Friday, July 31, 2020

Hydroxychloquine wars accelerate: Front Line Doctor Simone Gold fired, while more doctors speak out for Dr. Vladimir Zelenko's fast, cheap, hospital-dodging Covid-19 cure

Yesterday, Someone dropped an Orwellian 1984 bomb on me:

Tucker Carlson just had the White female Emergency Doctor that was in that banned Video.... she was fired and her website taken down.... they even try to interfere with the live Transmission! This is really disturbing! Maybe you should stop writing about this on your blog! Leave me out of it!


I replied to Someone:

Well, hello. A sho nuff real witch hunt. Carlson spins it as Joe Biden/Democrat plot to beat Trump in November. Based on my Facebook experiences with Democrats, they flat oppose Dr. Zelelnko's cure and view me as crazy for preaching it. Maybe they really do want no cure before November. Yet, I can't ignore the Dark Side of the Medical Force wants Dr. Zelenko's cheap, fast Covid-19 cure burned at the stake.


Someone also dropped this pro Dr. Zelenko Covid-19 triple cure protocol NEWSWEEK opinion letter on me. The author's medical credentials are super duper. He historically writes about mainstream medicine, this is departure.

THE KEY TO DEFEATING COVID-19 ALREADY EXISTS. WE NEED TO START USING IT | OPINION
HARVEY A. RISCH, MD, PHD , PROFESSOR OF EPIDEMIOLOGY, YALE SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH
ON 7/23/20 AT 7:00 AM EDT
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.
Since publication of my May 27 article, seven more studies have demonstrated similar benefit. In a lengthy follow-up letter, also published by AJE, I discuss these seven studies and renew my call for the immediate early use of hydroxychloroquine in high-risk patients. These seven studies include: an additional 400 high-risk patients treated by Dr. Vladimir Zelenko, with zero deaths; four studies totaling almost 500 high-risk patients treated in nursing homes and clinics across the U.S., with no deaths; a controlled trial of more than 700 high-risk patients in Brazil, with significantly reduced risk of hospitalization and two deaths among 334 patients treated with hydroxychloroquine; and another study of 398 matched patients in France, also with significantly reduced hospitalization risk. Since my letter was published, even more doctors have reported to me their completely successful use.
My original article in the AJE is available free online, and I encourage readers—especially physicians, nurses, physician assistants and associates, and respiratory therapists—to search the title and read it. My follow-up letter is linked there to the original paper.
Beyond these studies of individual patients, we have seen what happens in large populations when these drugs are used. These have been "natural experiments." In the northern Brazil state of Pará, COVID-19 deaths were increasing exponentially. On April 6, the public hospital network purchased 75,000 doses of azithromycin and 90,000 doses of hydroxychloroquine. Over the next few weeks, authorities began distributing these medications to infected individuals. Even though new cases continued to occur, on May 22 the death rate started to plummet and is now about one-eighth what it was at the peak.
A reverse natural experiment happened in Switzerland. On May 27, the Swiss national government banned outpatient use of hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19. Around June 10, COVID-19 deaths increased four-fold and remained elevated. On June 11, the Swiss government revoked the ban, and on June 23 the death rate reverted to what it had been beforehand. People who die from COVID-19 live about three to five weeks from the start of symptoms, which makes the evidence of a causal relation in these experiments strong. Both episodes suggest that a combination of hydroxychloroquine and its companion medications reduces mortality and should be immediately adopted as the new standard of care in high-risk patients.
Why has hydroxychloroquine been disregarded?
First, as all know, the medication has become highly politicized. For many, it is viewed as a marker of political identity, on both sides of the political spectrum. Nobody needs me to remind them that this is not how medicine should proceed. We must judge this medication strictly on the science. When doctors graduate from medical school, they formally promise to make the health and life of the patient their first consideration, without biases of race, religion, nationality, social standing—or political affiliation. Lives must come first.
Second, the drug has not been used properly in many studies. Hydroxychloroquine has shown major success when used early in high-risk people but, as one would expect for an antiviral, much less success when used late in the disease course. Even so, it has demonstrated significant benefit in large hospital studies in Michigan and New York City when started within the first 24 to 48 hours after admission.
In fact, as inexpensive, oral and widely available medications, and a nutritional supplement, the combination of hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin or doxycycline, and zinc are well-suited for early treatment in the outpatient setting. The combination should be prescribed in high-risk patients immediately upon clinical suspicion of COVID-19 disease, without waiting for results of testing. Delays in waiting before starting the medications can reduce their efficacy.
Third, concerns have been raised by the FDA and others about risks of cardiac arrhythmia, especially when hydroxychloroquine is given in combination with azithromycin. The FDA based its comments on data in its FDA Adverse Event Reporting System. This reporting system captured up to a thousand cases of arrhythmias attributed to hydroxychloroquine use. In fact, the number is likely higher than that, since the reporting system, which requires physicians or patients to initiate contact with the FDA, appreciably undercounts drug side effects.
But what the FDA did not announce is that these adverse events were generated from tens of millions of patient uses of hydroxychloroquine for long periods of time, often for the chronic treatment of lupus or rheumatoid arthritis. Even if the true rates of arrhythmia are ten-fold higher than those reported, the harms would be minuscule compared to the mortality occurring right now in inadequately treated high-risk COVID-19 patients. This fact is proven by an Oxford University study of more than 320,000 older patients taking both hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin, who had arrhythmia excess death rates of less than 9/100,000 users, as I discuss in my May 27 paper cited above. A new paper in the American Journal of Medicine by established cardiologists around the world fully agrees with this.
In the future, I believe this misbegotten episode regarding hydroxychloroquine will be studied by sociologists of medicine as a classic example of how extra-scientific factors overrode clear-cut medical evidence. But for now, reality demands a clear, scientific eye on the evidence and where it points. For the sake of high-risk patients, for the sake of our parents and grandparents, for the sake of the unemployed, for our economy and for our polity, especially those disproportionally affected, we must start treating immediately.
Harvey A. Risch, MD, PhD, is professor of epidemiology at Yale School of Public Health.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
I replied to Someone:

Thanks, I was sent the same Newsweek piece by a good friend in Key West and earlier by an old Birmingham acquaintance. 

My Key West friend, who is a Republican, said he was encouraged that a mainstream magazine had published the letter and he hoped that was the beginning of a shift in opinion about Dr. Zelenko's triple protocol. My friend said he knows several doctors using Dr. Zelenko's protocol with good results.

As you might have guessed, I said it's time those doctors go to Washington D.C. and stand before the U.S. Supreme Court building and make public proclamations for the triple cure like the Front Line Doctors recently did. 

My Key West friend sent a link to the online petition to make hydroxychloroquine over the counter, the petition sought 100,000 signatures in 30 days. I signed the petition and told my Key West friend 100,000,000 signatures will shake things up nicely. Here's a link to the petition.
Make hydroxychloroquine available over the counter. | We the People: Your Voice in Our Government

The Birmingham acquaintance sent me a link to an article about another doctor with super duper medical credentials, who uses the triple cure in his medical practice.

Local doctor pushing proven treatment of COVID into national debate


So no f-ing wonder paranoid conspiracy freaks like youse and mes just naturally can't help wonder if there is a .... conspiracy afoot, and witch hunts, to silence doctors using the triple protocol, because they dare to steal patients, rhymes with $$$, from hospitals and pharmaceutical companies making new, expen$ive drug$. 

Not only are the front line triple cure doctors attacked, burned at the stake like the front line doctor interviewed by Tucker Carlson, fast, cheap cure, doesn't rhyme with $$$. So, hydroxychloroquine is attacked. It will cause heart failure. 

Dr. Risch shredded that argument in his letter. 

I have seen that argument shredded many times. 

Millions of people take hydroxychloroquine for decades, who had malaria, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, and where was the heart attack hue and cry for them? 

How is a patient taking the triple cure for 5 days, or even 10 days, more at risk to heart failure than patients who take hydroxychloroquine for years?

I read online two days ago that a German study found Covid-19 causes heart damage in many patients, so, duh, not giving them the triple cure early on caused them to have HEART DAMAGE. Excerpt from article, followed by link to the full article:

German studies published in JAMA Cardiology showed abnormal heart imaging findings in recently recovered COVID-19 patients, and cardiac infections in those who have died from their infections.
The first, an observational cohort study, involved 100 unselected coronavirus patients identified from the University Hospital Frankfurt COVID-19 Registry from April to June, 57 risk factor-matched patients, and 50 healthy volunteers. 
Cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) imaging revealed heart involvement in 78 patients and active cardiac inflammation in 60, independent of underlying conditions, disease severity, overall course of illness, and time from diagnosis to CMR.
Thirty-three of 100 patients required hospitalization. Detectable levels of high-sensitivity troponin were found in 71 COVID-19 patients, while significantly elevated levels were detected in five patients. Recovered COVID-19 patients had lower left ventricular ejection fraction, higher left ventricle volumes, higher left ventricle mass, and elevated native T1 and T2 than controls, all indicating heart dysfunction. 
Seventy-eight coronavirus patients had abnormal CMR findings, including 73 with raised myocardial native T1, 60 with raised myocardial native T2, 32 with myocardial late gadolinium enhancement, and 22 with pericardial enhancement, all signs of heart damage. Biopsy of the heart muscle in patients with serious findings showed ongoing immune-mediated inflammation.
Research reveals heart complications in COVID-19 patients
I say medical doctors, hospitals, AMA, FDA, CDC, WHO, pharmaceutical companies' efforts to prevent nilly willy early use of the triple cure are guilty of medical malpractice and crimes against humanity. I say lay people who side with those criminals are accomplices. I think fitting karma is they catch Covid-19 and are banned from using the triple cure. Let them fill the hospitals and cemeteries, while everybody else who shows Covid-19 symptoms is given the triple cure pronto.

Meanwhile, I have stocked up on quercetin, which Dr. Zelenko said can be used instead of hydroxychlorquine to drive zinc into body cells and stop Covid-19 replication. Dr. Zelenko said to use 1000 mg quercetin per day. 1000 mg vitamin C a day helps quercetin and zinc along. Right, the opposers of hydroxychloroquine don't get to use quercetin, either. I imagine Mother Nature will be happy for Covid 19 to kill a few billion people.

sloanbashinsky@yahoo.com

Thursday, July 30, 2020

If hydroxychloroquine were available over the counter, Americans could defeat Covid-19 and save America (ditto rest of the world)

Woke up this morning and found a cordial hydroxychloroquine discussion in my Facebook  timeline:
Jim Bushnell
WARNING
Which Bham area hospitals and doctors will give patients Hydroxychloroquine + Zpac, if requested by the patient or patient’s treating doctor for treatment of COVID-19?
You need to know before you get COVID-19 and especially if you are hospitalized with COVID-19.
If the aforementioned drug cocktail is not on that hospital’s approved drug protocol for treatment of COVID-19, your doctor cannot order the drug if you are admitted in that hospital. Ask your doctor, find out if your preferred hospital allows treatment with this drug cocktail,
Comments
  • Jim Bushnell List hospitals & doctors who will allow patients access to this drug cocktail. We do not know!
  • Wayne Fitts Good thinking. Because I had already told my wife, that plus zinc was what I wanted if I went down fast and couldn’t tell them myself. Didn’t think about the hospital saying no. Thanks for the reminder
  • Jim Atkins Better must add Zinc to that cocktail.
  • Susan Murray Jimmy, I have a paragraph straight from a UAB Infectious Disease physician whom I have been blessed to be included in medical updates for the past several months. UAB has over 100 COVID patients now. Here is what he said a few days ago: "So if I get coronal virus tonight I will take Plaquenil, zinc, Zithromax, an anticoagulant, steroids
    And will be reading up on ivermectin. There continues to be a propaganda war against Plaquenil--see the recent interview FOX News had with Dr. Risch , epidemiologist at Yale Univ and his confirmation of this."
    • Jim Bushnell Susan Murray
      If you are satisfied with these drugs to treat covid-19, you are all set, so long as you are not admitted to a hospital that will not allow these drugs to be administered to you in-patient.😎
    • Wayne Fitts Susan Murray i notice your UAB friend mentioning an anticoagulant steroids. There is a doctor out in Texas that swears to treating hundreds (all successfully) with a readily available, inexpensive measured dose steroid inhaler. That mention perked my ears up.
  • Jim Bushnell If a specific drug(s) are not on a hospitals' approve list for treatment of Covid-19, then that drug cannot be administered by anyone at that hospital. {labeled use}. Your personal doctor cannot override the hospital's "label use" policy.
    If your pers
    onal doctor will prescribe the Hydroxie cocktail for you, if you are diagnosed with Covid-19, it is considered an "off-label" use. Legal but since the Hydroxie cocktail has not been approved by the FDA as a treatment for Covi-19, your doctor will not have the med-malpractice support of the FDA.
    This why you should know what drugs your doctor will and can prescribe for you.
  • Jim Bushnell I do not know what drug treatments are best but I would like to know my options. Your medical options change depending on the treating doctor and hospital you choose.
  • Leon Kontos Your doctor can prescribe hydroxychloraquine for other problems, such as RA, so there is always other ways to acquire what you need. I have a friend that got CV 19 took the hydroxychloroquine and it was gone in 3-4 days. The government is not in the business of making us well, they are in the business of stealing money and taking care those who pay them for illegal activities.
  • Sloan Bashinsky Take 220 mg of zinc each day, as well. Hydroxychloroquine drives zinc into body cells, where zinc blocks C-19 replication. Azithromycin deals with any secondary infections. Google search Dr Vladimir Zelenko’s March 23 letter To All World Health Professionals. He developed this very fast early stage infection cure and gave it to all his at risk patients presenting symptoms for 5 days, regardless of actual positive tests, because the virus progresses too fast to safely delay treatment.
  • Sloan Bashinsky More recently Dr Zelenko said 1000 mg of quercetin a day can be substituted for HCQ , because Q also drives zinc into body cells. Q and zinc require no prescription. I found my two local drugstores ran out of zinc and I got it online. After learning of quercetin, I got it online. I don’t trust local medical community to prescribe HCQ, it takes awhile to get test results, If I show symptoms, I start taking 1000 mg Q and 230 mg zinc, and 1000 mg vitamin C a day. C works synergistically with Q and immune system. And, and see if I can find doctor willing to prescribe HCQ and azithromycin.

    Each day I take 500 mg. vitamin C and 50 mg of zinc, I have a friend who takes 1000 mg of quercetin a day, with zinc and C, to attack C-19 if it finds him. I'm not into taking a drug to prevent catching something. After a while, there might be side effects and/ or the drug loses efficacy.

    Here's Dr. Zelenko's letter mentioned earlier. He caught a lot of flack later. His cure apparently works for people in early stage. His cure could have saved America a great deal of grief, had it gone viral in the medical profession.
  • Sloan Bashinsky Here's the summary of a controlled study on hydroxychloroquine, zinc and azrithomycin, with a link to full report:

    Version 1 : Received: 30 June 2020 / Approved: 3 July 2020 / Online: 3 July 2020 (08:52:22 CEST)

    How to cite: Scholz, M.; Derwand, R.; Zelenko, V. COVID-19 Outpatients – Early Risk-Stratified Treatment with Zinc Plus Low Dose Hydroxychloroquine and Azithromycin: A Retrospective Case Series Study. Preprints 2020, 2020070025 (doi: 10.20944/preprints202007.0025.v1). Scholz, M.; Derwand, R.; Zelenko, V. COVID-19 Outpatients – Early Risk-Stratified Treatment with Zinc Plus Low Dose Hydroxychloroquine and Azithromycin: A Retrospective Case Series Study. Preprints 2020, 2020070025 (doi: 10.20944/preprints202007.0025.v1).Copy

    Abstract
    Objective: To describe outcomes of patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in the outpatient setting after early treatment with zinc, low dose hydroxychloroquine, and azithromycin (the triple therapy) dependent on risk stratification. Design: Retrospective case series study. Setting: General practice. Participants: 141 COVID-19 patients with laboratory confirmed severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infections in the year 2020. Main Outcome Measures: Risk-stratified treatment decision, rate of hospitalization and all-cause death. Results: Of 335 positively PCR-tested COVID-19 patients, 127 were treated with the triple therapy. 104 of 127 met the defined risk stratification criteria and were included in the analysis. In addition, 37 treated and eligible patients who were confirmed by IgG tests were included in the treatment group (total N=141). 208 of the 335 patients did not meet the risk stratification criteria and were not treated. After 4 days (median, IQR 3-6, available for N=66/141) of onset of symptoms, 141 patients (median age 58 years, IQR 40-67; 73% male) got a prescription for the triple therapy for 5 days. Independent public reference data from 377 confirmed COVID-19 patients of the same community were used as untreated control. 4 of 141 treated patients (2.8%) were hospitalized, which was significantly less (p<0.001) compared with 58 of 377 untreated patients (15.4%) (odds ratio 0.16, 95% CI 0.06-0.5). Therefore, the odds of hospitalization of treated patients were 84% less than in the untreated group. One patient (0.7%) died in the treatment group versus 13 patients (3.5%) in the untreated group (odds ratio 0.2, 95% CI 0.03-1.5; p=0.16). There were no cardiac side effects. Conclusions: Risk stratification-based treatment of COVID-19 outpatients as early as possible after symptom onset with the used triple therapy, including the combination of zinc with low dose hydroxychloroquine, was associated with significantly less hospitalizations and 5 times less all-cause deaths.

    https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/202007.0025/v1
  • Sloan Bashinsky Here's a link to the FDA's current stance on hydroxychloroquine use in hospitals to treat SARS-CoV-2. (coronavirus).
    https://www.fda.gov/.../coronavirus-covid-19-update-fda...
    Coronavirus (COVID-19) Update: FDA Revokes Emergency Use Authorization for Chloroquine and Hydroxychloroquine
    FDA.GOV
    Coronavirus (COVID-19) Update: FDA Revokes Emergency Use Authorization…
    Coronavirus (COVID-19) Update: FDA Revokes Emergency Use Authorization for Chloroquine and Hydroxychloroquine

  • Sloan Bashinsky Here's a link to the American Medical Association/American Pharmacy Association joint statement on using hydroxychloroquine to treat coronavirus:
    https://www.ama-assn.org/.../joint-statement-ordering...
    Joint statement on ordering, prescribing or dispensing COVID-19 medications
    AMA-ASSN.ORG
    Joint statement on ordering, prescribing or dispensing COVID-19 medications
    Joint statement on ordering, prescribing or dispensing COVID-19 medications
  • Sloan Bashinsky Here is a link to an online petition to make hydroxychloroqine available over the counter.
    https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/.../make...
    Make hydroxychloroquine available over the counter. | We the People: Your Voice in Our Government
    PETITIONS.WHITEHOUSE.GOV
    Make hydroxychloroquine available over the counter. | We the People: Your Voice…
    Make hydroxychloroquine available over the counter. | We the People: Your Voice in Our Government
  • Sloan Bashinsky If hydroxychloroquine were available over the counter, Americans (and people every where else) could defeat the coronavirus on their own, cities, counties and states could reopen, schools, churches and civic clubs could reopen, hotels, motels, bars, casinos and restaurants could reopen, school and professional sports could resume, airlines and cruise ships could resume full operations, movie theaters could reopen, parks could reopen, and perhaps with hydroxychloroquine and zinc's help, herd immunity would be achieved.

    Meanwhile, i wear a face mask when I am around other people in close quarters, like grocery stores, Walmart, Home Depot, CVS, because I don't want to catch C-19 and I don't want to give it to anyone else. I'm tired of living holed up in my apartment dependent on the Internet to have a relationship with the rest of the world. I wonder what might happen to the American and world economies and stock markets if hydroxychloroquine is not unleashed?
  • Sloan Bashinsky A Birmingham friend posted this on my FB timeline a little while ago. This California doctor with impressive medical credentials is using Dr. Zelenko's triple protocol, but he does not give Zelenko credit in his letter to President Trump. This doctor makes many great points, but he suggests a task force, which just might get bogged down. President Trump could hasten the process by ordering his FDA director to get on board with the triple cure, and by telling American doctors and pharmacists that this is a national emergency and he will pardon them if they are gone after by the FDA and their disciplinary boards.
    https://www.thedesertreview.com/.../article_ca59497a-c539...
    Local doctor pushing proven treatment of COVID into national debate
    THEDESERTREVIEW.COM
    Local doctor pushing proven treatment of COVID into national debate
    Local doctor pushing proven treatment of COVID into national debate
  • Sloan Bashinsky A friend in locked-down Key West, who chairs a local non-profit that hosts candidate forums and debates, suggested last night that a hydroxychloroquine debate on something like CNN or FOX, between doctors using the triple cocktail and doctors who oppose hydroxychloriquine, might break hydroxychloroquine loose.

sloanbashinsky@yahoo.com