A government-funded analysis found hydroxychloroquine ineffective for COVID-19, increases risk of death

[Jee + 27]

On 4/24/2020 at 6:33 PM, SUZNV said:

You are using March number now, 2 months later, so it did not discredit my claim, which most countries have community spreading already. . How do you decide who get the test and who don't when we have community spreading already and people spreadingaround without any symptoms in a big spread out country like the US? How much test US could perform back in 20th March? If you know the number will climbing will your burst all of you supplies with the testing?

Germany did an impressive job and I am glad about it. They were able to slow the spreading with the number of testing. Because of the slowing down by the testing, their numbers will keep increasing.

Pandemic Response Team and gut the foreign CDC budget by 90%

You are misinformed. A budget cut in 2021 in chronic diseases shouldn't affect CDC in  response to Covid19 this year. They simply has very low performance. That claim is half truth.

snopes.com/fact-check/trump-cut-cdc-budget/

 

 

• snopes.com/fact-check/trump-cut-cdc-budget/

   

 

Trump had assumed office 3+ years so if CDC failed this country, Trump IS accountable.

No one would repeatedly appreciate Trump for doing his job, he is president not god, Trump demanded governors to show him appreciation for what he offered them, that thinking of his speaks loud about the kind of person he is.

The government started to work on sending planes to Wuhan in Jan to evacuate US citizens, so to say Trump had no idea this was bad in Jan is incorrect. He knew it was bad but TBF, he probably thought this would never get to the US if he simply shuts the door to China, in actuality most of the early case in this country came from Europe, this shows Trump and his team have a serious lack of critical thinking ability and were naive/stupid about the situation, just like they thought tariff could work. 

[Jee + 27]

On 4/24/2020 at 7:16 PM, Dan Warnick said:

BS.  I made clear that I believe it is the Chinese government's job to eradicate practices in their markets that lead to virus outbreaks that spread around the world.  That does NOT say anything about the Chinese people.  There is no racism here.  You didn't come up with that yourself, I'm betting you picked it up from the so-called MSM.  Finally, it is only your perception that anyone here is casting the Chinese as a weird group.  They eat some weird stuff, but then again I like beef jerky.

Please ask your wife to forgive the loud mei-guo gwei-dzi ren.  Wo men bu shi hwai dan, shi jenda.

By the same account Trump and his administration should be responsible for CDC's failure, insufficient testing early on, lack of preparation by states, not shutting door to Europe earlier... The government does not own these "wet markets", but I sense you insist their government should be responsible for everything in that country while Trump can get away with murder had congress simply blocked it.

[Jee + 27]

On 4/24/2020 at 9:03 PM, Dan Warnick said:

Sorry, but I don't think you or anyone else can say there were no bats for sale in that or any other Chinese market.

Let's assume bats are there, show me an academic proof that this virus came from the bats over there would you?  

[Jee + 27]

22 hours ago, Eyes Wide Open said:

Sir Spank A Lot..

Time to pay back his debt to the BOC...

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

[Henry Barth 0]

https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/04/16/tracking-covid-19-excess-deaths-across-countries

 

[Radha + 262]

Geoff, it is noteworthy that those German "Covid" tests were never validated and according to many scientists give false positive results of 50-80%

Geoff posted: "WHO declared this an International Emergency on Jan 30th.  They had already gotten virus samples out and approved Germany's virus tests by Jan 17th.

They were on top of this as much as the Chinese authorities would let them."

[D Coyne + 305]

11 hours ago, Henry Barth said:

https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/04/16/tracking-covid-19-excess-deaths-across-countries

 

Henry,

Thanks, excellent piece.

[fourmileroad1 + 7]

The VA study mentioned by this article admits that it was not scientific. -- There was no control group and the group treated was basically limited to aged, black males with advanced symptoms, THEREFORE -- THE FRENCH STUDY should be given AT LEAST AS MUCH CREDENCE: 

"Second French Study by Dr. Raoult finds Hydroxychloroquine and Azithromycin Helped EVERY PATIENT in Study Group of 80 ( minus one patient who was 86 years old with very advanced COVID-19 symptoms). 

ALSO, THERE IS THIS:

April 4, 2020 – A global survey found that anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine was the MOST HIGHLY-RATED treatment against the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). 

 

[Jee + 27]

It's easy to point fingers retrospectively, what matters is while it's happening what do YOU do to help stop it?

[Zardoz + 5]

every doc I knew was hoarding HC..so they are more stupid than trump

[Jeff_Calgary + 68]

On 4/22/2020 at 7:50 AM, Tom Kirkman said:

Ah yes, quoting The Daily Beast, that shining beacon of far left journalistic integrity.

Carry on.

Yes Tom -everyone knows that gargling with lysol is better. (I am joking don't gargle poison!)

[rms + 6]

This study was performed by an opthalmologist (eye doctor) from University of Virginia, School of medicine without seeing any patient or related drug record. See details here.https://www.foxnews.com/media/dr-stephen-smith-study-hydroxychloroquine-coronavirus-treatment. Speaks volumes for the kind of idiots who chair the study and the institutes they come from. Wouldn't be surprised if these are funded by tax payers dollars too. By the way, I understand that the use of chloroquine/derivatives is established in text books as well as rest of the world for viral applications. It needs no certificate or approvals from politicians or such institutes or their penny worth supporters.

[ronwagn + 6,290]

On 4/22/2020 at 11:19 PM, Enthalpic said:

Unfortunately, with often self-resolving diseases "fake cures" can appear to be effective.  If you give 100 people with the common cold a single piece of raw broccoli on day 1, it has 99.9 % effectiveness at "curing" the cold by day 9.  Silly example, but still, many people go to bed feeling terrible and wake up feeling way better the next day -without any treatment- for a wide variety of ailments.  If they took XYZ pill the night before they falsely attribute the recovery to the pill.

I'm not saying it doesn't help.  I just think we would be seeing more response if it were a miracle drug.

I would take it if a physician offered, but that doesn't mean I need to promote it before I see more data.

 

Some of us with medical backgrounds feel differently than you do. There are many on youtube.com who are physicians. Take your choice. 

Personally, I am taking a multimineral supplement daily that includes copper and zinc (Plus a lot of normal supplements I take when I feel like it. I always have taken those). I will be taking nicotine lozenges, colloidal silver, and additional zinc if I get a fever. That is while I am asking for a treatment plan and prescriptions from my physician. I will tell him that I prefer hydroxychloroquine plus an antibiotic but will probably go with whatever he suggests. I might look for another physician however. 

I find it amazing that there are still no approved medical regimens that have been announced! Correct me if I am wrong.

My theory is that if something is harmless and might save my life or shorten my illness I am all for it. It could also give me a quick shot at it before the virus replicates rapidly in my body. 

No eating until at least noon and sometimes 4PM and no eating after 8PM. 

I have not been seriously ill in decades. 

https://filmdaily.co/health/is-colloidal-silver-a-cure-for-coronavirus/

https://news.yahoo.com/coronavirus-france-limits-nicotine-patch-135447282.html

Edited April 28, 2020 by ronwagn
addition

[ronwagn + 6,290]

On 4/22/2020 at 4:52 PM, Strangelovesurfing said:

Fox and conservative media are MSM. If 1/3-1/2 of your population is into 'whatever', by definition that 'whatever' IS main stream.

You are way off on your percentages. Fox News and Fox Business are a very small slice of our media. There is not one major conservative newspaper in the U.S.A. Hollywood has a massive impact on our media including online. The educational establishment has control over much of the media we have. Corporations repress anything they like. I could go on and on. Maybe 15% conservative media is out there. Fortunately some of us help spread it online but are shadow banned by Facebook and Twitter. 

[ronwagn + 6,290]

On 4/23/2020 at 2:56 PM, Geoff Guenther said:

In other news, the Iranian who drank "Camel's Urine" in front of camera claiming it has healing powers according to Islamic medicine, has been arrested and his "confession tapes" aired on State TV.

This religious medicine thing really needs to stop. There isn't a magic cure. Let the real scientists do non-politicized trials of therapies and vaccines. 

Take a good honest look at how all the "real scientific epidemiologists" have done so far with their totally fallacious predictions of deaths. The few "deniers" among them were correct. High plaudits to them. No plaudits to those who think wrecking the economy is the way to solve the problem and getting rid of President Trump. 

[ronwagn + 6,290]

On 4/24/2020 at 12:23 AM, Gerry Maddoux said:

I have to tell you, I'm much more worried about what's to come: one of Xi's scientist coming up with a vaccine used only on the Chinese (without their knowing what they were getting), or alternatively, tweeking this virus so it's meaner but looks like just a mutant of the original. 

I have been dismayed listening to "the team" each night. The men who should have been surveillant of this didn't even bother to make sure of our supplies. Yet we're to somehow catapult them to hero status? I would never have thought this possible! Not in America.

We need a true paranoid at the helm. For a crazy job you need a crazy person. Always, in medicine, the best innovator in bad times was a guy about half-crazy. We need at the top a Churchillian figure surrounded by Bletchley Park types. Planning for the worst. Paranoid. Waking up with nightmares and spiders climbing the walls. For two decades we talked about a "dirty bomb," and now that we've finally had one, I haven't even heard the term. I suspect that all these empty suit men and women are so damn afraid of upsetting the world order they won't say sh*t if they have a mouthful. 

My great fear is that we suffered a bioterrorism attack. And that it was a dirty bomb in the form of a diaspora of infected Chinese Wuhanians. I am utterly flabbergasted that someone hasn't confronted Mr. Xi with this in the most implicit terms possible. None of this beating around the bush, but more like, we know you did this, and all moral peoples of the world will surely ostracize you from the community of responsible nations and countries.

We're going to survive this, in some form, though I must say that I am worried that those people who suffered taste and smell issues may have permanent damage. When I was a buck intern, we asked everyone who had Parkinsonism if they had had the 1918 flu. Most had. I hope I'm wrong. But I must say, for years we just let the Chinese have at us: SARS, Avian, Swine, now this. Looks like no one has the balls to just come right out and say you did this and we're coming for your sorry ass! 

It is good to keep an eye on the distance between one's suspicions and paranoia. The trouble is that we often don't know for sure. The best liars and psychopaths are crafty. The Chinese kept their residents locked in Wuhan the best they could but allowed flights all over the world and were upset when President Trump stopped all flights from China. He was roundly criticized as a racist by the mainstream media. To me it is obvious that the CCP wanted to get everyone else infected to even out the pandemics economic damage. Then again, the whole thing could have been a test run on biological warfare. IMO for sure the first is true, possibly the second. 

[Investing Pharmacist + 4]

As we all know, the government has a clear alt-left agenda under President Trump. 🙄 

I mean, what else would explain this press release from the FDA, a government agency? 

I mean, what could possibly go wrong by using a drug that is an immunosuppressive? Is it going to weaken the immune system by suppressing the response? Then you're going to say that it'll be harder to fight off an infection? Then what? Then are you going to use your liberal nonsense to tell me that the infection will get worse and start to impede organ function? Oh like I am supposed to believe that organ function will be impaired significantly by an infection that is growing at an uncontrolled rate only because the immune system is suppressed? Then I'm supposed to believe that vital organs will start shutting down because they will lack oxygen and nutrients? And then what? Without those 'vital organs' functioning at all I'll be pronounced, as the liberals say, dead?

Name one person who has told you they died because of their immune system couldn't fight of COVID19. I'll wait. 

[BLA + 1,666]

On 4/24/2020 at 2:55 AM, 0R0 said:

The first thing about coming for someone's ass in a non-romantic context is that you don't tell them. 

It appears that China is losing ground internationally as their shoddy "assistance" and medical products are not balancing against the facts of their prior sociopathic behavior not proper for civilized people. But we knew the CCP was not civilized, it isn't Chinese, it is Communist. It isn't born of 4000 years of culture but had just come out of the Soviet's ass during WWII. 

There are approximately 90 million members of the CCP out of a 1.3 Billion population .

China has brought 300 million people into the middle class in a fairly short timeframe.  That still leaves 1 Billion . BH

Edited April 29, 2020 by BLA

[0R0 + 6,251]

2 hours ago, Investing Pharmacist said:

As we all know, the government has a clear alt-left agenda under President Trump. 🙄 

I mean, what else would explain this press release from the FDA, a government agency? 

I mean, what could possibly go wrong by using a drug that is an immunosuppressive? Is it going to weaken the immune system by suppressing the response? Then you're going to say that it'll be harder to fight off an infection? Then what? Then are you going to use your liberal nonsense to tell me that the infection will get worse and start to impede organ function? Oh like I am supposed to believe that organ function will be impaired significantly by an infection that is growing at an uncontrolled rate only because the immune system is suppressed? Then I'm supposed to believe that vital organs will start shutting down because they will lack oxygen and nutrients? And then what? Without those 'vital organs' functioning at all I'll be pronounced, as the liberals say, dead?

Name one person who has told you they died because of their immune system couldn't fight of COVID19. I'll wait. 

The people suffering from CV19 have a progression to recovery or a progression to the point of a cytokine storm and subsequent ARDS due to inflammation of lung tissue due to immune attack. Since HCQ is used in rhumatoid arthritis to suppress precisely that over-reaction of the immune system's cytokine mechanism it would be appropriate here. This virus manipulates the immune system to create conditions promoting its infection of cells. The drug also protects hemoglobin from attack by the virus, which removes iron from it in order to "steal" its porphyrin which the virus uses to attach to the attacked cell. That is similar to the mechanism for HCQ protecting against malaria. 

Data published from Dr. Raoult shows that it is useful in slowly reducing the virus population faster than no treatment, and results in fewer cytokine storm events and thus fewer hospitalizations an intubations. When coupled with azythromycin (or Doxycyclin) which attack the RNA replication of the virus in the infected cell, it produces a significant reduction in virus population faster than no treatment. For most patients it reduces the time to reach negative virus test results from 2-3 weeks to 1-2 weeks, most within 5 days, most of the rest within 10 days. It reduces intensity of symptoms compared to untreated patients, and fewer reach ARDS if the treatment is applied early enough. 

That is the science of it. Medicine is something entirely different, where the value of killing off the virus is not a criterion in evaluating the success of the medication or treatment protocol. 

[0R0 + 6,251]

1 hour ago, BLA said:

There are approximately 90 million members of the CCP out of a 1.3 Billion population .

China has brought 300 million people into the middle class in a fairly short timeframe.  That still leaves 1 Billion . BH

It is true that the foreign investors and local private investment (which was enormous) coupled with a massive infrastructure effort, did raise China from subsistence farming economy with a minor industry to an industrial giant with a large middle class over 300 million, and only less than 500 million in poverty. The other 700 million are out of poverty in what in the West is called the working class and in Emerging Market economics terms is called the middle income. And the big question is whether China remains in what is called the middle income trap, or continues to raise more of its people to the middle class. The deciding factor is whether the socioeconomic structure is relatively flat or there is a large income gap. In China there is the largest income gap, so the statistical answer is that China is in the middle income trap. 

The CCP contribution in the whole development process was to get bribed to produce the necessary infrastructure to bring in foreign investment and catch up with needs of the expanding private sector. The SOE sector maintained monopolies and grew in proportion to the markets and then some. The bribes promoted economic alignment of the government and the CCP decisions with the private sector needs. That is to a large extent why China's private market growth fell apart when the anti corruption campaign was applied, and it required multiple credit impulses to stimulate growth via provincial infrastructure and business and consumer leverage, Besides which, China has a demographic problem that has yet to result in all other countries, in anything less than a prolonged recession, and that includes the great depression which also falls into this demographic structure. 

I don't now by what miracle China would escape the same fate other countries had encountered in the face of similar demographic structures.

The CCP had always been in the way of China's development and remains there, tripping things up and delivering "strategic" industrial growth that does not end well for the global industry and manages to lower the incomes of all involved in it around the globe while not increasing incomes substantially in China. 

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

1 hour ago, BLA said:

There are approximately 90 million members of the CCP out of a 1.3 Billion population .

China has brought 300 million people into the middle class in a fairly short timeframe.  That still leaves 1 Billion . BH

Where did you get those numbers?  Do you work for the WHO?  😮  I ask because I believe you got your numbers from the CCP just like the WHO did.  Who else would know or be asked?  Oh, I just checked Wiki and surprise!  That's where you got your numbers, and Wiki got them from the CCP.  But you didn't read into that enough to get a decent tally.  Here's another 300 or so million for you to add:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All-China_Federation_of_Trade_Unions

When I lived and worked there, for 9 years, all the airline workers were members, all the staff at hotels, all the police, hospital workers, and just about everyone else except for day-labor types were all members.  In fact it was pretty much a given that if you didn't belong to the party, you weren't going to get any kind of decent job.  A simple search on that turned up a good article from The Straits Times:

Having Chinese Communist Party membership is like having 'a diploma', 'opens doors'

In any case, and for whatever point you were trying to make, put the number at closer to 1/2 a billion, 5 times what you were quoting, and you'll be in a ball park enough to talk about it.  I am not making a judgement for or against people in the party or why they join it (both of my wives were party members, as were all of their family and friends), just getting you closer to the facts.  Carry on...

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

On 4/24/2020 at 12:23 PM, Gerry Maddoux said:

I have to tell you, I'm much more worried about what's to come: one of Xi's scientist coming up with a vaccine used only on the Chinese (without their knowing what they were getting), or alternatively, tweeking this virus so it's meaner but looks like just a mutant of the original. 

I have been dismayed listening to "the team" each night. The men who should have been surveillant of this didn't even bother to make sure of our supplies. Yet we're to somehow catapult them to hero status? I would never have thought this possible! Not in America.

We need a true paranoid at the helm. For a crazy job you need a crazy person. Always, in medicine, the best innovator in bad times was a guy about half-crazy. We need at the top a Churchillian figure surrounded by Bletchley Park types. Planning for the worst. Paranoid. Waking up with nightmares and spiders climbing the walls. For two decades we talked about a "dirty bomb," and now that we've finally had one, I haven't even heard the term. I suspect that all these empty suit men and women are so damn afraid of upsetting the world order they won't say sh*t if they have a mouthful. 

My great fear is that we suffered a bioterrorism attack. And that it was a dirty bomb in the form of a diaspora of infected Chinese Wuhanians. I am utterly flabbergasted that someone hasn't confronted Mr. Xi with this in the most implicit terms possible. None of this beating around the bush, but more like, we know you did this, and all moral peoples of the world will surely ostracize you from the community of responsible nations and countries.

We're going to survive this, in some form, though I must say that I am worried that those people who suffered taste and smell issues may have permanent damage. When I was a buck intern, we asked everyone who had Parkinsonism if they had had the 1918 flu. Most had. I hope I'm wrong. But I must say, for years we just let the Chinese have at us: SARS, Avian, Swine, now this. Looks like no one has the balls to just come right out and say you did this and we're coming for your sorry ass! 

Well Gerry, here's a start:

Trump administration asks intelligence agencies to find out whether China, WHO hid info on coronavirus pandemic

A specific "tasking" seeking information about the outbreak's early days was sent last week to the Defense Intelligence Agency. The CIA got similar instructions.

WASHINGTON — The White House has ordered intelligence agencies to comb through communications intercepts, human source reporting, satellite imagery and other data to establish whether China and the World Health Organization initially hid what they knew about the emerging coronavirus pandemic, current and former U.S. officials familiar with the matter told NBC News.

A specific "tasking" seeking information about the outbreak's early days was sent last week to the National Security Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency, which includes the National Center for Medical Intelligence, an official directly familiar with the matter said. The CIA has received similar instructions, according to current and former officials familiar with the matter.

President Donald Trump appeared to refer to the request at his news conference Monday. "We're doing very serious investigations," Trump said. "We are not happy with that whole situation, because we believe it could have been stopped at the source, it could have been stopped quickly, and it wouldn't have spread all over the world."

(more at link)

[Geoff Guenther + 317]

On 4/27/2020 at 12:46 PM, Radha said:

Geoff, it is noteworthy that those German "Covid" tests were never validated and according to many scientists give false positive results of 50-80%

Geoff posted: "WHO declared this an International Emergency on Jan 30th.  They had already gotten virus samples out and approved Germany's virus tests by Jan 17th.

They were on top of this as much as the Chinese authorities would let them."

Source please. Everyone knows that WHO approved the virus tests. Everyone knows WHO declared the emergency.

"Many scientists" is just Fox News wordplay. Give me facts, not nonsense.

[Geoff Guenther + 317]

On 4/27/2020 at 6:40 PM, fourmileroad1 said:

The VA study mentioned by this article admits that it was not scientific. -- There was no control group and the group treated was basically limited to aged, black males with advanced symptoms, THEREFORE -- THE FRENCH STUDY should be given AT LEAST AS MUCH CREDENCE: 

"Second French Study by Dr. Raoult finds Hydroxychloroquine and Azithromycin Helped EVERY PATIENT in Study Group of 80 ( minus one patient who was 86 years old with very advanced COVID-19 symptoms). 

ALSO, THERE IS THIS:

April 4, 2020 – A global survey found that anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine was the MOST HIGHLY-RATED treatment against the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

The French study has not been replicated and the only study that tried to replicate results found the opposite effect. From a scientific point of view we go back to square one: there is no evidence either way that hydroxychloroquine helps or hurts.

The Daily Mail is a poor source as they exaggerate everything. 37% of 6,200 doctors picked hydroxychloroquine as ONE of their top drugs for the virus: https://fullfact.org/health/covid-19-hydroxychloroquine-chloroquine-treatment/