the drug;

• authorize, under certain circumstances, an off-label drug to be brought into a hospital or inpatient facility for administration to a patient;

• generally prohibit the denial of nutrition or fluids to a patient;

• generally prohibit a licensing board from pursuing an administrative or disciplinary action against a prescriber who prescribes the off-label drug, a pharmacist who dispenses it or a hospital or inpatient facility that allows it to be dispensed.

The resolution passed by the RPCC is as follows:

WHEREAS, government entities have collaborated with social media entities to suppress free speech, the first and most important amendment in the Bill of Rights;

WHEREAS, lifesaving drugs have been denied to patients in Ohio and other states;

WHEREAS, it is common practice for physicians to prescribe medicine to patients off-label;

WHEREAS, medicine impacted by HB 73 already has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration and is legal in the state of Ohio;

WHEREAS, the Ohio House of Representatives passed HB 73 by a margin of 75 votes in favor versus 16 [sic] votes opposed;

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, the Republican Party of Cuyahoga County urges the Ohio Senate to pass House Bill 73, and Governor Mike DeWine to sign House Bill 73 into law after its passage by the Ohio Senate.

Please contact Huffman and the following members of the Ohio Senate Health Committee and tell them to stop holding up Ohioans’ right to take the treatment of their choice when they are critically ill:

Stephen A. Huffman, republican, chair

Terry Johnson, republican, vice chair

Nickie J. Antonio, democrat, ranking member

Bob D. Hackett, republican

Catherine D. Ingram, democrat

Kristina D. Roegner, republican

Mark Romanchuk, republican