I’m sure you are aware of the politics surrounding the “Trump drug,” as opinions about the use of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) in COVID-19 seem to correlate with support or opposition to President Trump. But that’s not the main story, as Dr. Simone Gold pointed out in a Facebook-censored interview with Glenn Beck.
President Trump mentioned HCQ as a potential “game changer” on Mar 21. But the war against HCQ was already on. Until Jan 15, 2020, HCQ was available over the counter in France. After that it became available by prescription only, days before the first Western reports on the epidemic, which had been circulating in Wuhan, China, at least since October 2019. This was part of a multinational effort to restrict HCQ.
Interesting timing: The drug sold as Plaquénil—translating to “plague nil or no plague”—was restricted in the West just before the plague was acknowledged.
The potential value of HCQ has been known since 2005, when the journal Virology published an article entitled “Chloroquine is a potent inhibitor of SARS coronavirus infection and spread.” Chloroquine, which works like its derivative HCQ, inhibited viral spread when cells were treated either before or after exposure to SARS-CoV-1, a close relative of SARS-CoV-2, the cause of COVID-19.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID), should certainly be aware of this work. And since NIAID had partially funded research on the virus at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, Fauci was in a position to know a lot.
The sometimes-masked face of “Science” in the federal response to COVID-19, Fauci is one of the main obstacles to the freedom to prescribe HCQ. He demands randomized controlled trials for HCQ, yet he has called not-yet-approved remdesvir the “standard of care,” despite limited evidence.
Fauci may be the mask for other influential bureaucrats. At least 10 members of the NIH panel that writes COVID guidelines have a financial interest in Gilead Sciences, the manufacturer of remdesvir.
What if we had a cheap, safe, available preventive and treatment? We could all go to the ball game (like Dr. Fauci), or to a political meeting, church, school, party, or doctor’s office. There would be little demand for remdesivir (at least $3,000 for a course of treatment) or for a warp-speed vaccine. The U.S. has already committed to buy 100 million doses of Pfizer’s not-yet-tested-or-approved vaccine.
The unprecedented worldwide war on a long-established drug, with fronts in many nations and a coordinated media censorship effort, calls for contact tracing. What are the political and financial relationships of all the decisionmakers in CDC, WHO, FDA, pharmaceutical companies, medical journals, media, social media, academic centers, foundations, and political parties (here and abroad)?
For information on the “natural experiment” of early use vs. nonuse of HCQ—a 79% difference in mortality—see hcqtrial.com.