Last week two Democratic governors banned the use of hydroxychloroquine as a potential treatment for people ill with the China virus.
In Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak stated that there’s no consensus among experts or Nevada doctors that the drugs can treat people with COVID-19. His order also limits a prescription to a 30-day supply to ensure it’s available for “legitimate medical purposes” and so that people cannot find a way to hoard the drug. In other words, if you live in Nevada and are sick with COVID-19, you cannot be prescribed hydroxychloroquine on an outpatient basis because that would not be a “legitimate medical purpose.” You can only be prescribed the drug if you are in the hospital. So, the governor is trying to fill up the hospitals?
The only mention of the drug’s efficacy was to say that there were anecdotal stories about its successes. Anecdotal they may be but, these are medical professionals who are reporting very positive results. Dr. Zelenko in NY has reported zero deaths and one hospitalization among the 500+ patients he has treated. Compare this with the number of deaths and hospitalizations elsewhere. Dr. Zelenko is saving lives.
Governor Gretchen Whitmer from Michigan has threatened the medical licenses of any doctor or pharmacist who would attempt to prescribe chloroquine for any off-label purposes including to treat their patients suffering from coronavirus. Again, the term “legitimate medical purposes” is all over the announcement. It’s important to understand that off-label use is a common practice and completely legal.
Why would the governor threaten doctors and pharmacists? Who benefits from this action? Certainly not the people who are ill. It’s hard to think of a reason other than Trump-hatred for this kind of directive. Keep in mind that the governor is one possible candidate for the token woman as VP on a Joe Biden ticket.
So, the governor has substituted her judgment for that of medical professionals. Whitmer is ignoring the results of early studies that have shown significant reduction in viral loads and symptom improvement in COVID-19 patients. Though these studies do not prove efficacy, the results are very promising.
In addition, the potential for hydroxychloroquine to stop viruses has been known since at least the 1970s. See scholar.google.com. Studies about its use specifically against influenza date from the 1980s.
In mid-February Sun Yanrong of China’s National Center for Biotechnology Development announced that chloroquine was one of three drugs that the Chinese had used to treat the coronavirus successfully. For a month, the media thought chloroquine could be the answer.
In early March, the UPI reported that South Korean experts recommended anti-malarial drugs to treat coronavirus. On March 17, NBC News reported positively about chloroquine.
Dr. Raoult in France has conducted a clinical trial. Out of 80 patients one did not improve. The patient was 86 years old with advanced COVID-19.
Please also note that the results were so positive that Dr. Raoult felt it would be against medical ethics to deny this treatment to his control group. So, everyone wound up being treated.
Despite all of this, both governors have come out strongly against use. Yet the initial results show that the treatment is very promising. Why are there no questions from the media about these decisions that are apparently putting the lives of COVID-19 patients at risk? Why are there no articles that refer to the governors as anti-science?
A very low cost, multi-use drug is anathema to the profit-driven R&D, production, and sales activities of Big Pharma. These governors couldn’t be trying to help out their friends in Big Pharma at the expense of American lives, could they?
Was the governors’ decision driven by the fact that PDJT came out in favor of the treatment?
HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE & AZITHROMYCIN, taken together, have a real chance to be one of the biggest game changers in the history of medicine. The FDA has moved mountains – Thank You! Hopefully they will BOTH (H works better with A, International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents)…..
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 21, 2020
After this tweet the reaction of the media who had been reporting the positive aspects of the treatment changed instantly. “President spreading super dangerous misinformation…”. “People are going to die because you are spreading unsubstantiated bullshit…”. “As the President fiddles, people are dying.” TDS has clearly gotten the best of these people who can turn on a dime and rail against the use of this as a possible cure when they had been reporting the opposite only days before.
Novartis has stated they have 50,000,000 doses on hand with another 80,000,000 doses to be ready by May. [LINK] Why would a giant pharmaceutical company produce and distribute 130 million doses of a medication for potential treatment if there was no basis for doing so? Are their scientists stupid? Why is the Novartis information absent from media reports about the drug that PDJT thinks could be a game changer? I think we all know why.
When one looks at the headlines for articles on these announcements, one gets another whiff of the bias present. A CNN headline is reproduced below.
“Nevada governor limits use of anti-malaria drugs for coronavirus patients”
“limits” is not the term that I would use. The drug has been banned except within a hospital setting. This is not a new drug. It has been routinely prescribed on an outpatient basis for other purposes (malaria, lupus, etc.) for a long time. So why only allow its use in a hospital? This seems to imply that the drug is unsafe or untested which it isn’t.
If this governor happened to be Republican, the headlines would have been different. Something like the headline below would have been the result.
“Governor Denies Life-saving Treatment For Critically Ill Patients.”
And the article would have been full of phrases like “right to try,” “ignored the judgments of medical professionals,” “is anti-science,” etc.
This is life in America today. The media is more interested in spreading disinformation to prop up powerful political friends than in reporting honestly to the American public and saving American lives.
One last caution. Should one self-medicate? NO! As with any drug, improper usage can have deleterious effects.