LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas (LifeSiteNews) — Sarah Huckabee Sanders has approved ivermectin to be sold over the counter without a prescription.
Dismissed as “horse paste” by the mainstream media and Big Pharma during the COVID-19 outbreak, ivermectin was praised by many doctors and wholistic and natural medicine users for helping them overcome coronavirus symptoms.
Podcaster Joe Rogan was one public person the media was especially critical of after he announced he used ivermectin. America’s Frontline Doctors, Catholic actor Mel Gibson, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who now serves as the Trump administration’s Health and Human Services Secretary, have also defended ivermectin as well as hydroxychloroquine. Gibson has stated that he has friends who have been cured of their cancer thanks to the drugs.
Sanders signed the bill into law on Tuesday after it received bipartisan support from the Arkansas legislature, which approved it by a 78-14 and 29-5 vote in the state House and state Senate, respectively. The law will go into effect 90 days after the chamber adjourns for summer recess.
Medical freedom activists in the state are telling local media that they look forward to seeing how ivermectin can help alleviate illness.
“We don’t know what the future holds for the human drug, but to me it validates the doctors that were demonized for using it,” one person said.
GOP state Sen. Alan Clark likewise remarked: “I’m more trusting of my constituents’ and friends’ common sense than I am of the medical industry at the moment.”
Ivermectin won FDA approval in 1998 under the brand name Stromectol, produced by pharmaceutical giant Merck, and is intended to treat parasitic infections.
In 2021, comedian and political commentator Jimmy Dore compared drug giant Pfizer’s expensive new antiviral drug for COVID with ivermectin, which is far cheaper.
“I’ve never seen the propaganda machine so hard at work as it’s been against ivermectin,” Dore said on his podcast. “Ivermectin won a Nobel Prize for human medicine in 2015, but the media really has everyone believing it’s for horses.”
Former NFL star quarterback Aaron Rodger also defended ivermectin during COVID. While appearing on ESPN, he said he was using the drug along with Vitamin C and zinc to manage his symptoms.
“Why do people hate ivermectin? … You can’t make any money off of it,” he remarked.
Huckabee Sanders has approved other praiseworthy pieces of legislation since becoming governor in 2023, including banning “gender neutral” terms, restricting LGBT and Critical Race Theory indoctrination in schools, and outlawing opposite sex bathroom use.