SE Valley Times

U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) will participate in upcoming Arizona legislative hearings on the government's COVID-19 response.

"The pandemic was a heartbreaking period for so many people on so many different levels," Arizona Sen. Janae Shamp (R-Surprise), the vice chair of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee, who will serve as chair of the hearings, told the Arizona State Senate Republican Caucus. "I lost my job as a perioperative nurse because I refused to take the experimental vaccine that we now know has produced serious side effects in a number of otherwise healthy individuals. We've witnessed lives and livelihoods lost, for no other reason than the mismanagement of COVID-19, and we are determined to hold those accountable for the injustices experienced."

The hearings, called “The Novel Coronavirus Southwestern Intergovernmental Committee,” will be held Thursday and Friday, May 25 and 26, at the Arizona State Capitol. Arizona Senate President Pro Tempore Thomas “T.J.” Shope will serve as vice chair. Shamp and Shope said, "Arizona Republican lawmakers are establishing a committee to examine federal, state and local efforts to mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic, any fallout from such measures, and to identify any possible legal remedies against individuals or entities where appropriate.”

In addition to Biggs, speakers at the hearing will include Arizona Rep. Steve Montenegro (R-Litchfield Park), U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ), U.S. Rep. Eli Crane (R-AZ) and cardiologist Dr. Peter McCullough.

“I will be testifying at this hearing,” McCullough tweeted May 6. “Will be locked and loaded with the scientific evidence, and the truth will come out. People were harmed with government pandemic response when they should have been helped. Never again.” McCullough is the former vice chief of internal medicine at Baylor University Medical Center and a professor at Texas A&M University. He is the recipient of the Simon Deck Award from the American College of Cardiology and the International Vicenza Award in Critical Care Nephrology.

Shamp and Shope said that the committee will “evaluate protocols and overall public health guidance, funding incentives for health care facilities, injustices committed against families, businesses, workers and industries, potential preventative protections that may have been able to safeguard Arizona citizens against harms committed and anything else deemed relevant to the pandemic,” according to the Arizona State Senate Republican Caucus.