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Last year, Senate Health and Welfare Chair Patrick McMath led the charge to align Louisiana with U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again movement.
During this year’s session, he expects to work with Gov. Jeff Landry’s Department of Health to create a new office focused on nutrition and wellness, likely to be named the Office of Nutrition and Health, McMath says.
When interviewed, he didn’t have the final version of the bill yet. But he expects the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program to be run through the office, along with “various healthy eating, healthy living initiatives.”
In a proposal aligned with Kennedy’s vaccine skepticism, McMath says reports following cases of sudden infant death syndrome should include the baby’s vaccine history.
“All we’re doing is adding the requirement to put in the vaccine history of the child, so that we can further gather more information and see where that new data leads,” McMath says.
McMath passed a resolution last year establishing a task force to discuss alternative therapies for treating veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder. One meeting featured dramatic testimony by retired Maj. Gen. Glenn Curtis, the former head of the Louisiana National Guard, who described a trip a group of veterans took to Mexico to obtain ibogaine, a type of psychedelic that is illegal in the U.S.
Other drugs currently classified as Schedule 1 narcotics have shown promise for treating PTSD, depression and substance abuse, McMath says. The federal government offers research license opportunities for such substances, he says, and researchers at LSU Health Shreveport already are studying how psychedelics can be used to combat methamphetamine addiction.
McMath suggests Louisiana could be a leader in developing treatments rooted in the challenge of suicide rates among veterans, though he says he will recommend starting “very, very slowly,” possibly with a two-year trial period. He stresses that the drugs only would be used in a supervised in-patient setting, drawing a contrast with the state’s medical marijuana program where patients take the cannabis home with them.
“We’re a state that supports veterans, and we should be looking at all options,” McMath says.
Also in the area of drug options, McMath is working on a bill to boost access to certain types of restricted opioid treatments.
—Goldsmith to Cornerstone: In lobbying news, Patrick Goldsmith, former deputy commissioner of administration under Gov. Jeff Landry, will be joining Cornerstone Government Affairs as principal. He officially begins the government relations gig on Feb. 15. Goldsmith previously served in Ascension Parish government as chief administrative officer and spent nearly a decade as the director of the House Fiscal Division.
—Truckers back Burris: The Louisiana Motor Transport Association has endorsed Judge Billy Burris in the upcoming election for the state Supreme Court. “For Louisiana’s trucking industry, Supreme Court decisions have real and immediate consequences,” says Renee Amar, executive director of LMTA. “When judges abandon strict construction and expand liability beyond what the law allows, truckers and employers pay the price through higher costs, lost jobs and increased legal uncertainty.”
—They said it: “The polls tell me that the president’s [immigration] enforcement efforts are polling right up there with toenail fungus.” —U.S. Sen. John Kennedy, on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher
