I hope you are doing well–for access to medical help is increasingly threatened. By now, about half the states’ governors have handed down edicts restricting physicians’ prescribing or pharmacists’ dispensing FDA-approved drugs if they are to be used for treating or preventing COVID-19. The use of drugs for an indication not listed on the label is […]
Daniel Dae Kim is feeling better and is “virus free.” He revealed that he was taking hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin, among other drugs. He urges people not to “hoard medicines” and not to self-medicate. He lives in Hawaii and has a doctor willing to prescribe these medications and a pharmacist willing to fill the prescription. / […]
NBC’s Chuck Todd asked Joe Biden whether President Trump “has blood on his hands” for his allegedly slow response to the COVID-19 pandemic. President Trump has been guided by the bureaucracies charged with protecting the public health—the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Food and Drug Administration (FDA)—and the same career-long official, Dr. […]
The American Medical Association (AMA), American Pharmacists Association (APhA), and American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP) issued a joint statement on Mar 25 criticizing physicians, hospitals, and pharmacies for “inappropriately” purchasing “excessive” amounts of medicines that could potentially save lives threatened by COVID-19. These medicines, chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, have been safely used for 70 years […]
According to an article in Science, the UN’s World Health Organization (WHO) has launched a “global megatrial of the four most promising coronavirus treatments,” called SOLIDARITY. It will not be the gold-standard randomized double-blind control trial (RCT) because doctors and patients will know what treatment was received. But patients will be randomly assigned to one […]
Draconian directives by some state and municipal authorities are so absurd that one wonders: Do the officials have a clue, or is something else going on? The craziest things I have heard: Closing an entire shopping mall because a presumptively infected person walked through it, and forbidding people to go outside—the least likely place to […]
It is risky to talk about what might work for an illness, because people might try to self-treat in a dangerous way. So here are some things not to do. Don’t Drink Things Meant to Go in a Fish Tank: When President Trump stated that chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine offer great promise in treating COVID-19, and […]
In a letter to President Donald Trump, the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) thanked him for taking actions to curb the spread of COVID-19 pandemic by travel restrictions, border security, and regulatory relief. But American patients may not be promptly receiving the treatments that are being used successfully in France and China. In […]
Government agencies are warning about misinformation, and Big Tech is patrolling the internet to protect us all. But how do they know what is misinformation? What is the Gold Standard? Artificial Intelligence Chatbots: A reporter tried asking several chatbots about a common set of symptoms that he claimed to have. He queried reliable sources, including […]
These practical pointers may be of interests: Masks: These are in short supply and of limited use. The best use for a surgical mask is to put on a sick person to reduce spraying of droplets. To protect a healthy person you need a well-fitting N95 mask to filter out tiny particles, including those that […]