Former Iowa Senator David Hartsuch MD has filed a lawsuit against the Iowa Boards of Medicine and Pharmacy to protect the rights of Iowa patients and their physicians from unlawful Board activity.
Dr Hartsuch explained, “These Boards are preventing patients from receiving early life-saving treatment by unlawfully suppressing physician speech considered contrary to the State narrative concerning COVID-19.”
In March of 2020, the Director of the Board of Medicine e-mailed a joint statement to physicians to prevent them from prescribing hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) and Azithromycin (a common antibiotic used to treat bronchitis which frequently accompanies the disease.)
Dr Hartsuch noted that not only was this statement sent without Board approval, but it also conflicted with the best-known medical science. In July 2020, he petitioned the Board to consider the matter formally and provided scientific medical information that demonstrated the importance of early intervention with HCQ.
In October 2020, the Boards issued a revised joint statement allowing the use of the drugs. However, the Medical Board’s Director refused a request by Dr Hartsuch to directly inform all licensees of the change in Board policy. The Director also ignored FOIA requests by Dr Hartsuch for the science behind the Boards’ original statement.
Said Dr Hartsuch, “I was later shocked to discover that, despite the Boards’ new policy permitting the use of these drugs, doctors in Iowa who lawfully treated COVID-19, including myself, were being investigated for the very thing the new policy allowed. Worse yet, pharmacists, under the direction of the Board of Pharmacy, refused to fill lawful prescriptions for these life-saving drugs.”
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