A bill has passed the Missouri state legislature barring pharmacists from refusing to fill prescriptions or unproven and potentially dangerous COVID-19 treatments, or even contacting the prescribing physician or the patient to ask questions about the medication. The ban is not technically in effect yet, but it now heads to the governor’s desk for his signature and since Mike Parson has never met an anti-COVID safety bill he doesn’t love, that seems likely.
Buried deep in a bill that allows physical therapy students to apply for jobs ahead of graduation is this provision:
A pharmacist shall not contact the prescribing physician or the patient to dispute the efficacy of ivermectin tablets or hydroxychloroquine sulfate tablets for human use unless the physician or patient inquires of the pharmacist about the efficacy of ivermectin tablets or hydroxychloroquine sulfate tablets.
On the one hand, if a doctor prescribed medication for a patient and the two discussed what that medication does and does not do and all the safety risks involved, fine. I think that person should be able to get that medication. On the other hand, I’ve personally benefited from pharmacists who have caught doctors’ mistakes or explained things in ways doctors haven’t. There are doctors out there prescribing these drugs even though they’ve been shown to be useless against COVID-19 and a pharmacist is the last line of defense in just being able to ask: “You sure about this?”
What makes all of this even worse is that while soon Missouri pharmacists will no longer be allowed to even ask patients if they’re aware that the drugs they’re taking are in no way proven to be effective in treating COVID-19, pharmacists in the state and plenty of others are 100% allowed to refuse to fill prescriptions for birth control or requests for Plan B emergency contraception if those items offend their “religious beliefs or moral convictions.”
What a shamefully cruel, backward country this can be.
(image: Nastasic/Getty Images)
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