American Thinker ran three eye opening pieces late last week on negative aspects of the ongoing war against the hydroxychloroquine – azithromycin – zinc (HCQ) cocktail by the FDA and CDC. If the picture they paint is accurate, Dr Fauci may go down in history as one of the most murderous public servants since Idi Amin or Saddam Hussein.
The first piece asks why the FDA would ban a drug that safely saves the lives of patients? The article starts with a discussion by Dr Harvey Risch who cites strong evidence including massive international studies that support the use of HCQ on an outpatient basis, with earlier use being much more effective than later use. With all this positive history, the FDA for some reason concluded that HCQ is unlikely to be effective when treating the Wuhan Flu. The FDA pulled its Emergency Use Authorization for HCQ in mid-June yet has given that authorization for the use of Remdesivir. Worse, Big Tech (Google, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter) are actively censoring and suppressing all positive information on the use of HCQ. The main difference between HCQ and Remdesivir is in cost. A successful round of treatment for HCQ is in the neighborhood of $20 – 30 while Remdesivir is over $3,000.
FDA and political opposition to the use of the drug (Trump suggested that it might be helpful and claimed to be taking it in June) led to multiple governors restricting prescribing a medication that has been safely used for 65 years. These governors (NV, MI) and their various health boards (TX) have forced pharmacies to override doctors prescribing the drug cocktail and refuse to dispense it under threat of losing their license.
The second article asks the question if the FDA revocation of the emergency use authorization for HCQ on June 15 caused the increase in cases that swept the country this summer. The writer notes that as of August, the US had over 175,000 deaths due to the Wuhan Flu while India had 62,550 deaths in a population over four times larger. Nigeria, which also has widespread use of HCQ was even better than India. Deaths per million due to the Wuhan Flu for the three nations are 528 in the US, 46 in India and 5 in Nigeria. While there are differences in the population breakdown of all three nations (US generally has an older population), it should be embarrassing when the nation with the very best health care apparatus has the very worst death rate in this pandemic.
Fauci’s claimed opposition to the use of HCQ is based on the lack of a double-blind study to support the off-label use of the drug. According to Fauci, the drug must not be used until that study is complete. This is not the first time that Fauci has done this, as he also opposed off-label use of Bactrim that seemed to help treat AIDS in 1987. 17,000 died before the study he demanded was complete two years later. Add that death toll to the 170,000+ dead from Wuhan and Fauci starts wandering dangerously close to being responsible for death tolls racked up by recent brutal dictators, which is a great illustration of the Banality of Evil and how fundamentally dangerous public health bureaucracy can end up being; yet another example of the Road to a Very Hot Place being paved with good intentions.
With this in mind, several questions need to be asked at the state level, and we need to get a real answer to every question from every state. I would suspect that any attempt to provide anything other than a straight answer is an attempt to weasel around a negative response. Questions for Alaska follow:
- What is the overall availability of hydroxychloroquine in Alaska?
- Is there any state or federal restriction / prohibition against its use and dispensing outside a hospital setting (outpatient or prophylactic use).
- If so, what is the source of those restrictions / prohibitions?
- Would the State of Alaska consider deregulating hydroxy and making it available over the counter like it is in other nations (India, for example)?
I asked these questions to the State of Alaska’s COVID Response Team and am awaiting a response. We will see what they have to say.
Early information on successful use of HCQ had it usually clearing the infestation out of the body in 4-5 days. If that is true, coupling early use of HCQ with any positive test result would get people out of quarantine in a third of the 14-day quarantine we are all demanded to accept these days. A possible solution would be to simply make the drug available to everyone on an over the counter basis and recommend its prophylactic use. Couple this with cheap testing and it won’t matter if the vaccines don’t show up for years as we will have stopped the disease in its tracks.
The most damning thing about this entire affair has been the active bureaucratic opposition to off-label use of this drug. Worse, Big Tech has set itself up as an absolute censor of positive information about its use since at least the last week in July. This all needs to stop because Americans are dying needlessly.
Alex Gimarc lives in Anchorage since retiring from the military in 1997. His interests include science and technology, environment, energy, economics, military affairs, fishing and disabilities policies. His weekly column “Interesting Items” is a summary of news stories with substantive Alaska-themed topics. He was a small business owner and Information Technology professional.
