Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

Lawmakers in Iowa’s state Legislature have advanced a bill that would allow the use of ivermectin for critically sick COVID-19 patients.

Ivermectin has been used for decades to treat parasitic worms in humans, but during the COVID-19 pandemic, some patients and doctors have attested that the drug is effective in relieving symptoms.

The Iowa bill stipulates that COVID-19 patients who are on ventilators should have the ability to use ivermectin. Specifically, it expands the state’s “right to try” law, which allows terminally ill patients to access medicines that have passed under the first phase of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s trials.

“I completely support it. I think that we should give patients the right to try,” said Rep. Ann Meyer, a Republican and one of the bill’s cosponsors, told the Des Moines Register in late January.

Rep. Lee Hein, also a Republican, said he sponsored the measure after hearing that two families of critically ill COVID-19 patients had sought ivermectin but hospital policies prevented them from obtaining the medication. Both patients died of COVID-19, he said.

“I don’t know whether any of these drugs work, but I think at that late stage in the game, once you’re on a ventilator, families ought to have at least a glimmer of hope to try something,” Hein told Radio Iowa.

The FDA’s website says that its “currently available data” suggests that the medication isn’t effective at treating or preventing COVID-19. However, the agency courted controversy last year when it issued a Twitter post that suggested the drug is only used for “deworming” horses and other livestock, although it has long authorized ivermectin tablets as a treatment for worms in humans.

The FDA and other agencies, meanwhile, have warned against people taking livestock-grade ivermectin, which doesn’t require a prescription, amid reports of increases in people being admitted to hospitals after taking the livestock version of the drug.

The drug gained more attention after podcaster Joe Rogan confirmed that he took human-grade ivermectin in a bid to curb his COVID-19 symptoms. Ivermectin is also being used across Latin America for COVID-19, including in Peru, Guatemala, Bolivia, and other countries.

In December of last year, the family of an Illinois man, Sun Ng, who developed severe COVID-19 symptoms and was near death, said he recovered after taking ivermectin. It came after a court ordered the hospital to administer the drug to Ng, the family’s attorney told The Epoch Times at the time.

Rep. Meyer, who is a also nurse, said that ivermectin has “been around” for “many years.” The bill, she told Radio Iowa, would allow “off-label” use of the drug for COVID-19 patients who are on life support in hospitals.

Republicans advanced the measure through a subcommittee meeting on Jan. 26.

One Democrat on the subcommittee, Rep. Mary Mascher, voted against advancing the bill.

“There’s a lot of folks in the room who are medical folks,” Mascher said during last week’s hearing. “And I have heard no one in support of the bill.”