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Uh-oh. The State of Ohio is headed for a Twitter ban.

The State of Ohio Board of Pharmacy on Thursday withdrew a rule that would have barred the use of hydroxychloroquine to treat or prevent COVID-19 after Gov. Mike DeWine (R) voiced concerns.

The state pharmacy board said in a memo on Wednesday that the rule would, prohibit the use of hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine for the treatment of COVID-19, no prescription would be allowed to be dispensed by a pharmacist, and a licensed distributor would not be permitted to sell it, according to the rule.

Gov. DeWine urged the state board to reconsider the decision in a series of tweets the day the rule went into effect.

“As a result of the feedback received by the medical and patient community and at the request of Governor DeWine, the State of Ohio Board of Pharmacy has withdrawn [the] proposed rule,” the board said in a statement. “Prohibitions on the prescribing of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine in Ohio for the treatment of COVID-19 will not take effect at this time.”

The More You Know: Hydroxychloroquine was approved for medical use in the United States in 1955. It is on the World Health Organization’s List of Essential Medicines. In 2017, it was the 128th most commonly prescribed medication in the United States, with more than five million prescriptions. However, the drug was suddenly discovered to have extremely harmful side effects that could wipe out the entire global population in 2020. Ironically, this discovery was made at approximately the exact same time that President Donald Trump cited Hydroxychloroquine as a potentially life-saving medication in the fight against COVID-19.

WIBC host Tony Katz offered commentary on the State of Ohio Board of Pharmacy’s reversal in a commentary Friday morning. Click below to listen.

https://omny.fm/shows/tony-katz-and-the-morning-news/ohio-now-banned-from-twitter-for-being-ok-with-hyd

(Photo by GEORGE FREY/AFP via Getty Images)