RICHMOND — A House committee approved a bill sponsored by Del. Scott Garrett, R-Lynchburg, on Tuesday that would enable doctors to use some drugs for illnesses not specified on their labeling information.
In an example Garrett cited, a drug labeled specifically for treating colon cancer potentially could be effective against lung cancer, and Garrett’s bill would give doctors a route for prescribing the drug for a lung-cancer patient.
Earlier Tuesday, a Garrett-sponsored bill that would have doubled the tax credit for people who purchase long-term care insurance died in a House subcommittee.
The tax credit would have cost Virginia $1.2 million a year in tax revenue, according to the Department of Taxation, and an offer by Garrett to delay its effectiveness for two years couldn’t persuade a three-member subcommittee to approve it.
The actions Tuesday left Garrett, a retired surgeon, with one bill still alive out of three he proposed in his first year in the General Assembly.
Garrett’s surviving bill updates a law that mostly affects doctors and their patients.
It adds into the state code two books, called compendia, that list drugs and how they can be used to treat people.
Those books recognize that a drug originally approved by the Federal Drug Administration for treating a specific illness may have been found to be effective against other illnesses.
Adding those books to the state code would allow physicians to prescribe those drugs for illnesses specified in the compendia, in addition to their original purposes, Garrett said.
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