Horowitz Blog Honoring Congressman Smith’s Efforts to Save a CLD Pt. with COVID

The following Blog, posted on his Facebook, is reprinted with permission from Dr. Richard Horowitz. The LDA applauds these two courageous individuals trying to buck the system to save a life.

Dr. Richard Horowitz
November 2 at 7:43 AM ·

I feel inspired to write a blog this am, which I would like to entitle “What it truly means to be a public servant.” It is in honor of Congressman Chris Smith from NJ. Please read the story below, and see if you agree that his action, going far above and beyond the call of duty, is why Congressman Smith is now currently serving his 20th term in Congress.

Congressman Smith contacted me several nights ago asking for my assistance. A chronic Lyme disease patient was extremely ill in a NJ hospital on a ventilator with COVID-19, and was on dialysis after failing traditional therapies. He called me late on Thursday evening, as he had known about my success with glutathione and ivermectin, thanks to Pat Smith, head of the LDA. He asked if I could contact the hospital and discuss with the ICU team the therapeutics that had helped my patients, as well as speak to the patient’s wife. I promptly sent over 10 email attachments to Congressman Smith highlighting the role of glutathione and ivermectin in COVID-19, as well as links to the two articles that I published in the peer-reviewed medical literature (R.I. Horowitz, P.R. Freeman, Three Novel Prevention, Diagnostic and Treatment Options for COVID-19 Urgently Necessitating Controlled Randomized Trials, Medical Hypotheses (2020)
Horowitz, R.I., Freeman P, Bruzzese, J. Efficacy of glutathione therapy in relieving dyspnea associated with COVID-19 pneu-monia: A report of 2 cases. Respiratory Medicine Case Reports, April 21, 2020. Article Number: 101063)

Fast forward to Sunday. I had not heard anything from the hospital and was getting ready to call the patients wife, as I was curious how he responded to the IV glutathione. Just as I was about to pick up the phone, I suddenly I got a call from Congressman Smith again. He let me know that the patient was deteriorating and that the hospital had not administered the IV glutathione. Why? It was not on formulary and was not a drug. Congressman Smith asked me if I could please call the hospital again and speak to the head of the pharmacy to sort things out. I did so and spoke to a woman we will call ‘Adele’. Adele let me know that she agreed to try it, since the patient had failed all traditional therapies. I gave her the name of the compounding pharmacy that I used and drove over to my office to see if I had some unused bottles of IV glutathione. Fortunately, I did. They were in the original box with the lot numbers, to ensure purity, and I called Adele back up, asking if a courier could come to my home and pick them up since the patient was rapidly deteriorating. She said she wasn’t sure a courier could come from NJ to NY to do so, at which point I offered to drive from my home across the border into NJ onto the first stop of the Garden State Parkway. A patient’s life was at stake. She said she would get back to me and let me know if that was a possibility.

Two hours later I got a call from Congressman Smith at 7 pm on Sunday night. He let me know that he and his chief of staff were going to drive 3 1/2 hours to my home to pick up the glutathione and the nutraceuticals that I had procured from my office. It was heavily raining outside, and would be a 7-hour trip back and forth. I asked him, was he sure, and that perhaps my meeting him halfway could help. He said no. He was already on his way.

While in the car driving to my home, Congressman Smith got on a three-way call, to contact Adele again, and be sure that the patient would be able to receive the IV glutathione stat Sunday night. It would otherwise be 48 hours to get an emergency FedEx shipment from a compounding pharmacy. She let us know that she spoke to the hospital administrators and legal team, who were not comfortable with using the glutathione from the compounding pharmacy that I used. They were not familiar with them (even though you could google the name of the pharmacy online, with their license number and history). Congressman Smith, the patient’s wife and I got on the three way call and begged them to please consider it, as the patient had failed all traditional therapies, and was rapidly deteriorating. I explained to Adele that glutathione was a natural substance made by the body and the liver, and that I had a 30-year experience using it for Herxheimer reactions in Lyme disease patients. I had always found it to safe and well tolerated unless someone had chemical sensitivity and a severe sulfa allergy. After listening to our arguments, Adele said she would re-contact the administration and legal team and get back to us.

Two hours later, we received notice from the wife that the patient had died. Congressman Chris called me with the news and turned around after having driven over 2 hours on a cold, wet, rainy night. He thanked me, and I said to him: “Chris, please don’t thank me. Thank you. I know very few public servants who would ever go out of the way you did for your constituents in their district. What you did is the true meaning of the highest form of public service. God bless you.”

Congressman Smith let me know that he was going to be on a call with Alex Azar, head of HHS today. I asked if there was any way to get a randomized, controlled trial done for glutathione and ivermectin, as cases were spiking in the US, with death rates continuing to rise. He said he would speak to him about it and get me on a call. As I got off the phone and turned to my wife, and explained what had just happened, I was struck by what it means to truly be a public servant and deeply care about your constituents. Very few individuals would hear the call of duty and rise to such heights. Congressman Smith is such a man. When you consider all that he has done for the Lyme community during the past 3 decades, it is no wonder that he has been in Congress since 1981.

It is ultimately not billions of dollars in money and advertising that gets you that type of loyal support that has followed him for decades in Congress. It is because Congressman Smith has the heart and soul of a man who cares and goes the extra mile to ensure that he is always doing his best, getting the best for his constituents. If everyone in Congress followed his lead, America would truly be great again.