HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE: QUACK CURE OR MISLEADINGLY MALIGNED?

Perhaps taking a cue from Russia's Catherine the Great, who, in order to prove the safety and efficacy of inoculation, had herself and her court inoculated against smallpox in 1768, President Donald John Trump announced in May that he was taking the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) as a prophylactic measure against Covid-19. Almost immediately, the media pounced upon this revelation with frantic and bizarre warnings against HCQ, citing every white coat who would lend their support in an attempt to demonize the treatment as "dangerous" and "useless." 

According to some outlets and commentators, the President had to be lying, since taking such a dangerous drug would surely have killed the man, who is in his 70's. Others took President Trump at his word, instead characterizing his ingestion of the drug as reckless and stupid. By mid-June, the Food and Drug Administration had revoked its approval of HCQ for emergency use in Covid-19 patients, and the European Union had effectively banned the drug's use for the same purpose. Each cited controversial studies suggesting that the use of HCQ could lead to potentially-fatal heart complications, and calling into question the efficacy of the drug against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19 symptoms. 

The media, who were once content to feign concern that the use of HCQ as a frontline treatment against Covid-19 would lead to shortages for lupus patients, now went on the assault against it. Peppering their speech with words like "expert" and "authority," anchors and commentators relentlessly set about painting a picture: Hydroxychloroquine is a dangerous poison that arrests the heart, and President Trump is touting it as a quack cure for Covid-19 against the advice of the scientific community. 

Is this a fair and accurate representation of the situation? In a world ruled by "expert culture," one in which people blindly default to the answers provided by approved sources, the author of this article felt dirty and mischievous even asking. Nonetheless, out of an earnest belief that people are qualified to think for themselves, I pressed forward with an investigation into that very question. The following is what I uncovered. 

1. The April Study That Found No Benefit to HCQ Was 1. Chinese and 2. Not Peer-Reviewed

To begin with, the Chinese Communist Party, at the very center of the coronavirus outbreak, has continually been dishonest or less-than-forthcoming about its involvement with and response to it. Nonetheless, professionals in suits and ties were quick to scold the public for distrusting Glorious China when, in April, it published an unverified and un-reviewed study indicating that HCQ provided no benefit in the treatment of Covid-19. To quote medRxiv:

>"This article is a preprint and has not been peer-reviewed. It reports new medical research that has yet to be evaluated and so should not be used to guide clinical practice."

But "guide clinical practice" it did, as the media and three-letter organizations began pointing to it as a reason against prescribing or administering HCQ. 

Source:

https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.10.20060558

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2.The Lancet Study that Influenced the WHO and World Governments to Ban HCQ Was Based on Unreliable Data and Has Since Been Retracted 

This May, a Lancet Study that led directly to the WHO and a number of nations globally either banning the use of HCQ for prophylaxis against Covid-19 or halting clinical trials was retracted, with the authors apologizing for having caused "confusion" through their unverifiable source in Surgisphere. To quote:

>"Because all the authors were not granted access to the raw data and the raw data could not be made available to a third-party auditor, we are unable to validate the primary data sources underlying our article, “Cardiovascular Disease, Drug Therapy, and Mortality in Covid-19.” We therefore request that the article be retracted. We apologize to the editors and to readers of the Journal for the difficulties that this has caused."

Source:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-lancet-retracts-hydroxychloroquine-studies-covid-19/

3. A Number of Variables in the Oft-Cited Brazilian Study Have Been Outright Ignored by the Mainstream Media

Here are a few interesting facts that the author of this article uncovered:

-In the Brazilian study used this May to assassinate chloroquine and its derivatives, "…all patients received ceftriaxone and azithromycin." 

Sources:

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.07.20056424v2

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2765499

-According to a 14-year study conducted by the New England Journal of Medicine, patients taking azithromycin (Z-pak) have a 2.5-fold increased chance of death from heart problems compared to those taking amoxicillin. Compared to those taking no antibiotic, that chance is around threefold. It may therefore be factually stated that azithromycin is known to increase the risk of heart complications. 

Source:

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1003833

Ray, W.A. The New England Journal of Medicine, May 17, 2012.

Wayne A. Ray, PhD, professor of preventive medicine, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tenn.

Jay Varkey, MD, assistant professor of medicine, division of infectious diseases, Emory University; director of antibiotic management, Emory University Hospital, Atlanta.

-According to the Mayo Clinic, one common side effect of Cetriafxone is chest pain. Additionally, less-common side effects include "fast, irregular, pounding, or racing heartbeat or pulse," or, in other words, arrhythmia. It may therefore be factually stated that Cetriafxone is known to interfere with heart rhythms. 

Source:

https://www.mayoclinic.org/drugs-supplements/ceftriaxone-injection-route/side-effects/drg-20073123

In other words, patients in the Brazilian study were given two antibiotics known to interfere with heart function in addition to chloroquine. To say the very least, this revelation muddies the waters as to exactly what was causing heart problems in the study. Anyone familiar with the scientific method knows that such variables need to be controlled-for in order to isolate the effects of the independent variable researchers are looking at. 

Most disturbing, however, was the sheer difficulty that this article's author had in finding mention of these variables (the above-mentioned antibiotics) in American publications reporting on the Brazilian study. While it is remiss to attribute to malice what can instead be attributed to sheer stupidity, the fact remains that this oversight in English-language media bears every hallmark of a deliberate omission. 

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4. HCQ Actually Does Help Fight Covid-19; Can Cut Mortality In Half

In the early hours of July 3, CNN quietly published an article outright contradicting their previous rhetoric surrounding HCQ, shamefully admitting that: 

>"Dr. Marcus Zervos, division head of infectious disease for Henry Ford Health System, said 26% of those not given hydroxychloroquine died, compared to 13% of those who got the drug. The team looked back at everyone treated in the hospital system since the first patient in March."

Source:

https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/02/health/hydroxychloroquine-coronavirus-detroit-study/index.html

Conclusions:

To create a full and comprehensive review of the available data surrounding HCQ and Covid-19 would be impossible in the space allotted to this citizen's op-ed. This is partially due to the fact that the data itself is so unclear. The waters have been muddied, by all appearances, by design. 

My question is this: Why is it that the rhetoric surrounding this drug, which has been accepted as safe for decades and decades, bears the appearance of being designed to disparage it? Why does the media seem so hell-bent on reaching the conclusion that HCQ is useless or even dangerous, regardless of contradicting data? Why is it that any positives attributed to HCQ are viewed with such unrelenting skepticism, while the negatives are emphasized, amplified, and taken at face value? Why would anybody ban physicians from making their own calls, using their own judgement and experience, on whether to prescribe any drug? 

As the continued lockdowns cause poverty, depression, starvation, and suicides to spike, it is clear that the authorities are happy to deem these as acceptable losses in order to fight Covid-19. Why is a small risk of arrhythmia considered unacceptable and reckless by these same people? 

Something is very fishy. But what would I know? I am not a doctor and not qualified to think for myself or ask questions. 

-Truth Seeker, 7/6/2020