It’s hardly newsworthy that medical science is distorted by money. But last week, a case arose that is so blatant, so extreme, and so suspiciously criminal that it should become a rallying point for all of us interested in reform. It involves the two best-respected medical journals in the world, and a finding that immediately affected the lives of thousands of patients around the globe. Two papers purported to be derived from a large, worldwide database, but they were quietly withdrawn when the data was requested by outside reviewers, and none could be produced. Where is the outrage? Where is the passion for reform?
Hydroxychloroquine is a cheap, out-of-patent drug that literally millions of travelers have been using for 65 years for prevention of malaria. It is also taken on a daily basis by hundreds of thousands of lupus patients. Its safety profile and side-effects are well established. Front-line doctors in Wuhan told us early that, in combination with zinc, it was the most effective COVID treatment they knew. It had previously been used with success during the SARS epidemic of 2003. European doctors reported anecdotal success with chloroquine/zinc, and it became standard treatment in France, the Netherlands, and elsewhere [review]. There were about 70 ongoing clinical trials before the two articles appeared.
HCQ has been discouraged by Anthony Fauci and segments of the American medical establishment, and I have wondered if they were compromised by their investments. Fauci is associated, ideologically and financially, with vaccines. The primary competitor for HCQ is Remdesivir, belonging to Gilead Sciences, and selling for $1,000 per dose. Billions of dollars have already been invested in developing a COVID vaccine. That COVID seems to be treatable and that the pandemic is fading with the spring weather is welcome news for world health, but it is devastating for investors in Gilead, Moderna, AstraZeneca, and 20 other companies that are racing to produce a COVID vaccine.
Last month, the two most prestigious medical journals in the world reported large studies by prominent researchers, based on a large COVID data set from Asia, Europe, and America. The lead author is from Harvard’s Brigham and Women’s teaching hospital. Here is the Lancet article, claiming that hydroxychloroquine is worse than useless. The data appear to show that people treated with HCQ are dying at 3 times the rate of other, similar patients. Here is the New England Journal article, which analyzes comorbidities but does not mention HCQ.
The Lancet paper had been duly peer-reviewed and rushed into print by editors. But seasoned researchers in the field immediately smelled that something must be wrong. How could this huge database of patients exist, crossing four continents and going back to the earliest days of the virus, when no one thought the records would be valuable? How could comparable conditions be established in hospitals from Capetown to Beijing to New York? And how could a drug in use for 65 years have such powerful lethal side-effects that no one had previously identified?
Questioned and challenged to produce the data behind the study, the authors quickly retracted the paper and refused further comment.
“Dr. Desai declined a request from The Times to be put in contact with a hospital or health care facility that provided its data to Surgisphere. He did not respond to inquiries after the retractions.” NYTimes
Nirav Desai is a physician and researcher from Surgisphere, a small Chicago company that claimed to have compiled the impressive database. Both retracted studies were led by Mandeep R. Mehra, a widely published and highly regarded professor of medicine at Harvard, who may end up being the fall guy for this scandal.
But no one is investigating Surgisphere as the source of a criminal fraud. No one is holding the Lancet journal or its editors or reviewers to account. Certainly no one is questioning the broad system funding and publishing the medical research on which the practice of Western medicine is based. To their credit, Science Magazine published this article, hinting at a scandal and beginning to ask the right questions.
This is happening at a time when the medical establishment is making the largest demands ever on our beliefs and our behaviors. We are locked down based on the computer simulation of a compromised researcher, who also did not document the basis of his computation, and whose predictions have proved spectacularly inflated. Why did we trust him, when he had cried wolf twice previously (Ebola, Avian flu)? The liberal-intellectual press and the science journals speak with a unified voice. denouncing anyone who questions vaccines as ‘anti-science’. Every article in Wikipedia and every Google search is plastered with a message that tells us to trust the CDC. The head of Youtube goes on the air to explain why anyone who disagrees with the WHO must have their videos removed.
The largest of the studies evaluating HCQ were discontinued after the Lancet article raised the probability that the studies might be putting lives of experimental subjects at risk. Now they are being re-started, but a fresh scandal has arisen. Dr Meryl Nass has investigated details of the “Soldarity” and “Recovery” trials. She reports that these trials plan to use dosages that are at least 4 times larger than necessary, dosages that have been found to be unsafe in the past, in fact fatal to a few percent of sensitive patients. She does not mention that the trials are leaving out zinc supplementation, which doctors everywhere report to be an essential part of the treatment protocol. The studies have indirect ties to vaccine manufacturers, through the WHO and through the Gates Foundation.
It appears on its face that these trials are designed to fail, and will kill experimental subjects on the way to “proving” that HCQ is an ineffective treatment. These suspicions can only be amplified by an announcement today from FDA that chloroquine cannot be used for COVID cases. This intrusion into physician autonomy is unprecedented. For as long as FDA has existed, its policy has been to permit physicians to freely prescribe drugs off-label for any condition where the individual physician feels it might be useful.
The institutions in which Americans and Europeans have entrusted their health have betrayed our trust. There are narrow implications for the future of HCQ and treatment of COVID, and then there are broader implications about the need for overhauling the profit incentives in medical research.
Narrow perspective
For those of who dare to look beyond our own noses, a concerted campaign to discredit a good, cheap treatment for COVID is a hint that might help us make sense of the bizarre global events of the last five months. This is a real virus, a real pandemic, but it is being exploited for a political agenda far larger than the effects of the disease itself.
- Why have death rates been consistently overestimated in public reports?
- Why have hospitals been incentivized to over-report COVID deaths, and to treat patients with ventilators that don’t seem to be helping?
- Why has CDC failed to recommend simple, inexpensive prevention measures (vitamin D, zinc, immune-enhancing herbs, special measures for nursing homes)?
- Why have our government agencies encouraged shortcutting of safety tests in “warp-speed” vaccine development, while discrediting simple, cheap treatments (intravenous vitamin C, chloroquine/zinc, Artemisia) that work in other countries?
- Why has COVID become cause for bailouts of the financial sector that have little to do with the disease, while working families and small businesses have been forced into bankruptcy?
Many geneticists, including two Nobel laureates, cite evidence that COVID seems to be man-made, the product of genetic engineering (excellent technical summary). But this idea is off the table for discussion, censored by both the scientific community and by the mainstream press (original article, sanitized rewrite). Could it be that the same powerful forces benefiting from the lockdown and social control have power to censor both the scientific establishment and the popular press? These may seem wild speculations, but perhaps they are justified by wild events.
The rules we are asked to follow have been maximally destructive to our economy, our institutions, and our culture, while providing far less life-saving benefit than simpler strategies. Maybe the cultural and social isolation were intended to serve a different purpose than the protection of public health.
Broad perspective
“Two major study retractions in one month have left researchers wondering if the peer review process is broken.” NYTimes
The Times calls them “big blunders” but this is far too charitable. A big blunder is when you publish an article without noticing that a plus sign is really a minus. But when you fail to notice that the database of patient cases you are analyzing doesn’t exist, that is a fraud and not a blunder.
We like to think that medical practice is following medical research as the tail follows the dog. But look at the two economies—$3.5 trillion per year in health care revenues in America vs an NSF budget of only $8 billion spread over every kind of science. It may be too much to expect the dog to wag the tail when the tail is 500 times larger than the dog.
Meanwhile, medical consumers are voting with their feet. People flock to dietary supplements ($35 billion/year), acupuncturists, chiropractors, and alternative healers. 40% of Americans think that non-standard approaches to cancer are more likely to cure them than chemotherapy and radiation, while most of the purveyors of those alternatives have been driven overseas by aggressive FDA “oversight”.
If the medical science establishment wishes to regain the trust of the American public, they will have to demonstrate that the health of individual patients weighs more heavily in their calculations than the profit motive.
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Well written, as always Josh.
Shocking, simply shocking, even though I was already aware of the trail of lies and deceit involving hydroxychloroquine.
I am sure part of the reason is that money is involved. But, as a non-American (trying to be impartial), it seems to me that politics may even be involved as well. I recall the media working itself into a frenzy over the fact the President had suggested that hydroxychloroquine might be useful and, later, had the gall to take it himself! Perhaps the clinical trials have been deliberately designed (large doses, no zinc) to fail just to smear a politician? One hopes not, but it looks awfully bad.
One can only hope that those responsible for the FRAUD of the Lancet article are pursued and face justice.
As an aside, very early on I ordered some hydroxychloroquine from overseas. My nephew posted it, with a tracking number. It entered Australia on March 26th…and promptly vanished! No explanation. Efforts to track the parcel from here (Australia) have proven fruitless. The Nanny State at work…
Why the fraud? (Besides $$$$)
♦Without COVID-19 panic Democrats cannot easily achieve ‘mail-in’ voting; which they desperately need in key battleground states in order to control the outcome.
♦Without COVID-19 panic Democrats cannot shut down rallies and political campaigning efforts of President Trump; which they desperate need to do in key battleground states.
♦Without COVID-19 panic Democrats cannot block the campaign contrast between an energetic President Trump and a physically tenuous, mentally compromised, challenger.
♦Without COVID-19 panic Democrats do not have an excuse for cancelling the DNC convention in Milwaukee; thereby blocking Team Bernie Sanders from visible opposition while protecting candidate gibberish from himself.
♦Without COVID-19 panic Democrats do not have a mechanism to keep voters isolated from each-other; limiting communication and national debate adverse to their interests. COVID-19 panic pushes the national conversation into the digital space where Big Tech controls every element of the conversation.
♦Without COVID-19 panic Democrats cannot keep their Blue state economies easily shut-down and continue to block U.S. economic growth. All thriving economies are against the political interests of Democrats.
♦Without COVID-19 panic Democrats cannot easily keep club candidate Joe Biden sealed in the basement; where the electorate is not exposed to visible signs of his dementia.
♦Without COVID-19 panic it becomes more difficult for Big Tech to censor voices that would outline the fraud and scheme. With COVID-19 panic they have a better method and an excuse.
♦Without COVID-19 panic Democrats cannot advance, influence, or organize their preferred presidential debate format, a ‘virtual presidential debate’ series.
[Comrade Gretchen Whitmer knows this plan, hence she cancelled the Michigan venue]
All of these, and more, strategic outcomes are based on the manufactured weaponization of the COVID-19 virus to achieve a larger political objective. There is ZERO benefit to anyone other than Democrats for the overwhelming hype surrounding COVID-19.
It is not coincidental that all corporate media are all-in to facilitate the demanded fear that Democrats need in order to achieve their objectives. Thus there is an alignment of all big government institutions and multinationals to support the same.
Nothing is coincidental. Everything is political.
I don’t think the Republicans are blameless in the COVID debacle. The frauds have been on both sides of the two-party charade. However, I agree that it’s absurd that the Democrats dismiss chloroquine on the basis that if Trump is for it, then it must be worthless.
“All of these, and more, strategic outcomes are based on the manufactured weaponization of the COVID-19 virus to achieve a larger political objective.”
BREAKING NEWS: there’s a whole wide world outside the US of A, one whose actions have zero impact on your election. Get a wider perspective please.
The news in western Australia showed imported Hydroxychloroquine tablets being destroyed.
Hi Margaret:
Do you have a link to the article. I can not find that news report.
Are they destroying the imported Hydroxychloroquine because they suspect it may be counterfeit?
If not, it seems foolish to destroy the drug. It is used successfully for several other health issues, under a doctor’s guidance.
Also, why not stockpile it in case studies show it may be useful as a preventative measure?
Good article..I posted it to my facebook group
END the Covid-19 Lockdown NOW!- Only Sunshine or Vit.D3 will stop this Flu!
And I plan on plagarizing parts of it!!
The recent announcement that dexamethasone, a widely available and low cost drug, has proven effective in treating Covid-19 seems to be a clear counter-example to the hypothesis of a vast conspiracy suppressing evidence of effective treatment by low-cost, widely available drugs.
Jim, AFAIK, the Dex was given to patients on ventilation or receiving oxygen. It didn’t cure everyone; it did increase the recovery rate. But it makes me wonder; was it treating the Covid19 or the effects of ventilation/oxygen?
Hydroxychloroquine + zinc seems to be effective at stopping the viral infection, thus preventing people from getting so ill that they need ventilation. Apparently there are doctors who have not had a single patient on HDC + Zn progress to ventilation.
And yet it is all brushed aside as “anecdotal” and now they are even prevented from giving it? Scandalous!
Yes, jamming tube into someone, may definitely cause an inflammatory reaction. That inflammation may then be remedied, to some degree, by an anti inflammatory medication, if inflammation was the only damage done.
Dexamethasone is a synthetic glucocorticoid class of steroid hormones that can be used for adrenal insufficiency. It can also suppress inflammation, as well as suppress and overactive immune response such as a cytokine storm that has ben reported to affect some Covid19 patients.
Typically, too, critically ill patients often have temporary adrenal insufficiency/crisis
Therefore depending on the patient’s issues associated with Covid 19, A proper dose of Dexamethasone can help alleviate several issues associated with Covid 19, if used judiciously.
Just like any medication, however, it has side effects, if not used properly and in the proper situation.
Check out Melatonin 3 mg for protecting the lungs from the effects of the ventilators. Children have high amounts of melatonin, and older adults low amounts. They theorize that is why children do not get Covid=19
That’s an immune-suppressant steroid, if I am not mistaken, to prevent the cytokine storm that occurs when an overzealous immune system begins attacking the patient’s tissues. This was the happening in the early days of Covid, when people needed respirators, as their lungs were being destroyed.
I have no doubt that Dexamethasone is useful against the cytokine storm, but it is nowhere near as effective as the HCQ+zinc+Azithromycine.
I agree:
Dexamethsone should only be used for a cytokine storm and only for a very short period of time.
The same thing happens with vitamin D. This study shows a strong correlation between vitamin D blood levels and severity of COVID-19 symptoms. Those who are dying have low blood levels. https://www.grassrootshealth.net/blog/first-data-published-covid-19-severity-vitamin-d-levels/
There is plenty of evidence that this is causal but everyone is still pretending they don’t know this. This video explains why we evolved vitamin D. Why Does Vitamin D Exist? https://youtu.be/vjq5t1GWb_Y
In 2020 politics influences/contaminates everything. I doubt this is the first case in which it did so, or that it will be the last.
Honest perspective : those w low dose eliquis, plavix or heparin it Coumadin. Plus plaquanil and zinc all are alive and less likely to have cytokine storm….I’ve seen this and this can be data mined using mds and electronic health records…now it makes sense that electronic health records will never be universal nor will artificial intelligent nor available for honest data mining: papanicolau was a janitor who creatively added dye to slides to find cervical cancer…we are blocking young minds who can hack and data mine from watching and manipulating tic tok and google search engines and smart phones from ever applying data “dye” to see patterns in data. Bill gates squashed open source and stuck us in a world that he accumulates more and more wealth and less and less knowledge…we are fundamentally loosing our ability to do math and this is fundamental to loosing the future of medical advances and allowing kid Med students to do their thing w creativity to see what is happening…ehrs are not about equality…
Just a message of support here. I agree with all of this. Unfortunately, I doubt that anyone will pay any sort of consequence for this tragicomedy of idiocy and corruption.
Please cite one quality study of its effectiveness for prevention or treatment of COVID-19.
Meanwhile…
Can a patient who wants to take hydroxychloroquine still take it?
Yes, so long as they can find a doctor who will write them a prescription. The FDA doesn’t police so-called off-label prescribing, where a doctor uses an FDA-approved drug to treat a condition or other ailment that the drug isn’t approved to treat. Since hydroxychloroquine is approved to treat malaria and lupus, doctors can use it to treat any condition they want, including Covid-19. The FDA’s decision to revoke this authorization doesn’t take that right away.
https://www.statnews.com/2020/06/16/hydroxychloroquine-emergency-use-patients-politicians/
How to get a hydroxychloroquine study to fail:
1. Use on the 1 in 10 African American males who have a G6pd deficiency.
2. We know it lowers blood sugar. So, sedate the patient, stick a tube down throat, use Hcq with no blood sugar measurement. This will cause heart strain, palpitations, and the patient can’t complain.
3. Use dangerous high levels, or better yet, chloroquine. Even better, phosphate chloroquine.
4. We know that it is an ionophore, so make sure not to add zinc at ample levels, beyond maximum the body uses naturally.
5. We know that it calms the immune system, which will allow opportunities for bacteria, so don’t give azithromycin. Plus anti biotics, macroloids especially, were shown in 2018 to inhibit protein synthesis of enzymes needed for viruses to replicate.
5. Give only in late stages. This will certainly make the numbers look bad. In late stage the replicating gremlins have already killed the pilot, broken the landing gear, and put a hole in the wing. So, killing all the gremlins, will do nothing to save the patients.
6. As sure as heck, don’t add any common sense adjuncts, like 3 cl protease inhibitors, importin blockers, recombinant Ace 2, inhaled nitric oxide, glutathione.
While Remdesivar makes sense, it is a race against the ExoN error correction. In contrast to the unpatented hydroxychloroquine who had thousands of trials (many rigged to fail), remdesivar never finished one single trial (the China trial did not look good before stopping) , before endorced by fauci. Plus the one trial was babied along by Gilead, and used only in the early stages of the disease infection, which is correct for any antiviral replication inhibitor (hydroxychloroquine included).
It is either money, or murderous population control mindset that could motivate the anti Hcq side. Maybe a majority of doctors got their degree via memory and regurgitating gifts. And, they are just not good at logic and mechanism – – especially as they age.
A trial recently showed that there is no tool in home depot which can paint a wall correctly, much less, build a house. Even giving 90, 000 hammers to 90,000 doctors and not one wall was constructed. 30 of them dropped the hammer, smashing their toes, and 1000 smashed their fingers. Hammers are worse than nothing for house building–conclusion.
Well done Josh and I couldn’t agree more. In my entire career I’ve never witnessed such duplicitous mismanagement of a medical crisis as I’ve seen with Covid 19.
From the get go we were told by the CDC, WHO, surgeon general, and Fauci that mask wearing was not only ineffective but actually made the transmission worse. This despite 28 studies at the time which clearly supported the widespread use of mask wearing. It was all a massive lie and Fauci admitted as much in a recent interview. That bit of deception cost us countless lives.
As for HCQ, the mechanism of action seems to be primarily as a zinc ionophore and it is zinc that inhibits the viral replicative enzyme. Trump based much of his endorsement of the drug on the case studies of a respected French physician, Dr. Smith here in the USA, also a respected infectious disease physician, and a Dr. Zelenko in New York. Zelenko himself communicated to me that HCQ is very effective but only when used with a large dose of zinc and also administered very early in the course. He also used azithromycin. Furthermore, he did not see arrhythmias. It’s possible, and even likely, that when patients get severely ill from covid, that there is cardiac involvement and this predisposes to qt interval related arrhythmias. We need to see studies using HCQ early in the course And with zinc .
I’m a registered independent so I have no dog in this fight, but it’s very clear that since Trump endorsed HCQ that there’s been every effort to discredit it. You can almost hear the glee in the major media when they report on how the drug endorsed by Trump has failed. Just prior to the Lancet “ study” , the Lancet actually published an opinion piece telling Americans that they shouldn’t vote for Donald Trump. This is a British medical journal delving into American politics.
The censorship of ideas and opinions should be terrifying for all of us. Mercola has been essentially removed from all social media platforms. There is a Dr. Seheult , board certified in 4 different specialties, works in a California ICU, and gives regular updates on various studies relating to covid. I’ve watched 80 of them and they are extremely evidence based and he doesn’t advocate for any particular treatments. Several of his updates were censored and removed from you tube which dealt with HCQ and zinc and their mechanism of action. In fact , physicians are now very careful in making any statements related to supplements and covid 19, including vitamin d, zinc, quercetin, and NAC. Big brother is watching.
All excellent points, Paul.
Particularly regarding the glee from the media when some medical professionals insisted Hydroxychloroquine would kill patients, and the interference from the Lancet regarding their Opinion piece.
I am also an independent voter, but found the censorship of some opinions regarding Covid 19 egregious. Where is the objectivity?
The blind, palpable hatred of Trump would be comical except it is interfering with scientific inquiry and sharing of knowledge and opinions, as well as other issues.
I find the position of social media platforms to be the most disturbing aspect of this whole fiasco. Where is the free flowing exchange of ideas? Social media was supposed to be like a marketplace where everyone could gossip and filter out nuggets of truth amongst the rumour. But now they are the thought police. This shows we need a decentralised social media platform where no one is in control. This would soon put facebook, youtube, etc. in their places.
Yes.
And the ever powerful google
Agreed.
Social networks and Google were originally touted as a way to openly and freely exchange ALL information and ideas…..popular or not.
Maybe they were, at first?
Now, however, they have quickly devolved into masters of speech, information and Idea suppression that does not pass their thought police agenda test. Perhaps that was always their intention.
Reminds me of that old Hulu commercial where the actor at first looks at the camera and states calmly that: “Hulu wants to take over your brain,” and then he laughs maniacally.
Uhm, were they only joking? Maybe not.
I agree
Josh,
What do you think of this: https://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordpress/whats-happening-with-hydroxychloroquine/ ?
Russ
When it comes to the media we expect an extreme left leaning bias now whenever HCQ is involved. The headlines always read “ Trump touted drug dangerous and ineffective “. But we don’t expect such inaccuracies and biases from major medical journals like Lancet. Maybe HCQ works under certain circumstances and not others,maybe not. But we expect a rigorous peer reviewed and unbiased approach from NEJM, Lancet, JAMA, etc. Unfortunately, a drug has become highly politicized and they seem to be willing and eager accomplices.
“Results from two new studies, including the first randomized controlled trial, are providing further evidence that the antimalaria drug hydroxychloroquine may not help COVID-19 patients.
The two studies, published yesterday in BMJ, found that, when compared with standard treatment, the use of hydroxychloroquine did not increase the likelihood of virus elimination in Chinese patients with mild-to-moderate COVID-19, nor did it have any effect on reducing admissions to intensive care or death in French patients with more severe illness. Both studies also found a higher rate of adverse events in patients treated with the drug.
The authors of both papers conclude that the results do not support the continued use hydroxychloroquine in these patients.”
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/05/studies-find-further-lack-covid-benefit-hydroxychloroquine
And in neither study was zinc used.
A major (engineered) failure.
Any “study” of hydroxychloroquine that does not include zinc, is bogus, and clearly intended to obfuscate the truth.
Very early on, Doctors in Wuhan China said that they got good results from hydroxychloroquine and zinc. Dr. Vladimir Zelenko added Azithromycin to this and discussed it at a news conference with President Trump. Because Trump said it could be a game changer, Fauci and the Democrats pooh poohed the drug and bogus “studies”– all excluding zinc– came out to support them.
“We conducted a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial across the United States and parts of Canada testing hydroxychloroquine as postexposure prophylaxis. We enrolled adults who had household or occupational exposure to someone with confirmed Covid-19 at a distance of less than 6 ft for more than 10 minutes while wearing neither a face mask nor an eye shield (high-risk exposure) or while wearing a face mask but no eye shield (moderate-risk exposure). Within 4 days after exposure, we randomly assigned participants to receive either placebo or hydroxychloroquine (800 mg once, followed by 600 mg in 6 to 8 hours, then 600 mg daily for 4 additional days). The primary outcome was the incidence of either laboratory-confirmed Covid-19 or illness compatible with Covid-19 within 14 days.
CONCLUSIONS
After high-risk or moderate-risk exposure to Covid-19, hydroxychloroquine did not prevent illness compatible with Covid-19 or confirmed infection when used as postexposure prophylaxis within 4 days after exposure”.
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2016638
No zinc.
Again, NO ZINC.
“Today’s preliminary results from the RECOVERY trial are quite clear – hydroxychloroquine does not reduce the risk of death among hospitalized patients with this new disease,” University of Oxford epidemiologist Martin Landray, one of the study’s leaders, said in a statement. “This result should change medical practice worldwide and demonstrates the importance of large, randomized trials to inform decisions about both the efficacy and the safety of treatments.
A total of 1,542 received hydroxychloroquine, and 3,132 received usual care. After 28 days of treatment, 25.7% of those on hydroxychloroquine and 23.5% of those received usual care had died, meaning those on hydroxychloroquine were 11% more likely to die. That difference was not statistically significant.
There was “no beneficial effect” on how long patients stayed in the hospital, or on other outcomes”.
https://www.statnews.com/2020/06/05/hydroxychloroquine-had-no-benefit-for-hospitalized-covid-19-patients-possibly-closing-door-to-use-of-drug/
Two comments:
First, my point is not that I know HCQ to be an effective treatment, but only that it deserves a fair trial. There’s no excuse for forging data, even if it the point you were trying to make with the forged data turns out to be true.
Second, no trial of HCQ without zinc is a fair trial. Neither of the trials you cite supplemented zinc. Do I know something that all these experts don’t know? Or were they designing the trial to fail?
Josh:
This is an eloquently written, well researched article. Thank you for being a voice of reason and sanity on all counts regarding this issue.
Josh,
I agree the Lancet study was awful in multiple ways. And I think HCQ in various combinations should have a fair trial. But “suppression” is a pretty laden word and I think goes too far. I’m not especially a fan of the FDA or Big Pharma but we have to make judgments on epidemic strategies, treatments, and vaccines in the face of a great deal of uncertainty and lack of knowledge. So it isn’t likely everybody will get everything right the first time but that doesn’t mean there is bad intent.
It’s a stretch to characterize this paper as an honest mistake. Even the authors themselves don’t claim that. They’ve retracted the paper and refused to make a statement about where the data came from.
As I said the Lancet study was awful in multiple ways.
But that doesn’t automatically make the opposite of its conclusions right. Nor does it make your conclusion of “a concerted campaign to discredit a good, cheap treatment for COVID is a hint that might help us make sense of the bizarre global events of the last five months. This is a real virus, a real pandemic, but it is being exploited for a political agenda far larger than the effects of the disease itself” correct.
“This has some people thinking that there is therefor no case against using HCQ, and indeed, that the case against it has collapsed. Keep in mind, though, that even before the Lancet paper the evidence for it as a useful coronavirus treatment was thin and equivocal. And it’s been noted by many in the last few days that there are well-controlled trials underway with hydroxychloroquine, whose data will read out and tell us a lot more”.
https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/06/05/the-recovery-trial-reports-on-hydroxychloroquine
Regarding the RECOVERY trial:
“Martin Landray of Oxford, a leader of the trial, told Reuters “This is not a treatment for COVID-19. It doesn’t work” I think I agree with him. And no, I don’t think that there is a sudden switchover to efficacy when zinc is added, but you know what? We’ll be getting trial data on that idea, too. Unless there is some dramatic news, a possibility that I would not put money on, I do not plan to revisit the topic of hydroxychloroquine on this site. There are too many other more worthwhile things to talk about. I’ll update this post if needed, but that’s probably going to be it”.
I have a comment in moderation citing studies of HCQ with zinc. Perhaps you could allow them to post. Some are underway with results soon and there is a non-peer reviewed retrospective study showing some benefit.
If there is benefit, I say great. The fact that there are studies on exactly what you are asking for is prima facie evidence that there is no suppression.
Also, another comment in moderation on face masks which, if used by consistently by most people, would likely spare us much concern about suppression of treatments.
Thank you for echoing what I have been saying– without zinc, hydroxychloroquine does not help a lot. Disingenuous anti-Trump laboratories are intentionally excluding zinc in their bogus “studies”.
Most, if not all, of the HCQ and CQ studies, are performed on hospitalized patients. It is no surprise then, that treatment arrives too late to stop the virus and whatever has followed it (opportunistic bacterial infections).
The HCQ + zinc + azithromycin protocol (as outlined by Dr. Zev Zelenko ) requires *early* treatment, within the first 2-3 days of obvious symptoms. Done properly, it *prevents* the need for hospitalization by halting Covid-19 viral replication sufficiently for the body’s defense mechanisms to engage the virus.
BTW the azithromycin (some use doxycycline) component of Zelenko’s therapy is precisely intended to nip opportunistic bacterial infections in the bud.
Josh:
Please send this article to the White House.
If President Trump thinks the sun rises in the East, then it must rise in the West.
A broken clock is right twice a day.
Regarding the broken clock trope: Does it apply it to people like Fauci, too?
I imagine any reasonable person would consider that it applies to everyone. Right? Even though comparing a human to a mechanical item is not scientific. It’s meant to be a silly trope.
Also, the clock trope is not valid as an analogy to the statement you are responding to. It has a totally different resonance.
Lastly, whether or not you support Trump. It is obvious to any serious thinker that Trump’s statements regarding any mentioned medication were not born of his own personal knowledge.
He was referencing the opinions of reputable researchers and medical professionals on his medical team and around the world.
If people actually listened, instead of flashing with political bias, Trump mentioned the source of the information, many times.
Those reputable sources/voices should be acknowledge and heard.
Their scientific opinions are valid and need to be pursued, even if rooted only in empirical evidence at this early date.
There has been not enough time to do large cross sectional studies over a longer period of time, regarding Covid19. Therefore no reputable empirical evidence should be dismissed, at this point.
Many in the media would squawk first and deride any medical intervention he mentioned without first even bothering to check the source of the information or whether or not it had any validity.
It was simply an immediate and very unethical dismissal. Journalism of late has lost all ethical objectivity.
Heather,
Trump’s embrace of HCQ (assuming there wasn’t some financial interest we still don’t know about) was just a grasping at straws to win the day on the media battlefield. Probably some Tweet or aide said something about HCQ being a cure and he ran with it. It wasn’t based on looking at studies or consulting with experts. It was the equivalent of the “number of cases will drop to zero” or “it will vanish in April” or now “it is gone” or “we wouldn’t have cases if we didn’t test”. It was to tell everybody we have a cure so he doesn’t look so bad and incompetent. Of course, once spoken, he can’t take it back. He can never admit to being wrong about anything.
Sure I say test it and see if it works. But that is what we should be doing with a lot of other drugs too – steroids, anti-virals, Vitamin D. No good idea should be left unexplored. However, we have a lot of testing and studies on HCQ – 225 as a matter of fact.
https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/results?cond=COVID-19&term=HCQ&cntry=&state=&city=&dist=&Search=Search
And let’s not get into conspiracy theories about suppression of treatments. I cited four separate studies that did not show benefits. But no matter how many get cited without benefit, somebody can claim something about the test wasn’t right. It wasn’t given early enough. It wasn’t given with zinc. The dosage was too low. The dosage was too high.
Thank you. I subscribe to this post simply because I don’t want to die and I want too regain my youth and healthful vigor and this seems a clear departure from what I expect. But since we’er here… Years ago a friend came to me and said “Eric Sevareid died! It’s like God died.” The days of trusted journalism are gone, but conspiracy theories have always existed and it’s up to us to call out the fakes, like flat Earthers or literal creationists. I think James Cross has it right. Bear in mind Donald Trump is the only president in US history who has no law degree, no military experience and no prior experience in government, he also apparently fails in history and geography. In other words he has zero qualifications for the most complex and vital job on the planet. As of April he has been documented to have lied or misled over 18,000 times since taking office, so his credibility is nil, and yes he may have passed on valid information from time to time, but the boy who cried wolf was a rank amateur compared to Trump. If we have become numb to Trump’s ego building offerings the blame can only fall on Donald and everything he says must be taken with more than just a grain of salt.
We all want this to be over quickly but we still don’t have an AIDS/HIV vaccine and we don’t know the long term effects of COVID, there may be none, but knowledge of shingles and post polio syndrome should add to our caution.
Wrong!
Trump heard that Vladimir Zelenko was using hydroxychloroquine AND zinc sulfate AND Azithromycin, and had him on a White House news conference, when Zelenko clearly explained the need for zinc which the hydroxychloroquine enables it to enter cells to kill the virus. There is NO EXCUSE for any subsequent work to not include zinc.
Oh, and there IS no money in hydroxychloroquine. It is generic and costs 60¢/day. It is BECAUSE there is no money in it that Fauci and Big Pharma are pushing a less-effective drug that costs 1000 times as much.
Latest Trump Tweet:
“Sun rises in West. Dem hoax it rises in East. Because lefties like China and China is in the East.”
Fox News: DOJ to Investigate NASA Sunrise Scandal
Breitbart: Senators call for investigation of Hillary Clinton email directing NASA to say sun rises in east in return for political contribution from China.
Insta-Poll of Republicans on question of direction of sunrise:
85% West
7% East
8% Unsure or think it may be some other direction
Hannity tonight: Interview with Liberty University astrophysicist on NASA scanals involving moon landing and face on Mars
The current controversy is at least the second time that quinine (ancestor of chloroqine and hydroxychloroquine) has become politically contentious among the cognoscenti and people have died as a result. One earlier story:
In 1658 Oliver Cromwell was dying from malaria. He was offered the “Jesuit’s Bark” (bark of the cinchona tree brought by Jesuit missionaries from South America which contains quinine and was know to cure malarial fevers). Reportedly Cromwell, who distrusted Roman Catholics in general and the Jesuits in particular, refused the “popish powder” and righteously went to his death.
https://www.scientus.org/Jesuits-Bark.html
Don’t forget the Catholic backlash against using quinacrine for irreversible birth control.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010782415002322
To complicate things further. 1) it seems the hydroxychloroquine studies were done without zinc. Have any studies been done with zinc alone? Do oyster lovers fare better?
2) when XMRV was thought to cause ME/CFS aka Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, some patients took Viread (made by Gilead) they said they felt worse for ten days to 2 weeks then experienced marked improvement. I have ME/CFS and at one time participated in the Ampligen trial with little benefit to me. When I tried Viread I felt worse for about ten days, then my health improved significantly and my blood work showed a change in T-cell numbers. I still take it. Judy Mikovits was largely discredited. So, if Gilead has such influence why haven’t they done drug studies on ME/CFS patients with Viread? They could stand to make billions as it seems to be the only real treatment for it. Ron Davis at Stanford has developed a blood test for ME/CFS. So, yes it is as real disease and not a mental disorder.
You have to assume that all the trials were done with zinc deficient people for no effect to be detected.
You make a good point, but it depends on what you mean by deficient. The MDR for vitamin C may be enough to prevent scurvy but may not be enough for optimum health. The body’s need for zinc may be higher when under assault by some viruses. If none of the people in the study were tested for zinc, there can be no definitive answer. With scientific studies, assuming doesn’t cut it. As the link below states zinc deficiency maybe common and widespread. You are likely correct but without definitive proof you cannot state as fact.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/334492528_The_Role_of_Zinc_in_Antiviral_Immunity
No, the body needs extra zinc to be toxic to the virus, and also needs chloroquine to open the ion channels that allow it into the cell.
Or so the theory goes.
You still haven’t released from moderation a comment of mine that links to paper that supports the zinc argument.
That is, I still don’t expect it to a miracle cure if the studies that are being conducted bear out a benefit.
“Recent studies suggest that early intervention with hydroxychloroquine and zinc has benefit and seems to be safe even in hospitalized patients, while late administration in critically-ill patients has little efficacy and may be harmful. We have launched a clinical trial at St. Francis Hospital using these potentially helpful agents in non-hospitalized patients with early COVID-19 symptoms to try to gain maximum benefit from this treatment. Our protocol emphasizes safety, with cardiologists at St. Francis Hospital remotely monitoring the EKG for everyone participating in the study. Patients can be enrolled remotely, allowing people from across the country access to this protocol. All medications and a Kardia EKG monitor are provided free of charge”.
https://www.chsli.org/covid-19-clinical-trial
Assuming blood samples were taken and stored from the HCQ studies, wouldn’t it be possible to go back and determine zinc levels in the participants? I supplement with zinc, vitamin D as well as other supplements, it is possible that some of the patients had been doing the same.
You can see the bias even in the below study (1) in how they report their results.
If you or your loved ones were exposed to Covid-19 at a high enough level
to get infected, would you like an option to improve the chances of warding it off?
17.5% reduction is better than 0%.
It’s all in how you display the results.
I get a little different answer from their data.
((% People infected while using the placebo) minus
(% People Infected while using hydroxychloroquine)) divided by
(% People infected while using the placebo) = % saved from infection
(14.3-11.8)/14.3 = 17.5% (without zinc) =17.5 % saved from infection without zinc
also in their own words:
“no serious adverse reactions were reported.”
(1)
A Randomized Trial of Hydroxychloroquine as Postexposure Prophylaxis for Covid-19
Results:
We enrolled 821 asymptomatic participants. Overall, 87.6% of the participants (719 of 821) reported a high-risk exposure to a confirmed Covid-19 contact. The incidence of new illness compatible with Covid-19 did not differ significantly between participants receiving hydroxychloroquine (49 of 414 [11.8%]) and those receiving placebo (58 of 407 [14.3%]); the absolute difference was -2.4 percentage points (95% confidence interval, -7.0 to 2.2; P = 0.35). Side effects were more common with hydroxychloroquine than with placebo (40.1% vs. 16.8%), but no serious adverse reactions were reported.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32492293/
Thanks for bringing it up. The study was too small as you point out.
So a range of -7.0 to 2.2 translates to -7.0/14.3 to 2.2/14.3
95% confidence interval of 49% saved from infection to 15.4% increased infection due to hydroxychloroquine. Such a wide range shows that the sample size was too small. Perhaps repeating the study and merging them might give clarity?
Some people use hydroxychloroquine for other medical reasons than
Covid-19. If hydroxychloroquine increases your chance of getting infected
then they need to be aware they are at greater risk.
Or the number could be as high as 49% reduction in infections.
Either way this points to a need to get an answer quickly.
Also don’t forget the lack of zinc in the study. Perhaps one the producers of hydroxychloroquine needs to have a version with zinc included in the pills?
Thanks again for your comment!
For a study that they knew would end with a usable result, they calculated they would need about 750(per group)x2(groups)=1500 participants (see 1)
They eliminated all but 821 participants of the 6924 persons interested in joining the study .(see 2) This leaves us with data from a half finished study.
So re-opening the study and being careful not to close the study before getting the rest of the required 1500 participants needed could possibly save the work from the original study and give us answers.
1
A Randomized Trial of Hydroxychloroquine as Postexposure Prophylaxis for Covid-19
“we estimated that 621 persons would need to be enrolled in each group. With a pragmatic, Internet-based, self-referral recruitment strategy, we planned for a 20% incidence of attrition by increasing the sample size to 750 participants per group.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7289276/
(2)
A Randomized Trial of Hydroxychloroquine as Postexposure Prophylaxis for Covid-19
“We enrolled 821 asymptomatic participants.” of those “participants receiving hydroxychloroquine (49 of 414 [11.8%]) and those receiving placebo (58 of 407 [14.3%]); ”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7289276/
Bolsonaro is down with Hydroxychloroquine, and the US just sent down 2 million doses.
Considering the rampant rise of covid in Brazil and options, this should generate some data on the efficacy, one way or the other.
If there is no efficacy, time to move onto other possibilities and better use of resources to reduce the lose of life.
Dr Meryl Nass reports that WHO has halted its high-dose HCQ trials:
“Update June 18: I sent a tweet to WHO Director General Tedros informing him of these findings 3 days ago. I also emailed WHO’s Dr. Restrepo, inquiring about the doses used in the Solidarity trial. I am very pleased to report that WHO stopped this deadly trial yesterday, with no fanfare. WHO claimed the decision was made on the basis of the Recovery trial result and a Cochrane review, as well as WHO data. One wonders if the DSMB was bypassed again, as occurred on May 25 when WHO halted its HCQ arm for the first time.
I had pointed out that if trial investigators had not disclosed to subjects the known risks associated with the high HCQ doses used, the investigators and WHO would be liable for damages.
I like to think my investigation has helped save some lives.”
Excellent piece, as usual, Josh. I’m inclined to agree with your points, both explicit and implicit. We live in a screwy time. While the pandemic is undoubtedly real it seems that it has been massively amplified in terms of the real threat. I’ve been looking for an excess deaths study for US nursing homes b/c at least half of all deaths have occurred in nursing homes and yet the median survival rate for nursing homes residents in normal times (pre-covid) is only five months, so the background death rate in nursing homes dwarfs the reported covid nursing home deaths, strongly suggesting that many and perhaps even most nursing home covid deaths are deaths that would surely have happened anyway due to existing comorbidities. And many other issues with the data in the US and other countries that will hopefully come to light in the coming years as more sober analysis prevails.
Amazing article! Thanks for posting!
NIH halts clinical trial of hydroxychloroquine
I am guessing you agree with halting this trial since zinc is not a part of it. Since the magic of HCQ is in the zinc there would be no value and potential harm in continuing this trial.
This trial is still underway.
https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04370782
Your bias, conscious or unconscious, betrays you. Which leaves me wondering what you are doing here? Is this your idea of ‘discourse’? Shilling for fun or profit James?
I was thinking the same.
The doctor’s perfect record of success with HCQ (a/k/a, “the drug
that Pres. Trump touted”) earned him a front-page hit-piece in the
New York Times, which speared him not with any scientific evidence
to “debunk” his claims, or any testimony by unhappy patients (there
being none of either), but with the jeer that he’d become a “right-wing
star” for “touting” HCQ.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/02/technology/doctor-zelenko-coronavirus-drugs.html
Recall that Dr. Didier Raoult, who’s also used the drug successfully
to treat COVID-19, has been under ferocious government attack in
France, which Big Pharma doth bestride like a colossus:
https://asiatimes.com/2020/03/why-france-is-hiding-a-cheap-and-tested-virus-cure/
MCM
From Dick Atlee:
I think this is the answer — or at least the strongest answer — to the
people who tell me that advocating the use of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ)
to treat COVID-19 is tantamount to killing people.
It’s an interview with a doctor whose protocol for the drug is now being
used in many countries which have seen hospitalization and death rates
drop as a result. I’d heard of him, but with my interest in the fraud and
deliberately-designed-to-fail studies of the drug, I foolishly hadn’t paid
attention to what he’s been doing for the last four months.
The interview was just broadcast this afternoon, and hasn’t been broken out
yet from the longer program, but you can hear it (all 40 minutes, unless
you can pull yourself away before that) at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzqcN6ybfkE&t=2505
He is Dr. Vladimir Zelenko, from Monsey, in upstate New York. He is a very
dour, straightforward, no-nonsense-or-hype doctor whose success speaks
for itself.
The thing that most intrigued me about the many interesting insights
uncovered in this interview was the clear mechanism for how the drug
combination of HCQ and zinc works, with azithromycin as a protection
against respiratory complications. (Note: I’ve also seen AZT described as
interfering with viral attachment to a cell’s ACE-2 receptors).
Zinc is the virus killer, or rather the preventer of the virus’s ability to
reproduce in a cell, through inhibition of the RNA polymerase enzyme
required for that process
(ref:https://journals.plos.org/plospathogens/article?id=10.1371/journal.ppat.1001176).
But zinc on its own can’t get into the cell to run that interference. HCQ’s
job is as an “ionophore” to open a channel for the zinc to enter the cell
(ref:
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0109180)
where it can disable the virus’s “replication and transcription complex”
(RTC). Zelenko refers to these three components of his protocol thusly:
HCQ is the gun, zinc is the bullet, and azithromycin is the bulletproof vest
protecting the patient.
He also added clarity to why Trump is being invoked so often in attacks on
HCQ. Having Zelenko’s HCQ protocol adopted would mean essentially an end
to the pandemic, which would be a win for Trump. It would also open up the
economy, also a win for Trump. So those who want Trump defeated can’t
afford to have HCQ widely used. He’s not a Trump fan, he’s just being
realistic. Which shows us yet another way in which politics is deadly.
It seems evident that this protocol is a true game-changer in this present
situation. It doesn’t require hospitalization for administration, and it is
extremely inexpensive ($20 for the full treatment). It is saving lives in
every country in which it is officially sanctioned, or where doctors are at
least not forbidden to use it. Whether we’ll be so fortunate here in the
U.S. remains very much to be seen.
Loved the video of Dr. Vladimir Zelenko,
It got me thinking…
The variation from country to country in infections and deaths makes no sense to me.
One thing that I think is missing is how dietary differences in cultures may affect Covid-19 infection and death rates.
Per Dr. Zelenko:
1) A zinc Ionophore allows zinc to enter a cell.
2) A zinc Ionophore plus zinc pushes zinc into the cell, preventing virus replication.
3) Getting zinc into the cells in the first 5 days was critical to controlling infection.
In my opinion:
If a culture naturally consumes lots of foods high in zinc Ionophores and zinc, it may create a natural barrier to virus replication.
Examples of zinc Ionophores:
1) Hydroxychloroquine
2) EGCg found in green and white teas (more on the wiki page).
3) Quercetin found in red onions and kale (more on the wiki page).
What if a person drank green tea regularly for the week preceeding exposure?
How much zinc would be waiting in the cell for the virus?
What I would expect is that countries that drink green or white tea daily would have a low number of infections and deaths.
That is what appears to be the case from what I can see.
The same could go for Hydroxychloroquine used to treat Lupus or R.A. on a daily basis. They should also see a build-up of cellular zinc.
The high zinc levels in the cells might help explain the early reports of low infections in the Lupus group.
I know most of us are tired of the virus and are ready to get back to our lives.
I have a suggestion:
What if people just started drinking green tea from now on as a preventative?
We might see a drop in the trends.
From the above video, in the case where Dr. Zelenko is trying to stop a pre-existing infection before day six, a high dose of zinc Ionophore with an external source of zinc would seem to be critical for maximum benefit; that’s where Dr. Zelenko uses Hydroxychloroquine and zinc. He also adds an antibacterial to prevent the further complication of pneumonia.
The above comments are for informational and speculative purposes only.
Japan should be a good place to study the benefits of a diet high in zinc and ionophores, as green tea is a popular and traditional drink and sushi/sashimi is high in zinc as most seafood is. I have been supplementing with zinc and vitamin D and often drink matcha tea but will get some quercetin and add that to my regime. If it may help and likely has no downside, why not?
It has been widely conceded that the COVID-19 death count has been artificially inflated by a number of factors, such as institutions recording the cause of death as COVID-19 whenever the patient tested positive for the disease regardless of comorbidities, or where no test was administered but the symptoms of the dying person merely suggested COVID-19. Apparently there is no reliable standard practice commonly enforced for confirming death by COVID-19? And is it true that the existing PCR tests return false positives for COVID-19 by giving a positive result for other coronaviruses not just COVID-19? If any or all of this is true, then the COVID-19 death counts (and case counts) may be wildly inflated, yet are being used to generate so much fear and cause unprecedented global lockdowns that will cause families to lose their homes, destroy small businesses, throw millions into poverty, etc.
If this is the case, I have a question for the medical professionals. I have read that if a COVID-19 patient is symptomatic, a key symptom is hypoxia, i.e. a blood problem not a lung problem such as pneumonia and that this what is “new” about COVID-19 and what distinguishes it from other coronaviruses and/or a common flu. True? If so, is there a simple test for this hypoxia condition that should be required along with existing tests to verify this condition before the patient could be declared COVID-19 positive? Would this help clean up the data?
My apologies if this is a stupid question….it’s coming from a layman.
There’s a very simple test for hypoxia. You can get a pulse oxymeter from the drug store for under $50 and put it on your finger and have a result in about 15 seconds. The reason this is not required for diagnosing COVID is (1) not all COVID patients experience hypoxia, and (2) as you note, diagnosing COVID has become highly politicized.
To clarify something:
True, not all COVID patients experience hypoxia.
Is it also true that:
Not all *symptomatic* COVID patients experience hypoxia? (If so, what are their symptoms, which in the worst cases become serious enough to cause death?)
The other NIG cause of death and disability is the so called “coagulopathy”: development of blood clots in the blood vessles of the lung, heart, brain, kidney: all of which can be fatal. This is being treated by prophylactic or therapeutic doses of low molecular weight heparin. After getting better and leaving the hopsital, anti-coagulant therapy is continued for at least 45 days, often using Rivaroxaban.
BIG, not NIG, in the post above. Typo!
Anyhow, I really like keto so far, although I’m experimenting with trying
to set my own spin. It’s essential to be flexible with your daily diet, even if you’re locked into some
thing like”keeping carbohydrates low”. I don’t want to be the person eating out with
friends that orders something weird off the menu, or nothing at all, although I want to lose
weight. It is just flat out not worth it,
if you ask me if your diet comes at the cost of your joy.
xoxo Anyhow just wanted to say. Stuff like this helps
keep me and allow me to stay on track. I hope that you continue to
develop, and people that want this can find it!
Thanks and Fantastic luck again. That is all GREAT. Been doing my best to attempt to do quality study,
so stuff like this helps. Anyone else think the
biggest problem people have with weight loss comes from them not putting in the
job first? Like I do you wish to start losing weight ASAP,
but you have to be inclined to do a little research.
I am sorry to say you are just likely going to have issues, if you do not do your part.
No discussion of Dr. Vladimir “Zev” Zelenko is complete without mentioning his awards:
https://www.physiciansweekly.com/the-skeptical-scalpel-awards/
Have studies been done to see how lupus patients (or others who regularly use HCQ) fare when exposed to COVID-19?
Josh, the RECOVERY study administered to an experimental group of 1500 subjects a lethal dose of 2400 mg of HCQ on day 1 and 800 mg on each of the succeeding 9 days. The result was 25% of the experimental group died.
Oxford university published their conclusion that HCQ does not work, and WHO followed immediately with a suspension of HCQ trials regardless of the fact that 152 positive studies of HCQ confirm that it works on ordinary dosages.
By giving them a deliberate overdose, the experimental subjects were effectively murdered, just to discredit a competing drug (HCQ).
I am in deep shock. The treatment of HCQ is very revealing about the true motivations behind the vaccine.
I would recommend that we look at all the existing studies with HCQ and ascertain the LD50 or toxic limit based on all studies done up to date. I have a list of 152 studies on Covid and HCQ.
This can then be used to prove that the RECOVERY study was deliberately negligent and murderous in intent by overdosing all of their subjects. A legal case could then be pursued.
You are confusing chloroquine with hydroxychloroquine:
“Chloroquine is 2-3 times more toxic than hydroxychloroquine.”
And:
A *potentially* lethal dose for hydroxychloroquine (see note on the paper) is “ingestion of greater than 5 g.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7211615/
Patients received 2400 mg of HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE in the trial, so less than half the dose “associated with fatal outcome.”
Conspiracy conspiracy conspiracy.
Hydroxychloroquine is potentially lethal at 5g, I agree. But it also has a half life of 22.4 days. Here is the dosing schedule used during the RECOVERY TRIALS
I have added the residual amount from each previous day to the new amount added each day. The result is a massive overdose to twice the lethal amount.
C(now) = C(initial) x e-0.03094 x t where t is the time passed in days
PART 3 : RECOVERY TRIAL DOSAGES
Day 1 : 2400 mg of HCQ
Day 2 : 800 mg of HCQ + 2326 mg = Total of 3126mg
Day 3 : 800 mg of HCQ + 2255mg + 775mg = Total of 3830mg
Day 4 : 800 mg of HCQ + 2187mg + 751mg + 775mg = Total of 4513mg
Day 5 : 800 mg of HCQ + 2120mg + 729mg + 751mg + 775mg = Total of 5175mg
Day 6 : 800 mg of HCQ + 2056mg + 706mg + 729mg + 751mg + 775mg = Total of 5817mg
Day 7 : 800 mg of HCQ + 1993mg + 685mg + 706mg + 729mg + 751mg + 775 mg = Total of 6439 mg
Day 8 : 800 mg of HCQ + 1932mg + 664mg + 685mg + 706mg + 729mg + 751mg + 775 mg = Total of 7042 mg
Day 9 : 800 mg of HCQ + 1873mg + 644mg + 664mg + 685mg + 706mg + 729mg + 751mg + 775mg = Total of 7627mg
During the first day each subject was given 2400mg of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ)
On the second day, each subject was given a further 800 mg, and 2326 mg of the first days dosage was still in their system
On the third day they were given a further 800 mg and 2255mg from the first day, and 775 mg from the second day were still in their system
Etc
We can see that by day 9, everyone of the 1500 subjects taking part in the RECOVERY trial was severely overdosed with almost 2 x the lethal dose (if we take the lethal dose as 4g).
1500 people were subjected to this drug regimen. We need to understand what these people went through. Their bodies were weakened by Covid and were struggling to cope with the initial dose. Yet every day a new dose was added which intoxicated them again to an even deeper level. Eventually their bodies just could not cope and 25% of them died.
Standard dosage for rheumatoid arthritis is 600 per day.
In 22 days this adds up to 13200 mg, which is almost twice as much the amount given to the patients in the Covid trial.
RA patients of plaquenil are not dead – they are healthier.
https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/drugsatfda_docs/label/2017/009768s037s045s047lbl.pdf
Seriously dude, why would reserachers deliberately kill of one quarter of their study subjects and then PUBLISH THE DESCRIPTION OF THE MURDER WEAPON?
To achieve their supposedly dubious purposes without detection they could have instead:
1. Given patients a placebo and then claimed that hydoxychloroqione didn’t work.
2. Given patients a small dose of hydoxychloroqione and then claimed that it didn’t work.
3. Given patients a supposedly lethal amount of hydoxychloroqione and then lied about the dose administered.
Who was going to dispute any of the above?
You think that those 1500 patients – spread out across multiple clinics – knew how the other 1499 fared? And than that they would work out statistical significance to denouce the researchers for occulting the trial’s real findings?
Covid is far from a universally fatal disease, so it’s not like one (or even 100) of those patients could have jumped up and said:
“Look at me! Hydroxychloroquine works and I am living proof!”
Most patients recover anyway.
It’s sad that intelligent people should devote their brains to conspiracies rather than advancing science or producing responsible public health messages.
The Initial dose for Rheumatoid arthritis is 400mg -600mg, (equivalent to 310 to 465 mg base.) The RECOVERY study used 6 times this.
This is followed by a daily dose of 200mg-400mg, (equivalent to 155 to 310 mg base). The RECOVERY study used 4 times this.
All the literature says that we should never exceed 5mg/kg/day to avoid toxic effects. The RECOVERY trial used an initial concentration of 34mg/kg followed by 11mg/kg/day
Even compared to the schedule for Rheumatoid arthritis, the dosage is much greater.
Source : https://www.drugs.com/dosage/hydroxychloroquine.html
I am not alone in making these observations –
https://covexit.com/recovery-covid-19-research-blasted-for-toxic-dosage-towards-oxfordgate/
“I am not alone in making these observations”
You must be in the company of other people who do not understand science, because NO actual malaria expert, rheumatologist, toxicologist etc. ever claimed that the RECOVERY trial tried to murder its patients.
Or even that it used a potentially lethal dose of HC.
Do you really think that every single scientist in the world beloings to the radical left or is on Big Pharma’s payroll?
Even those mixing generic drugs in India?
Anyway, it seems that my reply to your comment got lost in the thread, so let’s try again:
First, the dosage you suggested for RA is wrong.
The correct dose is:
400-600 mg/day (310-465 mg base/day)
600mg (465 mg base/day) is not the initial dose but your DAILY pill until you can switch to maintenance, hopefully after a few weeks.
At this dosage, you reach the allegedly lethal 5mg within HC’s half-life in 14 days, even allowing for time passed.
Problem is, half-life has little to do with acute toxicity, which is determined by SPEED of absorption, which is anything but linear.
“Following ingestion, the drugs are rapidly absorbed from the upper gastrointestinal (GI) tract and slowly redistribute to other compartments, eventually accumulating in erythrocytes, liver, lung, kidney, heart, muscle, and retinal tissue [43]. The combination of rapid absorption, high oral bioavailability, and slow redistribution prompts early peak serum levels post-ingestion which correlate with symptom severity in overdose [41].”
And from the epidemiological side:
“Cardiomyopathy is described in case reports of patients presenting with chronic chloroquine and/or hydroxychloroquine toxicity […] Chronic exposure to cumulative doses of 1277 g and 1843 g of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, respectively, over an average of 13 years has been demonstrated to produce this effect.”
What this means is that even at a daily dose of 390mg for 13 years, what you may get is cardiomyopathy, not death.
Also, with 1843 g of hydroxychloroquine over 13 years, you reach your potentially lethal dose of 5mg in a few weeks.
Yet, RA patients don’t die but keep taking their daily HC dose, maintaining these supposedly fatal serum levels for the following… er… 13 years.
Second, the assertion below is false:
“All the literature says that we should never exceed 5mg/kg/day to avoid toxic effects.”
No. The dose for acute malaria is 2g in 48 hours, which for me (an average 167cm X 50 kg) translates into 20mg/kg/day.
In fact, Plaquenil’s weight-base dosage suggests 13mg/kg/day + 6.5mg/kg/day within the first six hours, followed by an additional 6.5mg/kg/day at 24 hrs, and followed by yet another 6.5mg/kg/day 48 hrs after the initial dose.
https://reference.medscape.com/drug/plaquenil-hydroxychloroquine-sulfate-343205
Seriously: you cannot extrapolate chronic toxicity from acute toxicity.
Professor Martin Landray was in charge of the RECOVERY study. He was asked “How did you decide on the dosage of hydroxychloroquine?”
His answer was
“The doses were chosen on the basis of pharmacokinetic modelling and these are in line with the sort of doses that you used for other diseases such as amoebic dysentery.”
(Well Hydroxychloroquine is never used to treat amoebic dysentry. His response is retarded)
And the follow-up question was:
“Are there any maximum dosage for HCQ in the UK?”
“I would have to check but it is much larger than the 2400mg, something like six or 10 times that.”
(this answer is not just retarded, it is criminally insane. If people were put on 24000 mg they would be stone dead. Professor Landray should face criminal charges of negligence or deliberate malpractice)
“ … the HCQ dosage used are not dissimilar to that used, as I said, in for example amoebic dysentery.”
Video of interview with Professor Landray
They did not exceed the toxic limit at all, you are misinformed.
Read up on acute and chronic toxicity.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7369162/
Taking 5gr in one go is NOT the same as taking 5gr over 5 days.
Half-life is irrelevant because it only refers to how long after administration the drug is excreted, and not to where the drug goes and at what speed (this is far from constant), as well as to what it actually does while gallivanting throughout the human body.
Once upon a time this was a science blog. Now it has become a haven for conspiracy theorists who refuse to read the science even when science is shown to them.
There are 155 studies published where Hydroxychloroquine is used to fight Covid19. 100% of the trials were effective when applied early. They all use small dosages. You can see for yourself – c19study.com
There was absolutely no reason for Oxford University to use a giant dose unless they were looking to induce toxic effects from the outset.
If they were genuinely interested in protecting the health of these patients, then why did they exceed the toxic limit with the dosage, and why did they call a halt to the study prematurely – realising that they were inducing toxicity and had to stop?
What is also remarkable is that the WHO took this single study of deliberate overdose and ignored all the 155 positive studies using much smaller doses – then used the negative result of this single study to order a halt to 70 ongoing trials of hydroxychloroquine around the world.
One last time:
They did NOT “exceed the toxic limit with the dosage”.
There is NO evidence to support these claims apart from your mis-reading of toxicological data.
But since you seem more interested in conspiracy theories than science:
Why didn’t President Trump take hydroxychloroquine when he was sick?
He pushed it for months and months, and in fact all these conspiracy theories can be traced back to his tweets.
Or did he sell out to Big Pharma?
Oh no!
Who’s going to save the children from all those blood-drinking, pedophiliac satanists in Hollywood now???
They definitely did exceed the toxic dosage and the Solidarity trials commissioned by the WHO continue to do so. Their agenda is to discredit HCQ so it does not detract from profit from Remdesivir and other patented drugs. No need to invoke the spiritual.
https://www.palmerfoundation.com.au/who-and-uk-trials-use-potentially-lethal-hydroxychloroquine-dose-according-to-who-consultant/
India’s ICMR, its official medical research agency, had written to the WHO, telling WHO that the hydroxychloroquine doses being used in the Solidarity trial were 4 times higher than the doses being used in India.
https://www.newindianexpress.com/nation/2020/may/29/icmr-writes-to-who-disagreeing-with-hcq-assessment-officials-say-international-trial-dosage-four-ti-2149702.html
According to the FDA, the half life of Hydroxychloroquine IN BLOOD is 537 hours
What this means is that the concentration of hydroxychloroquine in the blood circulation decreases by half every 537 hours.
https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/drugsatfda_docs/label/2017/009768s037s045s047lbl.pdf
If this is the case, then the concentration of drug in the blood would increase exactly as in accordance with the accumulations shown below –
Day 1 : 2400 mg of HCQ
Day 2 : 800 mg of HCQ + 2326 mg = Total of 3126mg
Day 3 : 800 mg of HCQ + 2255mg + 775mg = Total of 3830mg
Day 4 : 800 mg of HCQ + 2187mg + 751mg + 775mg = Total of 4513mg
Day 5 : 800 mg of HCQ + 2120mg + 729mg + 751mg + 775mg = Total of 5175mg
Day 6 : 800 mg of HCQ + 2056mg + 706mg + 729mg + 751mg + 775mg = Total of 5817mg
Day 7 : 800 mg of HCQ + 1993mg + 685mg + 706mg + 729mg + 751mg + 775 mg = Total of 6439 mg
Day 8 : 800 mg of HCQ + 1932mg + 664mg + 685mg + 706mg + 729mg + 751mg + 775 mg = Total of 7042 mg
Day 9 : 800 mg of HCQ + 1873mg + 644mg + 664mg + 685mg + 706mg + 729mg + 751mg + 775mg = Total of 7627mg
So by day 4 the concentration in the blood would be equivalent to that produced by a lethal bolus dose of 4g. Their bodies would have struggled to cope with the dosage on day 4, only to be met with further dosages on days 5-9.
As a result of this criminal behaviour, 396 people died = 25% of the subjects, compared to 0.78% on a low dose.
Despite these findings, the WHO proceeded to carry out studies of HCQ on equally high doses in several countries. The behaviour of the WHO is manifestly criminal, and can only be explained in terms of the vast profits that biopharma stand to make by discrediting an effective and cheap drug, Thousands have died as a direct result of this malpractice.