Politics slamming hydroxychloroquine in studies now drawing some contempt of the data they used

The risks of hydroxychloroquine, including the cardiac arrythmia have been known for decades. Those risk do not apply to everyone, they are rare but they are still there. In the CDC article, it is under the drug interactions section and not specifically stated because this is more an issue for the doctor to think about rather than the patient. The risks of the arrythmia can be assessed by looking at the individual patient history and their existing medications. Doing an ECG will also assess risk further. Even when everything looks fine to go ahead, it is still possible that the arrythmia will occur, just very unlikely.

Another rare but serious risk is blindness which seems to be associated with longer term use (like would be the case with prophylactic use) and less of a risk in short term use (like in treatment situations). Again if is rare but significant enough that we monitor patients on long term therapy. The CDC article you quoted uses a 5 year mark to start screening for this which is reasonable but that doesn’t mean it can’t happen earlier, just that it is super unlikely.

But when you apply a drug outside the trial setting to large numbers of people before it is shown to have proven benefit, you run the risk causing more harm than good.

 

Laura Ingraham has a medical panel including doctors that have been working with HCQ for years. They laugh at this stuff. They say HCQ is actually safer than Tylenol and are baffled at the fear mongering.

 

Tylenol is the leading cause of drug overdose (usually accidentally) needing hospitalization and the leading cause of liver failure. Yes it is a very safe drug when used at the right dose on the right patient in the right situation. Like all drugs you need to weigh risks vs benefit.

 

If you want to be legit, try harder not to ignore the point, which is that the progressive leftist furor over the use of HCL to fight a devastating pandemic is politically and financially motivated and deeply immoral.

Its being safer than Tylenol makes their antics all the more obviously devious, since Tylenol is available without prescription, whereas HCL must be prescribed by a doctor and is thus under much stricter control. There is no good excuse for what they've done—another "evil under the sun."

 

Many of the patients I care for won’t take the medications prescribed for them because they know it isn’t “natural”.
They are willing to take all sorts of herbal garbage and will spend mega-dollars on vitamins.
And here you are pushing an off-label use of a drug that has not been fully tested on a disease that we don’t know a lot about.

Pardon me if I’m not going to believe this is just political gamesmanship.

Rob

 

Actually, I would be interested in your assessment of how a respected medical journal like the Lancet raced to print an article that was soon after shown to rely on what sounds like obviously, deeply flawed data.

Is there something we are not being told here? Aren't these journals supposed to publish only peer reviewed articles? Does peer reviewed actually refer to a very low standard?

 

BTW, I can fully sympathize with your frustration over patients refusing medication that would help them.

 

Recommendations/Restrictions of different drug regulatory organizations for various countries

Countries that do not recommend/banned the use of hydroxychloroquine for Covid19 outside of clinical trials
Australia TGA
NZ - PHARMAC
Health Canada
UK - MHRA
France - MSH - previously allowed in hospitalized patients
Italy - MoH - previously allowed for off label use

Countries that do not recommend the use of hydroxycholoroquine for Covid19 outside of hospitalized patients and clinical trials
United States - FDA

Countries that have approved hydroxychloroquine for Covid19
India ICMR

There are others and I will update if I can find other official country guidelines.

Since the Lancet and NEJM retractions, the WHO has restarted the hydroxychloroquine arm of its Solidarity trial.

 

You should take the time to learn about nutrition. Most doctors don't have a clue. I wish I had a nickel for very obese unhealthy doctor I've visited. MDs have helped out of many acute situations. I thank God for them. But they truly are clueless about the foods and herbs God provided. For long term heath I trust my holistic doctor. She's brilliant (and by no means anti-western medicine).

I wish western medicine would change in this regard. I think strides are being made. I'm a fan of western medicine, but not to the exclusion of nutrition and herbs.

 

Gotta give a great big A M E N to this!
I have always believed that at least 90% of our most common medical problems could be cured/avoided by NATURAL means IF we only knew what great grandma/grandpa used.
My reasoning is that, again IMHO, so much of today's food has so many chemicals for preservation, processing & taste that there is no telling how they react with any individual's personal chemistry!