Coronavirus: Debunking The Hydroxychloroquine 'Controversy'

News & Current Events Public News & Current Events
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1

There sure has been a lot of recent press about how ineffective hydroxychloroquine is. That’s a real letdown given how promising it was thought to be.

But are the headlines true?

To answer that, Chris pulls up the original VA study all of the recent headlines are referencing. Well, it turns out, it’s based on quite poor “science”.

For example, it wasn’t randomized; by its own admission, hydroxychloroquine was given to sicker patients, closer to death, when we know HCQ works best when given early on. And zinc, a key component to its efficacy, wasn’t administered. Nor was azithromycin in a number of cases.

Right now, the “HCQ shows no benefit” claim appears more an intentional narrative than a science-backed finding. In fact, there is growing empirical evidence, notably in France and Costa Rica, that it can work amazingly well when applied under the right conditions.

For now, it seems we remain best served by keeping our eyes open and doing our own investigation versus relying on what the media is telling us.

To that end, Peak Prosperity will keep up our efforts and continue producing these videos for as long as needed.

Key your own mind sharp, research and think before taking action, and ask questions in the Comments section below if you’d like to tap the PP tribe’s expertise.

Oh, and as always, keep working on your garden.

__________________________________

Below are the links mentioned in today's video:

This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://peakprosperity.com/coronavirus-debunking-the-hydroxychloroquine-controversy/

2

My wife is a first responder and started having symptoms 2 days ago. Her department setup an appointment to get her tested. She already has pneumonia in both lungs. She was prescribed hydroxychoroquine and zpack and I picked up zinc when I got the prescriptions. She is already seeing vast improvement. She has gone from 104 degree temperature to oxygen stat of 93 to only 100 degree temperature and oxygen back up to 97. I would say it’s working this is day 3. Keep doing what you are doing I would not have know about zinc except from listening to the information you are putting out.

3

93 seems like a super mild o2 stat. Glad it’s working.

4

This may sound like I am venturing into conspiracy theory territory which automatically turns a number of people off. I always remember Mike Ruppert saying he didn’t deal in conspiracy theory he dealt with conspiracy fact.
(actually maybe more than one) since you were a VP at Pfizer you know quite a bit about the business side of the drug industry. Through all of this you have expressed dismay and incredulity about a number of issues in regards to HCQ. Question is what are the motivations for these supposed studies and articles from the perspective of a former drug company exec.? HCQ has been getting slammed while remdesvir seems to be the darling. Does Gilead have the influence to buy their great publicity? Clearly places like UVA are getting paid for their participation in these studies. Research depts. rely on funding from drug companies and the government.
There are a lot of financially interested people involved in finding drugs with a high return. How does that figure in to all of this. After all the treatment with HCQ is $20 as opposed to hundreds with remdesvir.
Obviously the media does not like trump so if there is an association of HCQ with him they will slam both every chance they get.
So does the advertising budget of drug companies include a line for planting stories? Does the fact that drug companies spend a lot advertising dollars consciously or unconsciously affect editorial decisions?
 
 
 

5

Thank you Chris for great content, I find it very useful and learnt a lot and helps me get prepared. I do understand that double blinded RCT is golden standard, however it is not possible always and there may be even ethical concerns to give half the patients placebo instead of HCQ. There is a danger in either strongly advocating the drug as a solution or completely disregarding it without data. The paper does call out the need for RCT and more evidence and was more honest compared to the completely botched Stanford paper you did yesterday. IMO, you probably should have waited some more time to give more informed data than the anecdotal evidence you posted today. It is ironic that you yourself have set a very high standard for recommendation of potential treatments ( yesterday’s stanford paper take down is a classic) and by that standard today’s anecdotal references missed the mark.
So far, HCQ does not appear like the silver bullet and we should continue more trails. There may be in fact a very small window where HCQ is effective, and then also it needs to be given with Zinc + Zpack along with other interventions. Let us know if you find any content that passes the high standards you have set here.

6

My warehouse in Virginia got its first covid.
When I stop to think about it, it is crazy. When did this explode in Wuhan? In any case, a few months later I have it at work in Virginia.
I was expecting this. I am as prepared as I can be if somebody at home gets sick.

7

I somewhat agree with you, tatagiri. Chris does a FABULOUS job of pointing out sloppy science. His demolitions of the Stanford and VA studies were things of beauty. FWIW, I have a terminal degree in physiology and am confident in my ability to critique study design, analysis, etc., but Chris does that as well as anyone I’ve seen. He could probably be a peer-reviewer for journals in multiple fields.
But that does make it frustrating that he has a tendency to use anecdotal evidence when it supports his pre-existing theories. Exhibit A there was using anonymous Reddit posts yesterday to demonstrate how COVID-19 potentially results in long-term lung damage.
That said, I still a) consider Chris’s videos to be some of the most informative around and b) HCQ + zinc to be as viable as any other potential treatment currently available. Hopefully, new data will be published soon that will help clear up some of the pertinent questions, as Chris mentions near the end of the video.
Personally, without easy access to HCQ, I plan to employ a quercetin + zinc regimen at the first sign of contracting disease.
T.

8

Well its hard to call this a study , more an assay or review… But lets look at the motives for releasing such garbage … I call it a propoganda machine… But who would benefit?
Well Big Pharma , The US govt who may actually want to kill off the sickest and weakest and oldest as they have the largest burden on the budget. or large - they waste much more money for the black programs. and military.
But how do we know its the US govt behind this propaganda? Simple its veterans. You cant just walked into a hospital and get to review medical records in private hospitals. You would need their permission to actual study. It just wouldnt happen. So what we have, is a US govt propaganda machine, that has two interests, one to kill off the weak and old and disabled. And second, to kill the cheap option of treatment and keeping these people a live - for something that is much more profitable. Though the govt does not stand to make much money with a vaccine or patented drug for treatment… those within the govt are influenced by those that stand to profit greatly from this.

9

Back in March (the 20th) the sake had a piece about Chloroquinone.
http://thesaker.is/why-france-is-hiding-a-cheap-and-tested-virus-cure/
 
Some interesting points (however, it is short ans worth reading):

10

Ingraham has the Raoult feedback tonight. “scientific misconduct” was mentioned;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RexUJeWmzSE

11

Evidence supporting an hypothesis and evidence suggesting that an hypothesis should be tested (theoretical and anecdotal) are different types of things with different types of criteria. I don’t see that Chris has muddled the two, although his hopes come shining through.

12

Hydroxychloroquine, a less toxic derivative of chloroquine, is effective in inhibiting SARS-CoV-2 infection in vitro [at the doses commonly prescribed for humans].

We have recently reported that two drugs, remdesivir (GS-5734) and chloroquine (CQ) phosphate, efficiently inhibited SARS-CoV-2 infection in vitro (in cell cultures). [A]s an experimental drug, remdesivir is not expected to be available for treating a very large number of patients in a timely manner.
Therefore, of the two potential drugs, CQ appears to be the drug of choice for large-scale use due to its availability, proven safety record, and a relatively low cost. In light of the preliminary clinical data, CQ has been added to the list of trial drugs in the Guidelines for the Diagnosis and Treatment of COVID-19 (sixth edition) published by National Health Commission of the People’s Republic of China and there are 7 clinical trials registered in China.
The conclusion
  • It has been reported that oral absorption of HCQ in humans is very efficient.
  • Tissue concentrations in the liver, spleen, kidney, and lung reaching levels of 200–700 times higher than those in the plasma10.
  • The usual safe dose for humans is 6 mg/kg/day, or about 450 mg for an average 70 KG person.
  • This dose of HCQ sulfate could generate serum levels of 1.4–1.5 μM in humans, and 200-700 times that in tissues.
  • Therefore, using the safe and usual doses, HCQ concentration in the above tissues should achieve sufficient levels to inhibit SARS-CoV-2 infection.
13
https://breggin.com/negative-study-of-trump-miracle-drug-actually-shows-it-works/

Negative Study of “Trump Miracle Drug” Actually Shows It Works

By Peter R. Breggin, MD and Ginger Ross Breggin Today’s HuffPost happily proclaimed that once more President Trump had been proven by science to be wrong, this time about his support for the use of hydroxychloroquine for the treatment the coronavirus that is afflicting the world. Here is the HuffPost Morning Mail as it appeared in my inbox this morning: HuffPost – TOP STORIES – Wednesday, April 22 NO BENEFIT AND MORE DEATHS FROM TRUMP MIRACLE DRUG A malaria drug repeatedly touted by President Donald Trump for treating the coronavirus showed no benefit in a large analysis of its use in U.S. veterans hospitals. There were more deaths among those given hydroxychloroquine versus standard care, researchers reported. With 368 patients, the study is the largest look so far of hydroxychloroquine with or without the antibiotic azithromycin. [AP] The HuffPost mailing and AP article they published are a clear demonstration that some progressives would rather see patients die than acknowledge that the President might be right about something. But more serious issues about the misuse of science are involved. I have been evaluating drug studies in depth since the early 1990s when a federal judge in Indiana confirmed my appointment as the single medical expert to develop the scientific basis for all the more than 150 combined product liability suits against Eli Lilly & Co for its allegedly fraudulent testing and development of Prozac. The suits claimed that Prozac was causing violence, suicide and mayhem. As we demonstrated in our book, Talking Back to Prozac, the research used by Eli Lilly to get FDA approval was junk science; but it was pure gold compared to the research that claims to debunk Trump’s support of hydroxychloroquine for treatment of COVID–19. The study can be found here, along with often cogent criticism of it at the end. My reanalysis of the skewed data used for the study raises a strong possibility that hydroxychloroquine by itself and in combination with azithromycin (the Z-pack) was saving lives. Yes, the drugs could have been saving lives in this study and are probably continuing to do so around the world. How is it possible that a study which claims to show that a drug which supposedly caused an excessive death rate might instead have proven that the drug was saving lives? Because the patients getting the treatment with hydroxychloroquine were much more ill—much nearer to death and much more likely to die—than the patients who did not receive the drug. Federal government approval for hydroxychloroquine was only “authorized” for “emergency use.” In line with this, President Trump has repeatedly said, in effect, “If people are going to die anyway, why not try it?” That is also what the FDA essentially approved it for—people in an “emergency” condition. Although the guideline does not define emergency use, it would certainly rule out using it routinely and probably not at all for patients who were not deathly ill. The study itself recognizes this flaw far into their discussion (p. 12): Baseline demographic and comorbidity characteristics were comparable across the three treatment groups. However, hydroxychloroquine, with or without azithromycin, was more likely to be prescribed to patients with more severe disease, as assessed by baseline ventilatory status and metabolic and hematologic parameters. Thus, as expected, increased mortality was observed in patients treated with hydroxychloroquine, both with and without azithromycin. (bold added, p. 12) It was expected that more patients would die while taking the drugs because they were being given to much sicker patients! The authors claim to have found a statistical way to overcome this fatal flaw, but there is no way to do so. Control groups would be needed in which patients who had equally bad prognoses were divided into medication treatment and non-medication treatment groups. The study had no control groups at all. In addition, many patients were put on the medications after attempting to treat them without the drugs. Of course, the patients on medication had a higher mortality rate—many were patients who were already getting worse on the non-drug treatments. Furthermore, the patients doing badly on no-drug treatment do not show up as no-drug failures in the study. Furthermore, there is strong evidence that the combination of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin was saving lives. There was “no significant difference“ in the death rates from any cause for the patients on the drug combination compared to the patients on no drugs (p. 11). In other words, although the patients taking the drug combination of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin were probably the sickest of the sick, there was no significant increase in deaths among them compared to the much less sick patients who received no drug treatment. This suggests that the drug combination had a lifesaving impact. My initial analysis indicates that this study probably contains significance evidence for a reduction in fatalities on the medications; but it would take a complete re-evaluation starting with the draw data to be sure. Beyond what I have said here, this article has seemingly countless additional flaws; but there is no need to go any further that what I have observed. When I went to the link for the article, I was startled to read the following declaration by the journal to which it had apparently been submitted: This article is a preprint and has not been certified by peer review… It reports new medical research that has yet to be evaluated and so should not be used to guide clinical practice. This article has not been peer reviewed and not officially published as yet. In fact, if there is an honest peer review, this article will be rejected for publication. I want to conclude with an historical anecdote about Huff Post. I have nostalgia for the “newspaper” that was once called Huffington Post. Before it was created, founder Arianna Huffington invited me to join the new blogsite that she was creating and of course I happily agreed. Arianna and her conservative assistant, Andrew Breitbart, had been calling me and my wife Ginger on occasion for advice on Arianna’s columns. I viewed Arianna as an independent thinker, and I was proud to be included as a founding blogger on what would become her newspaper. I did write several blogs for Huffington Post, but as the blogsite morphed into a progressive political screed, I found the increasing censorship intolerable. The editors did not like my criticism of psychiatric drugs, psychiatry, or drug companies. A few times, Arianna intervened on behalf of my freedom of speech; but she eventually sold her newspaper. The editors then invited a state Commissioner of Mental Health, an establishment enforcer, to supervise my blogs and I chose not to try to write for them any longer. We have now reached the point that science is literally being created to meet the needs of progressive media and politics. That is very dangerous and could lead to science being viewed with the same disrespect and even disdain as the progressive media is increasingly viewed.
14

If they choose to censor freedom of speech then they will be sued . the amount of deaths they have caused will far exceed any value they could ever achieve. There is nothing in its terms to make them offer content … but when they discriminate and cause massive harm in the process by selecting who is of value, you have just committed business suicide.

15

Its getting increasing harder to fight the powers that be. My wife, from another country , keeps telling me I am delusional thinking we have freedom of speech in the USA. We no longer are granted anything like this. I think we will hit well pass the 4th turning with this covid. I do not expect anything of the present US to exist in 5 years.

16

Human trials beginning this month in Germany & UK
https://www.dw.com/en/germany-to-start-first-coronavirus-vaccine-trial/a-53211375
https://www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-uk-human-vaccine-trials-to-begin/a-53206212

17

It may seem odd to THANK YOU, but in a word - the French government has declared here Chloroquine and all of its “esters” as being “vénéneuse”. Meaning that to obtain it you need a doctor’s prescription. If you get COVID-19, your Doctor can not prescribe it for you - I can say that MSM has done a wonderful job influencing everyone about it’s toxicity!
I do not live near Marseille. We are not allowed to drive anywhere without justification. I take heart medications and I am over 65 so I definiteley do not want to catch this thing. If you catch it - welcome to Brazil - the movie. I wrote my cardiologist as I would like to see how things would go should I get sick. Would he help me?
I was shocked at his reply - I sent him a copy of the Dr Oz interview
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uy1cPT1ztko&feature=youtu.be
with the following in English:
It was Dr Oz who says at 15:23 “You noticed in the paper that taking an ARB angio receptor blocker medication as well as other hyper-tensive medications was correlated to an increased incidence of being hopitalized and having to the virus present and having the virus present at 10 days, and in particular – the ARBs a very common blood pressure medication – 13% of the patients had a virus at this stage which was 3 times the average, 30% were hospitalized at 7 days which was 7 or 8 times the average. Why do you think this is happening?”
My Doctor, a professeur, did not appreciate my mail basically telling me to phone 15 (emergency) contact my GP. Ienclosed his reply (most of it) as an addendum.
To conclude: Post #6 CBellu You are right about France trying to hide HCQ+ like the Cinderella drug solution. However for the stealing of all of the HCQ stocks from government supplies - better put that in the Fake News column according to my family members. This whole affair with our government is very emotionally charged. Stocks disappear yes, but maybe some of the hospitals in bigger cities pounced on the available supplies.
I include this link (second time). In point 6 they mention HCQ being classified venemous. The underlined parts give direct links to other documents.
https://www.francetvinfo.fr/sante/maladie/coronavirus/agnes-buzyn-et-son-mari-didier-raoult-et-la-chloroquine-on-a-examine-au-microscope-les-20-affirmations-d-un-message-cense-prouver-un-scandale-d-etat_3891385.html
 
 
Addendum:

We now have ongoing clinical trials to investigate a potential beneficial effect of ACE inhibitors in COVID19 infected patients. It may not work but we there is a rational for a protective role of these drugs so let's see how it goes.
As for Pr Raoult treatment there is no evidence that it prevents neither Covid19 infection nor the risk of severe infection. In addition the combination of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin may induce severe arrhythmia leading to sudden cardiac death especially in patients with a pre existing heart condition which is your case. I strongly advise that you don't take such medication. For the record Pr Raoult is a biologist that knows a lot about bacteria and viruses but little about patients and drug effects. He has never conducted a clinical trial showing the efficacy and safety of any drug and it is a disappointment that instead of contributing to science and improvement of people's health care he prefers showing up on social media and television despite serious concerns regarding his so called discoveries.
The best thing to do is to avoid being in contact with people that may be contagious. Knowing that the majority of infected patients have no symptoms the only way to prevent infection is to stay at home and if you need to go out for shopping to wear a mask (homemade masks are OK) and to keep social distanciation as requested. I hope that the virus will soon stop spreading and that a vaccine will be developed so that the containment can be halted for everybody. In the meantime several treatments are being investigated but the results may take some more weeks. I guess that by mid may we will have much more data and hopefully much more options.
If you suffer from any sign suggestive of COVID19 infection please call your GP or dial 15 to discuss the best care. Knowing that you have a heart condition is very important and should be taken into account.
I hope my answer will help clarify your ideas regarding the epidemic and the therapeutic alternatives
best regards
18

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgrlabcBaHg
We all have a responsibility to cut through the cr#p.

19

In case you missed it, WHO ordered trials on some of the medications to treat Covid19 and it’s being carried out in Spain and Norway since 3 weeks ago. Just waiting for the results :frowning:
https://sciencenorway.no/drugs-epidemic-medical-methods/global-corona-study-led-from-norway-life-saving-drugs-may-be-in-place-this-summer/1665737

20

Very curious. NYC HCQ study finished yesterday, but no results yet. I wonder why this is?

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/22/health/hydroxychloroquine-new-york-study-results-unreleased/index.html
On April 12, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said, "about April 20 we think we're going to have results."
When results were not announced on Monday, CNN asked why not.
Cuomo answered that the hospitals "are to send their results" to the US Food and Drug Administration and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The CDC has not received results from the New York hospitals, according to agency spokeswoman Kristen Nordlund.
CNN did not receive an immediate answer from a spokesman for the FDA.
The New York Department of Health did not respond to CNN's inquiries about when it plans to release the study results.
Tuesday, after Cuomo met with Trump at the White House, a reporter asked Cuomo if he had "any indication of what the state results have been." Cuomo answered that he did not know.
Holtgrave, dean of the University at Albany School of Public Health, said he plans to finish his study analysis by the middle of next week, and publicly release it within a few days.
NYC hospitals - no rush on that data. It's not like anyone will die if they don't get the data.
Dean Holtgrave- no rush on that study. Take a week. Take longer, if you need to. Its not as if people are dying, waiting for the answer or anything.
Cuomo - don't bother calling anyone down there to find out the answer. It's not as if this is important - nobody is gonna die if this question isn't answered soon.
Oh wait. People actually ARE dying, waiting for you all to GET OFF YOUR F***ING ASSES and TELL US THE RESULTS!
Hey. Geniuses. CALL THE HOSPITALS and ASK FOR THE DATA. And Dean Holtgrave - how about you WORK OVER THE WEEKEND! Ever think of that?
Can they really be this incompetent? People imagine Cuomo might be a good President? When he doesn't care enough about his own voters to get the results of a trial that might end up saving their lives? Things are starting to smell so bad, EVEN CNN is starting to ask questions.