I like things to make sense. I’m usually able to see the reason behind actions that people take. Not so much these days.
This whole COVID-19 thing involves too many things that just don’t make sense to me. Take, for example, the drug hydroxychloroquine. It has become one of the most politicized drugs ever. But why? Occam’s razor says that the simplest explanation is most likely the right one.
To make this easier to write (and read) I’m going to use the abbreviation for hydroxychloroquine for the rest of this essay. That abbreviation is HCQ.
Let’s continue.
Many doctors have reported success when prescribing HCQ along with zinc and azithromycin.
Many other doctors say that HCQ is ineffective as a treatment for COVID-19.
That they disagree is OK and totally unsurprising. Many doctors and scientists disagree. Theories are made and either proven or disproved. Sometimes it takes years. It’s the way things work.
Let me pause for a bit to say that posting links to “experts” that you believe somehow prove that HCQ is or isn’t effective as a treatment for COVID-19 isn’t particularly useful. Give me five minutes and I’ll find my own expert, with equally impressive credentials, that will say the exact opposite thing.
Let me also say this to anyone who wants to go to Dr. Fauci for answers. Unfortunately, he lost all credibility when he told people not to buy masks, only to say later that he didn’t believe that masks were ineffective at that time. Instead, he was trying to manipulate the American public into not buying masks in order to save the masks for medical personnel. Although I believe the whole mask-wearing thing is silly, he didn’t. And that’s all that matters. The point is, with a track record of manipulation, he is no longer a credible expert, on anything.
But, back on topic. What the heck is going on? I’m going to start with a little background info on HCQ:
HCQ has been around since the 1950’s. If the risks associated with taking HCQ aren’t understood by now, they never will be. There is no need for a clinical trial of any type to determine if HCQ is safe as we already have over 65 years of data. It would be like having a trial to determine the risks associated with taking aspirin.
HCQ is available as an over-the-counter drug in many countries as a treatment for malaria. Some people (lupus patients for example) take HCQ for decades.
There are studies that indicate taking HCQ will give you an increased chance of heart arrhythmia, but these studies have used near-fatal doses of HCQ. However, even with this extremely high dose, the risk of an adverse reaction from HCQ is less than the risk of death from COVID-19. The doctors who are proposing using HCQ to treat COVID-19 use a dose universally recognized as being safe.
Let’s say that HCQ actually is chemically ineffective against COVID-19. Given many people’s strong belief that it does work, it would still have great potential as a placebo. The placebo effect is, as I’m sure you know, a well-known and accepted phenomenon. I don’t think anyone disputes it. In fact, studies have shown that placebos can be nearly as effective if the participant in the study is told that they’re taking a placebo and not real medicine.
If people get better because they think they should get better, what is the harm? One could argue that people who have existing chronic conditions that require HCQ as a treatment might not be able to get HCQ if it were widely prescribed. We have a national stockpile of HCQ available for immediate distribution so that’s not a problem. The ONLY possible downside is, by universally prescribing an antibiotic along with HCQ, we may be reducing that antibiotic’s overall effectiveness when used for other things.
Why is there so much effort being spent to stop doctors from prescribing a relatively harmless drug?
Many states (the exact number keeps changing) have outright banned pharmacies from filling prescriptions if it will be used to treat COVID-19. If you live in one of those states, you could go in right now and get a prescription for HCQ to treat malaria but not for treating COVID-19 (I predict a huge rise in the number of malaria cases in the U.S. very soon).
The doctors who are reporting success with HCQ also say that they are being threatened with loss of their medical license if they talk about their results.
Videos posted by doctors talking about their successes are immediately removed from social media. Even their press conference talking about censorship was disrupted. The Web sites they mentioned in their press conference have been taken down.
Someone seems to be working very hard to discredit HCQ as a treatment for COVID-19 when there’s little to risk in trying it. But why is that?
One obvious reason is that President Trump said the HCQ cocktail was an effective way to prevent the disease. We already know that there are millions of people who automatically take a negative stance to ANYTHING the President says. He could say that he likes puppies and there would undoubtedly be a group of people who would start to protest against puppies.
Another reason is politicians have bet their careers on the virus being bad enough to justify stalling the economy, forcing people to stay at home and destroying people’s livelihoods. If it were to be known that it was all preventable, they would never get reelected and, quite likely, be criminally charged.
A third reason is that there is little money to be made by pharmaceutical companies by distributing a drug that has been around for 65 years. There is, however, billions of dollars that can be made developing and distributing a new, though experimental, vaccine. An unimaginable amount of money is on the line. Funding and profits for a new vaccine would immediately evaporate if a low-cost, readily-available treatment was found.
So, where does that leave us?
As recently as July 30th (it was yesterday when I wrote this), Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) reported he tested positive for COVID-19 and, at the advice of his doctor, will be starting a regimen of HCQ, zinc and azithromycin. I’m guessing Rep. Gohmert has a pretty good doctor and that doctor is prescribing HCQ.
An easy conclusion to draw is that someone is afraid of the successful use of HCQ as a treatment for COVID-19. Whoever it is, they’re so afraid that they won’t even let doctors try to save lives by using it. They’re so afraid that we’re not even allowed to hear doctors talk about their positive results. Empirical results are being discredited and anyone who supports the use of HCQ to treat COVID-19 is being defamed.
So, what’s the most likely reason for this concentrated effort to discredit HCQ? The simplest and most likely reason is the desire for money and power.
HCQ production should have been ramped up months ago and made available to doctors to prescribe as both a treatment and as a preventive measure against COVID-19. There is practically no downside to doing so.
The patient and their doctor should decide if using HCQ is in the best interest of the patient after weighing the risks and benefits of doing so. After all, that’s how it works with Advair, Celebrex, Chantix, Cialis, Enbrel, Lipitor, Prozac, Symbicort, Viagra, Vicodin, Xanax, Zantac, Zoloft and literally hundreds of other prescription drugs.
