The Association of American Physicians & Surgeons, in a brief filed on September 1, called on a court to force the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to release the hydroxychloroquine in the Strategic National Stockpile for public use.
The Association of American Physicians & Surgeons (AAPS) has asked the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals to enjoin FDA “to make available and distribute promptly, and for the benefit of the public holding valid prescriptions, the HCQ being stored in the SNS [Strategic National Stockpile].”
“[Defendants] care more about their power over the HCQ Stockpile than the lives being lost daily without access to it: ‘the injunction plaintiff seeks would irreversibly overturn the status quo, by compelling the government to disburse the hydroxychloroquine in the Stockpile—a step that, once taken, cannot be undone,’” the physicians allege in their brief.
Arizona should embrace President @realDonaldTrump’s call to give Americans the right to try hydroxychloroquine. pic.twitter.com/pzja9DHReC
— Rep Andy Biggs (@RepAndyBiggsAZ) September 6, 2020
The FDA has argued that its decisions are not subject to review by a federal court.
AAPS counters in its brief, “Under Defendants’ view they could dump the entire HCQ Stockpile into the Potomac River and there would be no legal accountability.”
AAPS argues that “it is the loss of life that ‘cannot be undone,’ while pills in a stockpile can be easily replenished by Defendants.”
AAPS asserts in its brief that FDA has tacitly conceded that:
- “the HCQ stockpile contains 60 million doses donated for the purpose of treating COVID-19”;
- “experts, including Yale Professor Dr. Harvey Risch, observe that release of the HCQ Stockpile could save 50,000-100,000 American lives”;
- “HCQ has been approved as safe by the FDA and used safely since 1955, and the CDC officially declares HCQ to be safe today”;
- “foreign countries have kept their mortality rates far lower—sometimes 90% lower—than the United States’ rate, by encouraging use of HCQ”; and that
- “treating COVID-19, like treating the flu, requires taking medication as early as possible in the exposure to or progression of the disease.”
According to the physicians in their Petition for Writ of Mandamus, “The Deep State has improperly interfered with access to COVID-19 in three ways. First, the FDA “accepted donations of nearly 100 million doses of HCQ to the Strategic National Stockpile for COVID-19, but have since refused to distribute the vast majority of that medication and instead is allowing it to deteriorate such that it will be wastefully discarded rather than helping save lives.”
AAPS General Counsel Andrew Schlafly alleged in the court documents, “that agency bureaucrats have posted false, disparaging statements about HCQ, upon which other regulators have relied in blocking access to it.” He also claimed that the FDA and HHS have “imposed arbitrary restrictions on HCQ use as part of an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA)” and then “improperly extended their wrongful restrictions and disparagement to continue to block access to HCQ for early treatment of COVID-19.”