Lawmakers in Iowa’s state Legislature have advanced a bill that would allow the use of ivermectin for critically sick COVID-19 patients. Ivermectin has been used for decades to treat parasitic worms in humans, but during the COVID-19 pandemic, some patients and doctors have attested that the drug is effective in relieving symptoms. The Iowa bill stipulates that COVID-19 patients who are on ventilators should have the ability to use ivermectin. Specifically, it expands the state’s “right to try” law, which allows terminally ill patients to access medicines that have passed under the first phase of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s trials. “I completely support it. I think that we should give patients the right to try,” said Rep. Ann Meyer, a Republican and one of the bill’s cosponsors, told the Des Moines Register in late January. Rep. Lee Hein, also a Republican, said he sponsored the measure after hearing that …