State lawmakers are pushing to allow ivermectin — an antiparasitic drug that became notorious during the COVID-19 pandemic — to be purchased without a prescription in New Hampshire. And they’re doing it by tacking on a provision to a Medicaid cost-efficiency program.
Senate Bill 119 was introduced in the New Hampshire Senate earlier this year with the goal of making the state Medicaid program more cost-efficient. The bill seeks to allow Medicaid to purchase name-brand drugs when they are cheaper than generics. Medicaid has long been prevented from buying name brands because historically they are more expensive. However, recent market developments have made some name-brand drugs cheaper than their generic counterparts, so lawmakers have worked to alter that rule this year. This has been a priority in Republican Gov. Kelly Ayotte’s budget agenda amid a difficult fiscal environment this year.
“My wife loves to shop at Hannaford, and nine times out of 10, if there’s a Hannaford brand, I pick the Hannaford brand up,” Sen. James Gray, a Rochester Republican and the bill’s sponsor, said during a hearing on the bill last month. “But you know what? Sometimes that national brand has a coupon. Sometimes that national brand has a discount. Sometimes it’s just on sale. And that’s exactly what this bill does. It says, ‘Hey, you don’t have to buy generic if the national brand is cheaper.’”
The Senate approved SB 119 through a voice vote in March. However, when it got to House lawmakers, Rep. YuryPolozov, a Hooksett Republican, proposed an amendment that added a provision allowing ivermectin to be purchased at New Hampshire pharmacies without a prescription from a doctor.
The House passed the amended version of SB 119 on Thursday, sending the bill back to the Senate for another vote. House Democrats criticized the change.
“It is very bad legislative policy to attach unlike things together in the hopes of forcing somebody else to do something that they would not otherwise do,” Rep. Lucy Weber, a Walpole Democrat, said on the House floor Thursday. “Anything that is good legislative policy stands on its own and should not be attached to anything else.”
Ivermectin was discovered in Japan in the 1970s and subsequently used to develop a veterinary drug to treat parasitic infections in horses, cattle, dogs, and other animals, according to the American Chemical Society. Years later, researchers from Merck Pharmaceuticals and the Kitasato Institute began experimenting on uses of the drug for humans. They were able to use the drug to treat river blindness and saw so much success they won a 2015 Nobel Prize. The medicine is now used to treat several kinds of worm and lice infections in humans. However, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration cautions that high doses of ivermectin can cause seizures, coma, or even death. The Mayo Clinic also warns that the drug could interact poorly with other medications and that it hasn’t been tested for safety and efficacy among small children, geriatric patients, and breastfeeding babies.
Ivermectin gained notoriety during the pandemic when people began using it as a treatment for COVID-19. Research was conducted on whether the drug could be repurposed for COVID-19 treatment. However, that research was never able to prove ivermectin was effective at treating the virus. Still, online misinformation and faulty studies drove people to seek the drug anyway. In 2021, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported a sharp increase in the number of people calling into poison control centers due to ivermectin overdoses. It also said it received reports of people who, unable to get a prescription for the drug, had resorted to buying and taking formulations made for animals from veterinary suppliers unsafe for humans. Some online posts have claimed ivermectin could be used to treat cancer, a claim that is unsubstantiated, though there’s early-stage research investigating its use for cancer treatment in combination with other drugs.
A few other states have turned ivermectin into an over-the-counter medication. Legislatures in Arkansas, Idaho, and Tennessee have done so already. North Carolina, Louisiana, and several other states are considering following suit. This state-by-state approval marks a departure from the typical process for approving an over-the counter medicine.