I have no position on the effectiveness of any drug. But the censorship surrounding HCQ is very disturbing. Seven years ago, Dr. Fauci supported experimental medicines to fight a deadly novel coronavirus.
Scientists fight deadly new coronavirus
Fifteen years ago, Fauci’s NIH said HCQ was a potent inhibitor or coronaviruses.
Chloroquine is a potent inhibitor of SARS coronavirus infection and spread
Now Fauci is leading the charge to discredit and censor discussion about HCQ treating coronaviruses. Including that from the world’s leading infectious disease expert.
He Was a Science Star. Then He Promoted a Questionable Cure for Covid-19. – The New York Times
The President, his son and even Madonna have been censored by Twitter, Facebook and Instagram for saying the same thing which Fauci’s NIH said fifteen years ago. The Guardian uses the term “right wing” to cancel people, in exactly the same way which the term “Jew” was used to cancel people in the 1930s.
Madonna’s Instagram flagged for spreading coronavirus misinformation | Music | The Guardian
This paper from the censored group of doctors provides pretty strong arguments that HCQ is both safe and effective.
And another.
COVID-19 Treatment – Analysis of 66 global studies showing high effectiveness for early treatment
Trump Defends Pro-Hydroxychloroquine Video After Social Media Ban
So why is Fauci engaged in this cover up and censorship? One possible explanation is this FDA rule. An emergency medical medicines/vaccines authorization is not possible if there are approved alternatives.
One must ask why even antidemocrat politicians remain silent and why Trump has stopped taking and championing HCQ. My theory is that among those in the know there is a great fear of an acute shortage if the public here and around the world demanded access to HCQ, especially as a preventative. There is no way even a fraction of the huge increase in demand from a billion or more people could be met. Add that China, almost exclusively, dominates a significant portion of the ingredients, one realizes the impossible political situation we would be in – totally dependent on Chinese goodwill. Good luck.
There is a Dutch company, ACE, in Zeewolde that produces HCQ. The owner of the company, Jan Willem Popma, commented months ago that they could ramp up production quite easily. He said that his facility could produce enough to supply 17.000.000 Dutch people and he would then still have spare capacity. And that is just one single production facility. Interesting side note: Jan Willem has had to be put under 24 hour police protection after receiving many threats and visits from “dodgy characters”.
I agree with your observations but don’t think it’s due to a fear of shortage. It’s the hand controlling the puppets. We have the illusion of two political parties with different values acting in good faith for the people. However, the reality is there is only one small group steering the ship and politicians are just one of their pawns. We need to end centralization everywhere if we are to survive.
I think that HCQ data is encouraging and it should be allowed to be used. Zinc is especially important.
That said, the chart comparing death rates to HCQ use is like attributing warming only to CO2. There are numerous confounding variables.
The virus is just beginning to take off in India and Indonesia, for example. Judging results at this point is premature. In addition, there seems to be cross immunity from other coronaviruses, and this has helped countries in Asia.
HCQ must be very effective if they act that way.
(and i still wonder which magic hand/incredible coincidence
is responsible for the fact that twitter/facebook/instagram/google etc etc all
react the exact same way)
Health officials from China, Korea, India, Taiwan, Malaysia, Bahrain, Turkey, Jordan, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Morocco, Algeria, Nigeria, Senegal, Cuba, Italy, and 65 scientific studies have shown hydroxychloroquine is effective when used early against COVID19.
In July, a professor of epidemiology at Yale, Harvey Eisch, wrote a paper claiming that “the data fully supports hydroxychloroquine” and the anti-malarial drug “is the key to defeating COVID19”. He argued that “tens of thousands of patients are dying unnecessarily without the drug” He wrote an op-ed about it in Newsweek where he said “When this inexpensive oral medication is given very early in the course of the illness, before the virus has had time to multiply beyond control, it has shown to be highly effective.
On April 2nd, a global survey by Sermo, a global health care polling company, of 6,227 doctors from 30 countries found 37% of those treating COVID-19 patients rated hydroxychloroquine as the “most effective therapy” from a list of 15 options.
Also from April 2020, the American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) wrote a letter saying that peer reviewed studies since January have provided clear and convincing evidence that hydroxychloroquine may be beneficial in treating COVID19. In observational studies of 2137 patients, 91.6% improved clinically.
See https://principia-scientific.com/snapshot-of-the-nations-praising-hcq-for-covid-19/ and their ‘Snapshot of the Nations Praising HCQ for COVID-19’ piece for more.
Great research! Thanks Tony!
Two things. 1. Fauci is a political tool who has a vested interest in not curing a disease quickly and efficiently. 2. Cancel twitter, leave it to the echo chamber.
Yeah, the politization is very disturbing in light of the study results.
Huge Development: 51 Global Studies Find HCQ Effective in Treating COVID-19 — 16 Find HCQ Not Effective — But 10 of Those Are Late Treatment Studies! (1 Aug)
And one of the negative studies I saw looked almost like it was designed to fail, with massive doses of HCQ to very sick Covid patients.
I wish it was otherwise, but the way this has been treated by the usual suspects makes Lysenkoism seem pale in comparison.
Here in our state of Queensland, which has a lefty government, a doctor can be fined $13,000 for prescribing HCQ. That is for a medicine which has been on the WHO Essential Medicines list for a very long time, which includes only the safest and most effective medicines in pharmacology.
If you get the virus, and they refuse to give you HCQ, it’s because they want you to die.
This is the link to the lawsuit filed against the FDA for restricting hydroxychloroquine, and for which you have Case Fatality Rate by Country chart, above, as a document in that suit, as well as numerous other links to excellent articles. page 34 of the electronic-numbered pages; page 26 of the brief-numbering.
https://aapsonline.org/judicial/aaps-v-fda-hcq-6-22-2020.pdf
They have put together a good case. Now we will see if the judges are politicians.
And they wonder why we don’t trust them.
I wish Trump could fire Both Fauci and Brix. I get the feeling that some more people are catching on since this truck driver has yet to see a single person wearing a face shield or goggles as those two frauds recently recommended.
Apparently, there were also attempts to discredit HCQ in The Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine.
https://retractionwatch.com/2020/06/04/lancet-retracts-controversial-hydroxychloroquine-study/
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31180-6/fulltext
It’s a case of corporate welfare.
Politicians, Big Tech, media, and the WHO have colluded to protect the interests of vaccine makers and big pharmaceutical companies.
It’s neo-mercantalism, crony capitalism, statism, protectionism – or simply fascism.
Keep doing what you’re doing, Tony!
Bingo and Boom!
Earth laser plasma shield CAN prevent a devastating global blackout/all nuclear plant’s explosion by asteroid explosion or solar storm hit! 5 times near-miss extinction so far: 1989, 2003, 2012, 2017, 2020 https://GlobalBlackoutPrevention.wordpress.com
Dear Tony Heller,
Since a few days some people in the Netherlands launched a very interesting website regarding ‘the corona crisis’.
Almost daily I visit your Twitter-timeline (thanks for all your work!) and thought you might be interested.
With kind regards,
Roel , Hengelo (Netherlands)
Dear Roel,
What is this website regarding the corona crisis?
Peter
Dear Peter,
The url of the website: the-iceberg.net
Greetings from Holland, have a nice day!
Roel
Great post! Thanks for the links and info!
The NYTImes article on Didier Raoult is particularly disturbing:
Are there any proper counter arguments against the disparaging of him?
HQC is as safe as Tylenol or ibuprofen when taken correctly, it should be sold over the counter. There is no alternative available with respect to its ability to be be used as a prophylactic especially considering it’s very rare side effects. Someone should look into Fauci’s investments into pharmaceutical and bio companies, is he profiting from peoples denied access to this natural supplement?
I read a report in which a team determined what percentage of a population have conditions or take other medications which would contraindicate taking HCQ.
IIRC, the number they came up with was conservatively estimated by them to be about 10% of people.
Here is a list of conditions which contraindicate taking HCQ:
“Who should not take Hydroxychloroquine SULFATE?
The following conditions are contraindicated with this drug. Check with your physician if you have any of the following:
Conditions:
low blood sugar
glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) deficiency
low amount of magnesium in the blood
low amount of potassium in the blood
porphyria
anemia
low levels of a type of white blood cell called neutrophils
alcoholism
myasthenia gravis
a skeletal muscle disorder
maculopathy
changes in the visual field
prolonged QT interval on EKG
chronic heart failure
abnormal EKG with QT changes from birth
liver problems
decreased kidney function
psoriasis
seizures
anemia from pyruvate kinase and G6PD deficiencies
chronic kidney disease stage 5 (failure)
Allergies:
4-Aminoquinolines”
https://www.webmd.com/drugs/2/drug-5482/hydroxychloroquine-oral/details/list-contraindications
Looks like a substantial subset of people need to be careful about this drug.
And that would apply to malaria as well. It has not been banned in half a century plus.
And it is still not banned.
There are at least two major approved uses of it.
And any doctor can, at their sole discretion, prescribe any medication on an off label basis for anything that the doctor deems medically appropriate.
Since there are plenty of doctors that will prescribe a medication to anyone who asks for it, anyone who really wants it can go get some. Plus there are over 100 active clinical trials that are using it, some of which are still recruiting.
Here is a search results of 200 studies that are not recruiting yet but will be, or actively recruiting, or ongoing but not recruiting:
https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/results?term=hydroxychloroquine&recrs=abdf&cond=Covid19
Well done as ever, Tony, thanks for diving in and bringing up.
Keep Responsibly Free and Safe,
Voluntaryist Jack in New Zealand
The dosage according to Dr Zev Zelenko of Monroe, NY, is:
Hydroxychloroquine – 200mg twice a day for 5 days
Azithromycin – 500mg once a day for 5 days
Zinc sulphate – 22omg once a day for 5 days
This should be given to people with early symptoms of Covid-19.
It’s no big mystery why HCQ is being outright banned: They want people to die.
Witness, for example, Cuomo’s stuffing COVID-infected people into nursing homes, killing thousands of elderly. It was premeditated, first-degree murder, little different from when smallpox-contaminated blankets were given to Cherokees on the Trail of Tears.
HCQ is not “banned outright”.
For one thing, it is approved for use against several types of disease, and none of those approvals have been revoked or even revisited.
And also, there remains a huge number of ongoing clinical trials evaluating HCQ against COVID-19.
Several others have wrapped up and results are pending.
Any doctor can prescribe any medication for any purpose that the doctor deems medically appropriate.
If you want to get some, you only need to go to one of the doctors that are giving it to all or their patients, or just find any doctor who is willing to write you a prescription.
You may find it hard to do, but that is because several large clinical trials have published results that cast a dim light on the drug as medically useful against COVID.
As a result, a doctor may deem it a bad risk from the point of view of a malpractice lawsuit.
In any case, only a small percentage of patients are dying from the disease, and that percentage seems to be going down. Anyone who is not sick enough to need to be in a hospital likely has zero chance of dying.
And if anyone does go to a hospital, there are people there who have been treating patients for many months and have winnowed the protocols and treatments to focus on what has been shown to have the best chance of working.
That is one very likely reason for the lowering death rates: Doctors want to save people, and they learn from their experience and the experience of other doctors…and by now they have all had lots of experience to guide their decisions.
allmost all of the studies throwing cold water on hcq were poorly done; i.e. it was given way late in the hospitalization, given to the sicker people, etc. read the White Paper written by an actual doctor working with covid patients, here:
https://c19study.com/
https://www.hospicepatients.org/white-paper-on-hcq-from-americasfrontlinedoctors-com-2020.2.pdf
https://aapsonline.org/judicial/aaps-v-fda-hcq-6-22-2020.pdf
I read the ‘study’ that the FDA used to ridicule hcq. they were using overdoses on the patients, who then died. lotta malpractice out there.
You think clinical trials are not run by people who are actual doctors working with actual patients?
C19 is nothing but an opinion of whoever created the website. They disregard the finding of clinicians and make up their own interpretations…which interestingly all point in one single direction, no matter what the studies actually showed prior to the C19 reinterpretation.
I believe that some of the clinical trials run by actual doctors were poorly designed. For example, in the Brazilian sutdy it reads: “In this study, a high-dosage of CQ (12 g) given for 10 days concurrently with azithromycin and oseltamivir was not sufficiently safe to warrant continuation of that study group.” (https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2765499) That is a total of 120 grams. The safety limit is at 5 g. Giving a major overdose to very sick people is not a good idea. Of course they had lots of deaths.
You should read the White Paper I cited, above, for further explanation of the safety of CQ or HCQ when properly administered. It’s efficacy diminishes the more the virus has already replicated in the body. It appears mainly to slow replication at early stages, allowing the immune system time to ramp-up and fight it off.
“I read the ‘study’ that the FDA used to ridicule hcq. they were using overdoses on the patients, who then died. lotta malpractice out there.”
I do not know what study you are referring to here, but the FDA generally looks at all studies, not one or a select few of them.
And the gold standard studies are done using a careful methodology that is spelled out in advance, and they did not all use the same amounts of study drug.
But the key aspect is, after patients are enrolled using predetermined inclusion and exclusion criteria, they are then randomly assigned to get either a study drug or a placebo.
The results showed that there was no difference between how the groups fared. Meaning the same number of people died in each group, statistically speaking.
But think about what you are saying…that HCQ is toxic?
It kills people?
This is exactly what many of the advocates are saying it will not do.
They assert it is safe and so using it is a nothing to lose proposition.
And if HCQ is an antiviral, more of it should work better against the virus, aside from any toxicity issues.
HCQ is used instead of CQ because it is far less toxic.
Usually in new drug research, the first phases of the trials are used to assess toxicity and find the smallest effective dose.
This was not done in very many of the studies…so how would anyone know what the ideal dose was?
This is where the long history of the drug as an antimalarial and a treatment for rheumatic diseases was important…there was no reason to do such studies since the safety profile was thought to be well understood.
The principle issues with the drug being dangerous had to do with Q-T prolongation, which is exacerbated by concurrent usage of Zpak, which has the same issue by itself, and so when combined, these two are uniquely dangerous:
“Results Overall, 956,374 and 310,350 users of hydroxychloroquine and sulfasalazine, and 323,122 and
351,956 users of hydroxychloroquine-azithromycin and hydroxychloroquine-amoxicillin were included.
No excess risk of SAEs was identified when 30-day hydroxychloroquine and sulfasalazine use were
compared. SCCS confirmed these findings. However, when azithromycin was added to
hydroxychloroquine, we observed an increased risk of 30-day cardiovascular mortality (CalHR2.19 [1.22-
3.94]), chest pain/angina (CalHR 1.15 [95% CI 1.05-1.26]), and heart failure (CalHR 1.22 [95% CI 1.02-
1.45])”
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/medrxiv/early/2020/05/31/2020.04.08.20054551.full.pdf
You’re wrong on several accounts. First, federal and state governments are preventing doctors from prescribing HCQ. That interferes with the doctor-patient relationship and is criminal. They are doing it through FDA and State Governor orders to prevent use, controlling the media and social media narrative about it, informing pharmacies to question doctors and not distribute it, and their hands are even in scientific community rigging studies against it. Luckily, the recent phony studies against HCQ in The Lancet and New England Journal of Medicine were retracted and the people of Ohio prevented their state from banning HCQ. But what about all the misinformation and censorship by the media that effects real doctors and patients from knowing about benefits of HCQ and not prescribing or demanding it? It’s costing needless lives and is criminal. That’s why this webpage and Frontline Doctors exist to try and get the truth out!
Second, you seem to say things are ok the way they are right now bc most people won’t die from Covid-19. We have a cure that’s called HCQ and no one needs to die. We need to get this information out!
Lastly, HCQ isn’t being used in the hospitals because of the aforementioned reasons. So, people are needlessly dying there! Any lowered death rate is from the nature of viral infections.
Doctors swear to a hippocratic oath. Government officials do not. Your government not only doesn’t care about you, but is actively killing you! Let that sink in. Then, imagine what the vaccines are going to do to you. If we don’t become informed, get pissed and scared, and mobilize and fight, then it’s game over for us (aka humanity).
One of the earliest studies (available at https://aac.asm.org/content/58/8/4885/ ) made on medications for these types of viruses was when SARS and MERS seemed to be the emerging problems with epidemic potential.
Also note there is a report about it at http://www.theglobaldispatch.com/chloroquine-and-chlorpromazine-among-the-drugs-to-show-activity-against-mers-95936/ which is an easier read.
This 2014 study Repurposing of Clinically Developed Drugs for Treatment of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus Infection
“…the studies described here, a library of 290 compounds was screened for antiviral activity against Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) and severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV). ”
The results (see the figures in the study) were that Chloroquine diphosphate and Hydroxychloroquine sulfate were safe and effective.
COVID-19 is nearly identical to the original SARS both on structure and symptoms. tTherefore (IMO) it would be a very good idea to use hydrochloroquine as a prophylactic drug of choice, while more intensive study is made of the limits of its efficacy.
Also of note is these drugs (Chloroquine and Hydroxychloroquine) were found to be effective against many virus from influenza to dengue fever https://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0074-02762013000500596 ).
So these drugs appear to be fairly broad spectrum anti-viral as well as an anti-malarial. I wonder what other illnesses it could be reasonably used for.
What I see is the overriding aspirations of Big Pharma, with the help of many governments’ health agencies, is not to find cost effective methods to cure people of diseases and ailments but to provide drugs that can maximize their profits. Or maybe they are so stupid and illiterate as not to know the difference between prescribe and proscribe.
“COVID-19 is nearly identical to the original SARS both on structure and symptoms.”
Here is a study that looked at a wide range of drugs in an animal model, IOW in vivo rather than in vitro, for activity against the SARS Co-V virus, back in 2006:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17176632/
“So these drugs appear to be fairly broad spectrum anti-viral as well as an anti-malarial.”
This statement is not supported by any clinical evidence in sick people.
The link you provided, for example, specifically stated that although there was some symptom relief, there was no diminishment in the duration of the disease or the intensity or the number of days with fever.
See here, from your linked paper:
“Of these patients, 37 were confirmed as having dengue and completed the study; in total, 19 dengue patients received chloroquine and 18 received placebo. There was no significant difference in the duration of the disease or the degree and days of fever. However, 12 patients (63%) with confirmed dengue reported a substantial decrease in pain intensity and a great improvement in their ability to perform daily activities (p = 0.0004) while on the medication and the symptoms returned immediately after these patients stopped taking the medication. The same effect was not observed in patients with diseases other than dengue. Therefore, this study shows that patients with dengue treated with chloroquine had an improvement in their quality of life and were able to resume their daily activities. However, as chloroquine did not alter the duration of the disease or the intensity and days of fever, further studies are necessary to confirm the clinical effects and to assess the side effects of chloroquine in dengue patients.”
Got that?
There was not change in the disease progression, or fever, or duration of the actual illness.
IOW…not an antiviral, but something that appeared to lessen the subjective experience of pain.
The drugs’ have undisputed effects as anti inflammatory drugs. They are also anti malarials. I did not see if they tested to find out if may the 12 people (12 people. 12.)were tested to see if they maybe had malaria.
But the study report notes that the fever was not diminished, and the people did not get over the disease any sooner…they simply had less pain, some of them. A study of 37 people over three days.
Not exactly a good reason to start handing out pills to millions of people for something else entirely…and no one wants to use CQ anyway.
And the report said no effect was seen when tested on other diseases!
“The same effect was not observed in patients with diseases other than dengue.”
One three day study of a different drug (CQ and not HCQ)on a different virus on 37 people which found no effect on the actual virus or fever or disease, but 12 of 19 people with Dengue had less pain.
And that you describe as, “Also of note is these drugs (Chloroquine and Hydroxychloroquine) were found to be effective against many virus from influenza to dengue fever”
Besides for everything else, let us not forget that people get paid for research studies, and funding dries up when no results are found, and this is one report, and unless repeatable and reproducible means very little. But even if every word is exactly true…it says nothing about what we are talking about here.
Your lead paper is based not on human but primate cell lines. While they and sometimes do provide valuable information for research, most do not translate into effective treatment in humans in real life.
HCQ does have important side effects. Indeed recent trials in HUMANS show that side effects, particularly on the heart do occur more frequently. This is important becuase we know that the elderly are more vulnerable to Covid-19. And the elderly have proportionately more heart issues than other groups in the population.
There is a lot of politicking going on around Covid-19. Lets just stick to the rational.
And if you think there is conflicting evidence from the trials, you are correct. However, even a cursory glance at trials in almost every other medical treatment you find similar conflict. A cursory glance, however, is not whatis needed. Each trial has its flaws and needs some experience and insight to parse out good treatment. I would estimate that 80% of trials are not really worth considering, except as pointers. Of the other 20%, most are constructed to answer one or possibly two outcomes, and not necessarily what we might actually want. All of the other arguments seem to be ad hominem and therefore less than worthy. In my opinion. Having studied drug trials for over 30 years. And even then, will be willing to change my mind, given sufficient proof. Take Care
Also that 2005 study that looked at blocking infection by SARS-1 in VERO cells (a cell line from the epithelial cells from the kidney of a green monkey) did not use HCQ, it used CQ. It says so right on the title page.
More recently, the study was replicated using cells from human lung tissue.
The malaria drug did not block viral infection in those cells.
But no one who is familiar with new drug research takes a positive result from an in vitro study as implying it will necessarily be useful for treating infections in a person. In fact, when the drug was tried in an animal model, it failed to work.
The context of all of this is important.
HCQ was tried on many tens of thousands of patients in the US alone. Every hospital used it for many weeks. One by one, they all moved away from it when it was found not to help.
The large scale clinical trials that have used the gold standard in testing new drugs have all failed to show any benefit, and have done so across a wide range of settings, a wide range of disease stage, and in combination with various other compounds and supplements.
I do not condone censorship either, but we do not let people make claims regarding medical efficacy when there is no proof that the claims are valid.
Some of the other items in the headline post from Tony are problematic when looked at closely.
The C19 thing in particular is not something anyone should get behind.
This is more like an opinion that anything like a study.
In fact, that report looked at clinical trials which showed no benefit, and found some way to find something positive, then said that the studies were 100% in agreement with a finding of “high effectiveness”.
When I looked at the individual studies which C19 said showed high effectiveness, I found one that was nothing but a questionnaire sent out to health care workers, but was described by the authors as a “clinical trial” looking at preinfective prophylaxis. It was nothing of the sort. It was a retrospective questionnaire sent out to two groups of under 100 people each, whose status was already known. The person who ran this “study” was an assistant professor of ophthalmology (IIRC), and not even a health care provider.
Raoult was never a rock star except in his own mind. He was initially dismissive of the entire pandemic, right up until he decided he knew the “cure”.
And he somehow knew it was a cure before he had even treated anyone.
His initial study which looked at a time frame which was ridiculously short for any clinical trial, had glaring problems with both methodology and data collection. And then he reported 100% success, but it was discovered he got that rate of success by excluding the person who died, and the two who got worse and went to the ICU…claiming they were “lost to follow up”.
The closer one looks, the sketchier the case for HCQ becomes.
This is not so sketchy:
Yeah, the politization is very disturbing in light of the study results.
Huge Development: 51 Global Studies Find HCQ Effective in Treating COVID-19 — 16 Find HCQ Not Effective — But 10 of Those Are Late Treatment Studies! (1 Aug)
I do not do what too many people are doing: watch CNN.
I do not watch any TV except old reruns on broadcast television.
I most especially would never get medical information from any news program or website.
I do things like read research studies, then look at all of the reference material cited, and read all of that, etc.
Here was one that I deemed to be balanced and unbiased:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7267640/
It contains a tremendous amount of information, especially when considering all of the reference material, which need to be read in their entirety as they are cited.
It really looked sketchy when they threw in the studies that used fatal doses of HCQ, such as here:
https://ahrp.org/covid-19-has-turned-public-health-into-a-lethal-patient-killing-experimental-endeavor/
See also: https://healthimpactnews.com/2020/was-a-false-hydroxychloroquine-narrative-created-to-destroy-the-competition-for-gileads-remdesivir/
Colin,
Good comment, and I agree with much of what you have written here.
Here is a quote from a comment I made earlier on another site:
“Most often, the results of clinical trials are not precisely clear cut, and frequently they are at least somewhat ambiguous or contradictory.
When that happens, we need to do more trials, or to look at the ones we have to see if it can be discerned that some have a better methodology that others.
We have that here.
Studies that look ahead from a proscribed starting point are better than retrospective studies.
Studies which have organized and consistent data collection are better than those that have spotty and disorganized data collected and presented.
Studies in which large numbers of participants are tested are better than ones that only look at a small number of people.
Studies that use a comparator vs the study drug, and in which the drugs and comparators given are assigned in a double blinded and randomized manner, are better than ones in which these things are not the case.
When people are chosen to participate based on criteria which are decided ahead of time, have many possible biases removed by this process.
When the decision about which participants get which treatment regimen are not known to anyone involved directly with treating the patients, or to the patients themselves, and done so randomly, this tends to eliminate another large swath of possible confounding biases and interferences that might produce a unreliable result.
All of these principles have come into place over many years, and all have a large amount of support for why they are needed and helpful in achieving a scientifically valid result.”
The bottom line for me is that the docs on the front line treating the patients say it works. And no politician or any other clinicians should be banning it without strong evidence that the contraindications do in fact justify such a ban..
“…docs on the front line treating the patients say it works.”
Some do.
Others say the opposite.
And doctors or clinicians do not and can not ban anything in the US.
In fact the drugs are all approved for other uses and can be prescribed by any doctor that you can find who agrees to write it for someone.
In any case, it is not the contraindications that have caused many hospitals who were using it to stop doing so…it was that it was not working, in their experience and judgement.
There are opinions and there is evidence.
For a long time there was very little evidence of a concrete nature.
At this point there is accumulating evidence.
Any opinions that ignore evidence in favor of predetermined conclusions and unevidenced certitude are not science based opinions, they are contrary to science.
And that is true whether pro or con, no matter the topic, no matter who says otherwise.
No one is right because of who they are.
Emphatic assertions are not evidence.
There may be some people for whom political considerations cloud judgement, and even cause a person to tell outright lies.
But I do not think the people working in the ERs and ICUs and hospital infectious disease wards, are doing anything but whatever they can to best help the people they are treating.
On the other hand, I noticed that some people had somehow made up their mind on Chloroquine long before any amount of evidence could have supported any firm conclusions whatsoever.
These same people then “evolved” their certitude from CQ to HCQ, and then HCQ plus Zpak, and then HCQ and Zpak plus zinc, and then only if given early, and then only in a certain dosage…as if they got the news from on high.
I have never gotten any explanation for how someone knows that any findings contrary to HCQ being a miracle drug are known to be bogus, but all the ones which claim a benefit are correctly done?
In some of the so called “good studies”, like the retrospective one from Henry Ford MS in Michigan, it was found that HCQ plus zpak was about the same as neither drug, but HCQ alone had a lower fatality rate that neither or both.
I have commented expensively on this entire range of topics since January, and am not going to rehash the whole range of issues here, but I will say it is very clear…one needs to move the goalposts quite a bit and continuously, to find any concordance with the various assertions of certitude for HCQ efficacy.
The missing link from what I’ve seen is that hydroxychloriquine needs to be administered with Azithromycine and Zinc sulphate to be in any way effective.
Evidence?
Emphatic assertions are not evidence.
On the other hand, there are a large number of research reports with actual evidence, such as this one:
“Given the increase in the use of HCQ for COVID‐19, a group recently published their analysis of the risk for adverse events associated with this medication. * They included more than 950 000 HCQ users of whom more than 320 000 had combination therapy with azithromycin. They found no elevated risk for adverse events for short term HCQ treatment (defined as within the first 30‐days after starting therapy) compared with equivalent therapy for individuals with rheumatoid arthritis treated with sulfasalazine. However, they did find a 15%‐20% increased risk of chest pain or heart failure and a twofold increased risk of cardiovascular mortality in the first month of treatment following the addition of azithromycin to HCQ. This finding highlights the concern that the combination of these two medications may place patients at increased health risk.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7267640/
*Reference given to this paper:
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/medrxiv/early/2020/05/31/2020.04.08.20054551.full.pdf
BTW, here is the recent study which looked at HCQ inhibition in human lung cells:
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.22.216150v1
Nothing unusual about a drug which has an effect in in vitro studies with one cell line, that does not translate into a general effect in all cells lines, or an effect in animals or people infected with a virus.
Chloroquine is effective against influenza A virus in vitro but not in vivo
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4941887/
From 2006
Evaluation of immunomodulators, interferons and known in vitro SARS-coV inhibitors for inhibition of SARS-coV replication in BALB/c mice
“Anti-inflammatory agents, chloroquine, amodiaquin and pentoxifylline, were also inactive in vivo, suggesting that although they may be useful in ameliorating the hyperinflammatory response induced by the virus infection, they will not significantly reduce the replication of the virus, the inducer of inflammatory response. Thus, anti-inflammatory agents may only be useful in treating virus lung infections if used in combination with agents that inhibit virus replication. ”
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17176632/
For anyone interested, I have an entire library of studies that I accumulated several months ago in the opening 10 or so weeks of this pandemic.
Just ask and I will post.
There have been a huge number of studies, including a long list of clinical trials, that attempted to replicate the in vitro antiviral effects of the malaria drugs (and many other sorts or existing drugs) in animals and in people with various cancers and viral illnesses. None found any effect that was deemed useful, and the research was largely dropped by early in the last decade.
One would be hard pressed to find any class of drugs that have been more studied for efficacy across a wide range of diseases and conditions, and yet consistently failed to find any use as an actual therapeutic agent.
i’ve developed a library too. you might want to merge some of this with yours.
here is the White Paper from Dr. Gold. It deals with the safety and efficacy of hcq, as well as its ‘banishment’ by the leftist media: https://www.hospicepatients.org/white-paper-on-hcq-from-americasfrontlinedoctors-com-2020.2.pdf
here is the study that has the excellent graph of banning vs. non-banning of hcq: https://c19study.com/
here is the federal lawsuit: https://aapsonline.org/judicial/aaps-v-fda-hcq-6-22-2020.pdf
here is the paper showing the graph for switzerland showing banning of hcq, 3 weeks later skyrocketing death-rate, then a while later hcq allowed again, followed 3 weeks later by rapidly plunging death-rate: https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/stacey-lennox/2020/07/15/media-should-do-a-mea-culpa-as-french-analysis-offers-a-stunning-observation-about-hydroxychloroquine-use-n643181
Bottom line: hcq + zinc should be given early to almost everyone, before they show symptoms. it does not prevent infection, but reduces the severity extremely because it slows the viral replication tremendously allowing one’s own immune system to fight it off, in most cases so you don’t even know you are infected. rapid rise of ‘herd immunity’ by this method, with few people showing symptoms. for them, it will help cure them.
BTW…that graph for Switzerland shows a spike about ten days or so after worldwide riots began.
How about back in March, when the large countries in Western Europe adopted HCQ and CQ as the recommended trx for mild to moderate cases?
This was concordant with when deaths first began to spike, across a wide swatch of countries.
Unfortunately, the site I have kept track of the evolving recommendations on does not archive the old guidelines, and I did not have the foreside to download and copy them…I only bookmarked the link.
But it can be seen that these countries have now d/c the usage except in ongoing clinical trials, and some places have d/c even those.
These guidelines are not based on one or a few opinions, or on predetermined conclusions. They were modified on an ongoing basis in response to the clinical findings of the huge number of doctors and patients treating and being treated, across entire countries.
Also, you might be interested in this article on the potential financial basis for discrediting HCQ:https://omnij.org/Gilead:_Twenty-one_billion_reasons_to_discredit_hydroxychloroquine_(ORIGINAL_ARTICLE)
Also, the Front Line Doctors group, that YouTube censored, has a new YouTube up that is not (yet) censored: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cR3O_82yP6o&feature=youtu.be
So you query lots of questions about ‘back in March’, for which i don’t have enough information about the question or the answer. I might query why doctors in some (most) studies were not including zinc, even though it was shown early on to be part of the protocol that works (Dr. Zev Zelenski, et al.). I might query why some doctors were giving massive overdoses of HCQ to treat patients (on the order of dozens to hundreds of grams); and further, why these were published to malign HCQ treatment. I don’t know. It appears to be malpractice to me.
Well, it looks like it was censored and no longer available. But the Front Line Doctors can still be seen.
Try this instead: https://medicalkidnap.com/2020/07/27/nobody-needs-to-die-frontline-doctors-storm-d-c-claiming-thousands-of-doctors-are-being-silenced-on-facts-and-treatments-for-covid/
See also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=16&v=SwbICfJ6ePs&feature=emb_logo (but it might get censored too, as it is YouTube)
This just out from Dr. Risch:
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/hydroxychloroquine-works-in-high-risk-patients-and-saying-otherwise-is-dangerous
I have read multiple papers on HCQ, and listened to physicians who have administered it. What seems to define whether or not HCQ is effective is when it is used, in what quantity, and what other substances are combined. From what I have seen there is clearly a large benefit to using HCQ in the right application. A Dr in St Louis was treating elderly COVID patients in nursing homes with HCQ, and had a 100% success rate, but his story is receiving zero press.
As skeptics we should be sickeningly familiar with politically driven study results. This is nothing new.
“BTW…that graph for Switzerland shows a spike about ten days or so after worldwide riots began.”
Are you saying “riots” in Switzerland caused that spike in deaths, not the restriction on HCQ? I saw videos of protests marches, mostly young people. I believe the spike in deaths was from muhc older people, not teens/early-20s as in the protest marches.
For those concerned about HCQ safety, it has been well-studied, here:
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.16.20155531v2
https://www.news-medical.net/news/20200727/Clinical-Trials-of-Hydroxychloroquine-in-COVID-19-Outpatients-Are-Safe.aspx
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.08.16.20175752v1
You are so cool! I don’t suppose I’ve truly read through anything like this before. So wonderful to find another person with genuine thoughts on this topic. Really.. thank you for starting this up. This site is one thing that is required on the internet, someone with a bit of originality!