No doubt you have heard in the media about the VA study which suggests that using hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19 patients had no positive benefits for the patients or made it more likely they would die. The media loved this study, because they could use it to attack President Trump since he has so often talked of the benefits this drug has had on individuals. I am obviously not a doctor, but I have read with great interest all the studies and all the published anecdotal stories about the effectiveness of this drug in treating COVID-19, especially if administered early in the progression of the virus. And the great conclusion by the media that the VA study closes the case on hydroxychloroquine, deeming it unsafe and ineffective is, as is often the case with the media, an erroneous conclusion.
There are some serious problems with the VA study, however. First of all, it dealt with only 368 patients, which Politico claims is the largest study of the use of Hydroxychloroquine, totally ignoring the most recent (and second) study of the use of hydroxychloroquine with 1,061 COVID-19 patients completed by the world-renowned French epidemiologist, Dr. Didier Raoult. The patients in his study were treated with a combination of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin and demonstrated 91% effectiveness with zero side effects. Dr. Raoult reviewed the VA study, and pointed out some glaring scientific problems with it.
First of all, the group who were given Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) were twice as likely to be suffering from Lymphopenia (a lack of white blood cells) than those in the study who were NOT given HCQ. It is already commonly understood that Lymphopenia increases the severity of COVID-19 and increases the probability of death. Thus the study was skewed by giving HCQ to patients who were likely to die from the virus whatever was done for them. In addition, in the study the drug was administered after patients had already been intubated. They were so severely ill at this point that it was unlikely any medication would help them. HCQ has worked wonders for thousands of patients, but is most effective when administered as soon as the patient is diagnosed, not after intubation!
Next, the “control group” which should have been given absolutely no drugs, were, in about 30% of the cases, given Azithromycin, another drug which has proven useful in combatting COVID-19 and is often given with HCQ. Therefore, there was no real “control group” with which to compare the effects of HCQ on the patients.
The study admitted that HCQ was administered more often to severely ill patients, rather than those at the start of the illness. And with such a small number in the study, all of them men, it was not representative of the population. In addition, those given the hydroxychloroquine alone were 68% black and those given HCQ with azithromycin were 59% black even though blacks make up only 13.4% of the population. Furthermore, for reasons as of yet unknown, blacks seem more likely to catch and die from COVID-19 than those of other ethnicities, making this study horrendously skewed.
The study was also way too small to be accurate and, as the VA admits, was not a clinical trial in which procedures were tightly controlled, nor has it been peer reviewed. Previous studies, including the first by Dr. Raoult of France, have been largely ignored by the media as being too small. However, this study contains less than 40% of the patients in the most recent trial by Dr. Raoult, which had 91% effectiveness with the drug and zero side effects.
Dr. Daniel Wallace, a rheumatologist at Cedars-Sinai, has used HCQ for years to treat lupus and has never had a patient suffer side effects that sent him or her to the hospital. Although, there is the possibility of some side effects, including rarely heart arrhythmia which can result in heart attacks, still, from his experience, Dr. Wallace considers HCQ a safe drug whose side effects are practically nil. A little more conservative in his opinion is Dr. Wesley Self, an emergency physician at Vanderbilt University conducting a clinical trial of hydroxychloroquine. He admits that “When the media says this looks to be a safe drug—in certain contexts, that’s true. However, when you’re talking about potentially treating millions of patients, even rare side effects become very important.” Still in a study of 6000 doctors around the world, most agreed that hydroxychloroquine was the current best, and extremely effective treatment for the virus.
Dr. Vladimir Zelenko, appearing on Kevin McCullough’s radio show this past week, pointed out that when the VA study used primarily patients who were in the end stages of the disease, in fact dying, it created the negative outcomes “purposefully & by design.” When used under a physician’s care, in the primary care basis, and early on after testing or onset of symptoms, the hydroxycholoroquine, azithromycin, & zinc cocktail reduced the rates of deaths and long term infectious stages. Zelenko’s numbers to date: 1,450 patients treated, two deaths, four ventilator cases (all fully recovered,) and all others recovered. Zelenko and other physicians using the treatment are releasing the world’s largest Meta-study to date within the next few days that will examine more than 2,000 confirmed cases (McCullough. 23 April, 2020).
The media has decried using a drug that “has not been approved for use to treat this disease” and yet they ignore the fact that the FDA issued an emergency clearance for HCQ to be used to treat COVID-19 patients, so in fact, it IS an approved treatment. They also complain that it is unsafe because it is being used “off-label,” that is for a different disease from that for which it was first developed. But hydroxychloroquine has been used off-label for most of its 65 year history. It was developed to treat malaria but is widely used to combat lupus. In addition, most oncology drugs are used off-label and the medicines that I take to control familia tremor (an inherited trembling not related to Parkinson’s disease) are both high blood pressure drugs.
Given all of these facts, the VA study then, should not be considered a definitive study which dismisses HCQ as a COVID-19 treatment. On the contrary, Governor Cuomo has started a clinical study of the drug in New York and countless of anecdotal stories of recovery after using the drug have appeared in the news. In a survey or 1,271 doctors in 50 states, 65% said they would use HCQ to treat or to prevent COVID-19 in a family member and 67% of them said they would take it themselves. Only 11% would refuse to use hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19. Democratic State Representative Karen Whitsett credits both hydroxychloroquine and President Trump, who has spoken frequently of the drug, as having saved her life. It might be interesting to note here that the Democratic legislature of Michigan is censoring Representative Whitsett for thanking the man whose mention of this drug saved her life.
Another drug for treating COVID-19, remdesivir, is currently in a clinical trial. And researchers at Cedars-Sinai Hospital have extensively tested using UV-A rays inside the body to successfully kill both bacteria and viruses including the COVID-19 virus, without damaging healthy cells. Yet, if you Google COVID-19 treatments, you will no doubt read that there are currently “no approved treatments” for the disease despite the fact that the FDA HAS approved HCQ and that there are thousands of patients across the world who have survived through taking it. But we must always remember that the Democrat Party and the media are far more concerned with getting rid of President Trump by any means possible that they are with the well-being of Americans.