Sen. Ron Johnson spearheads effort to expand usage for ‘early outpatient use’
Sen. Ron Johnson, Wisconsin Republican, sent President Trump a letter Friday from 776 physicians urging him to expand the use of hydroxychloroquine for coronavirus outpatients by removing federal and state restrictions limiting the drug’s use to hospitals.
He said he forwarded the request to the White House after gaining support from 776 physicians, just 14 hours after he began circulating the letter, which asks Mr. Trump to issue presidential directives allowing doctors to “fight with all the weapons we have at hand.”
“We can’t wait months for a completed RCT [randomized clinical trial] or a vaccine,” said the letter. “People are dying every day. Staggering numbers of people have lost jobs, incomes, and [the] ability to live life normally, all of which lead to loss of life that could quickly exceed losses from the virus.”
Physicians “must be free to use the medicines at hand free of politicians and bureaucrats’ second-guessing and threats,” said the letter. “It is unprecedented — and lethal — for state governors and medical boards to forbid physicians’ freedom to prescribe long-approved and safely used medications.”
The medical professionals asked Mr. Trump to remove language from the Food & Drug Administration’s emergency-use authorization for chloroquine (CQ) and hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) limiting doses from the Strategic National Stockpile to “certain hospitalized patients.”
In addition, the physicians asked the president to “direct the FDA to include the option of early outpatient use of these medications.”
Finally, the letter asked Mr. Trump to “prohibit governors from arbitrarily restricting hydroxychloroquine to only hospitalized patients,” and ban state medical and pharmacy boards from threatening disciplinary action for off-label prescriptions for “early treatment or prophylaxis for COVID-19 in outpatients or at-risk exposed persons.”
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https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/apr/10/doctors-urge-trump-remove-federal-state-limits-hyd