Newsweek on Hydroxychloroquine

HARVEY A. RISCH, MD, PHD , PROFESSOR OF EPIDEMIOLOGY, YALE SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH

As professor of epidemiology at Yale School of Public Health, I have authored over 300 peer-reviewed publications and currently hold senior positions on the editorial boards of several leading journals. I am usually accustomed to advocating for positions within the mainstream of medicine, so have been flummoxed to find that, in the midst of a crisis, I am fighting for a treatment that the data fully support but which, for reasons having nothing to do with a correct understanding of the science, has been pushed to the sidelines. As a result, tens of thousands of patients with COVID-19 are dying unnecessarily. Fortunately, the situation can be reversed easily and quickly.

I am referring, of course, to the medication hydroxychloroquine. When this inexpensive oral medication is given very early in the course of illness, before the virus has had time to multiply beyond control, it has shown to be highly effective, especially when given in combination with the antibiotics azithromycin or doxycycline and the nutritional supplement zinc.

On May 27, I published an article in the American Journal of Epidemiology (AJE) entitled, “Early Outpatient Treatment of Symptomatic, High-Risk COVID-19 Patients that Should be Ramped-Up Immediately as Key to the Pandemic Crisis.” That article, published in the world’s leading epidemiology journal, analyzed five studies, demonstrating clear-cut and significant benefits to treated patients, plus other very large studies that showed the medication safety.

Physicians who have been using these medications in the face of widespread skepticism have been truly heroic. They have done what the science shows is best for their patients, often at great personal risk. I myself know of two doctors who have saved the lives of hundreds of patients with these medications, but are now fighting state medical boards to save their licenses and reputations. The cases against them are completely without scientific merit.

Please read the rest at Newsweek

About Eeyore

Canadian artist and counter-jihad and freedom of speech activist as well as devout Schrödinger's catholic

17 Replies to “Newsweek on Hydroxychloroquine”

  1. Now that’s what I call a strong article. I challenge anybody with even a hint of common sense to read that and not at least pause to think. And I love the smooth way it slid past the political part so it doesn’t sound like a GOP political ad.

    I’m truly curious. What is going to happen if the penny actually drops and it dawns on large numbers of people that the Dems are literally to blame for literally thousands of preventable deaths, the adorable Dr. Fauci included? That’s what the article frankly says. I presume that CNN and friends will not run it but a lot of people watch Fox and Laura Ingram isn’t going to miss this… Oh, no…

  2. Two comments in the Newsweek article drew my attention because they might indicate that editors or physicians are censoring themselves.
    1) Regarding study from University of Minnesota, and was published last Thursday 16-July in the Annals of Internal Medicine, with the title “Hydroxychloroquine in Nonhospitalized Adults With Early COVID-19.” and concluded Hydroxychloroquine did not substantially reduce symptom severity in outpatients with early, mild COVID-19.
    —-> they selected “reduction of symptom severity” as their primary endpoint. But this also meant they didn’t feel the need to report the good news in the data: “With placebo, 10 hospitalizations occurred (2 non–COVID-19–related), including 1 hospitalized death. With hydroxychloroquine, 4 hospitalizations occurred plus 1 nonhospitalized death.”

    2) This NEJM-published study purports to examine the effect of HCQ for “mild-to-moderate” COVID-19 cases, yet all patients were hospitalized prior to enrollment. They claim to have started treatment early, but the median start time was 7 days after hospitalization, and some patients didn’t start the drug until 14 days from symptom onset. …overdosing the patients…subjective patient reports by telephone…They also added “elevated liver enzymes” to adverse affects, but this is a common condition, especially when you’re supplying toxic doses to your patients; …
    This study doesn’t relate very well to Dr. Risch’s advice, which is to start treatment early, on an outpatient basis if possible, at the onset of symptoms or within a day or two of their appearance. Do this, and you have a good chance of not needing the hospital at all.

    • Here’s a third comment, this from a nurse who is critical of the WHO and the FDA. She describes another treatment option, also waylaid. This ‘misbegotten episode of medical history’ is actually the second round of misbegotten episodes within this pandemic. Dr. Paul Marik, an intensivist from the Eastern Virginia Medical School and seven other like-minded ICU docs published a bulletin to the critical care medicine community the first week in April describing their protocol. In this bulletin, they urged their fellow physicians to ignore the advice of the FDA, NIH and the WHO to NOT use steroids to treat COVID patients and NOT VENT these patients. In other words, within the first few weeks of this pandemic, these organizations had broadcasted to the entire medical community that the use of steroids in the context of very sick COVID19 patients was not to be done. Thank God that these physicians had the good sense to rely on their years of experience, knowledge of the pathophysiology of the respiratory system/immune system and the pharmacology of steroids and saved their patients’ lives. Meanwhile, their voices were ignored and American cities scurried around to build more ventilator capacity. Hundreds, maybe thousands of people died because dexamethasone was not widely adopted until after the Recovery Trial, reported June 19, 7 weeks later. Marik, et al., Risch and other independent thinking physicians will be the heroes when the medical history is written. Thank you for your courage Dr. Risch.

          • Yep, that’s what I heard.

            Appreciated explicit caveat about this info being tentative: we think, pending more info over time…
            For a coronavirus that’s been around only 7 months, that’s the right approach.

            …….Fear-porn vs. hope-porn…….
            Duelling data sets and fancy charts. Parades of nonentities posing as authorities. Invest 10 minutes on a search, you’ll see the credentials are of spurious relevance. Politics wears a lab coat. Humbug.

            I get stupider with every video, every article screaming, Breaking News! Bombshell !!

  3. “Yet Another Stunning Revelation about the True Origin of COVID-19”
    By Col. Lawrence Selling (Ret.) – July 13, 2020
    http://gulagbound.com/60985/yet-another-stunning-revelation-about-the-true-origin-of-covid-19/

    “The world will make China ‘pay a price’ over coronavirus outbreak, Mike Pompeo says”
    By Amanda Macias – July 15, 2020
    https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/15/the-world-will-make-china-pay-a-price-over-coronavirus-outbreak-mike-pompeo-says.html

    • “A MOST IMPORTANT POLICY”
      by Comrade Mao Tse-tung – September 7, 1942

      Excerpt:

      As for the question of how to deal with the enemy’s enormous apparatus, we can learn from the example of how the Monkey King dealt with Princess Iron Fan. The Princess was a formidable demon, but by changing himself into a tiny insect the Monkey King made his way into her stomach and overpowered her.
      https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-3/mswv3_09.htm

      We Are in Two Wars (Part 2) – 1968
      Archbishop Fulton Sheen
      6:25 – Mao & the Parable of the Princess of the Iron Fan and the Monkey