Do you know that a few of my colleagues right now are either hesitant or outright not writing the script for HCQ, a drug that you can purchase over the counter in many countries, for the fears of losing their licenses. How insane is that? It’s like if they decide to go after aspirin and put everything they have into it to bring down aspirin. I have lived long enough to know things are not always as they seem.
You are not in the medical fields and you don’t know how frustrated we are dealing with this madness. If it is as simple as you’ve said about HCQ, that if we as doctors believe in its efficacy and would just simply prescribed it for our patients to help against this virus, we would not be having this conversation. We have tried to do that and in the process caught hell for it. I had a zoom meeting with a hundred of my colleagues last week and a few of them are hesitant to prescribe this drug for their patients in fearful of losing their licenses. How crazy is that for an over the counter drug in many countries? You can think anything about me or not liking me, but what I’m telling you is the truth. There is a coordinated attack against this drug and all of my colleagues agreed on that Zoom meeting. You can call all of us crazy or paranoid, but if you were to meet any of us in person, you would probably pay attention to what we have to say. FYI- HCQ is not even my favorite drug therapy of choice for this virus. I have confidence in Dr Richard Bartlett’s protocol using Budesonide and it will be my first line of defense if the WuhanFlu gets me.
I think what you are hearing on those calls is a frustration in the politicization of that drug and an effort to focus on more viable solutions. Hcq changes your PH level... of course you’ll feel different. It’s like how or course you’ll think you had a perceived spiritual moment when you fast for a week and your body is starving to death. And if it was just about money, the drug companies would have already produced their own HCQ-like drug. It can’t be that hard to get around that patent. This theory makes zero sense. Nobody is winning anything in this fiction conspiracy.
It depends on which airlines you’re flying bro. I have to go to Nevada in a couple weeks by Alaska Air. They have 3 of the safety measures like: blocking middle aisle seats, face masks, disinfecting aircraft. I wish they would include the temperatures check. I know Frontier is the only airline that taking temperatures. If you practice good hygiene habits and wearing your mask, you should be ok. If you want to make extra sure, book a teledoc appointment and request for the COVID test to ease your mind once you’re back home. I would probably get myself tested once I’m back home, it’s not such a bad idea and sometimes it can save your life or your loved ones.
To what extent is HCQ being used outside the US to treat COVID-19? If it is the miracle cure that Fauci and Dems are plotting to keep away from public, other countries at least must have used it to beat back the pandemic. Is there evidence for this?
Here is a fairly scathing tear down of Risch’s pro-HCQ paper, linked to earlier in the thread, as well as AAPS: https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/hydroxychloroquine-to-treat-covid-19-evidence-cant-seem-to-kill-it/
Yep...Delta strives to do a good job. We flew to Minnesota in late May and intend to fly there again in September.
HCQ modulates immune response by suppressing cytokines. That is how it works for Lupus. A lot of the unpleasantness of being sick is your body fighting back against the invader. As an example, a fever occurs because of a cytokine signal tells the hypothalamus to crank up body temperature. It isn't a function of the invader, it is a function of your body's defenses against the invader. HCQ suppresses that. So if you supress the immune response, of course you'll feel better right away. But all of those immune responses exist because they help your body fight back against the invading virus. Supressing your body's defenses may make you feel better in the short term, but potentially in the long term you are just basically giving the virus a leg up, though I don't think there is evidence supporting that to be true here either. Antecdotal tales of an immediate boost in perceived sickness make total sense given one of HCQs known effects. That doesn't correlate necessarily to better outcomes. Keep in mind 99% of people are not going to die either way. A whole lot more people will get extremely sick and get better than will get extremely sick and die. If you give HCQ to someone during the early stages of their sickness, it supresses symptoms a little bit, and they get better as they naturally would have either way either way, it is very easy in peoples mind to attribute their recovery to the HCQ you gave them.
I might have to fly soon too. I’m not scared but I’m definitely going to use the same level of protection I would if I went to the hospital to visit someone with Covid. I’m ordering an actual N95 mask instead of a normal face mask I don’t plan on taking off. Change clothes after getting to my hotel etc. etc. Honestly though I used to travel for a living pre Covid and I rarely got sick from the airport because I’ve always been super cautious there. Where my family gets sick is from my 5 year old who doesn’t understand hygiene and personal space and from my wife who is a high school teacher whose kids don’t respect hygiene or personal space. It’s a given every year around Labor Day and around February we get a bug from school. It’s like clockwork. If schools come back into session without extreme draconian hygiene safety measures it’s a given Covid numbers will sky rocket. Flying to me is a bit more safe if you are super careful.
As other posters have noted it seems to be used a lot in Africa. That makes sense to me as they would already be familiar with it from treating Malaria. I have no idea though about how effective they are seeing it there although I heard a report though on NPR this afternoon that cases and deaths are rapidly rising in South Africa.
One of the best doctors in Houston is using it in a drug cocktail but he says he only uses it in a hospital setting and not as a sole remedy he says he hates how it's been politicized. I agree. Let the doctors do what doctors do.