Dear Chris thank you for your update and debunking many studies. What really concerns me is the media and professional doctors getting on TV and telling us we do not know how many people have the virus like it is some revelation when the disease is passed by people not displaying symptoms. I have know this since February after reading medical papers out of China and India. This week it is the damage it causes to the blood and organs which has been known for a long time.
I feel like the media thinks people are basically stupid and want to just scare the crap out of people. All of these symptoms honestly have been know for over two months. Having checked the VA study myself I was upset that the media would even publish this crap.
I feel if Trump would state the new anti viral was great it too would be debunked. I am an independent but it appears to me if Trump thinks it may work the media will do their best to trash our president. This country needs to get over their divide and Trump needs to stop all the tweeting and lets do this logically and do our best to find a responsive treatment. Every study I have read in the USA chloro is used as a last resort.
Thank you for what you are doing.
Hi Chris,
Your last episode triggered my memory of this:
It is in Dutch, but basically states that a family doctor in the Netherlands (so early first line care) gave patients presenting with COVID-19 symptoms Hydroxycloroquine + zinc + azytromycine. All of them recovered within a few DAYS. Only 8 patients though, as he was ordered to immediately stop these “unproven” treatments and threatened with fines…
https://opiniez.com/2020/04/11/limburgse-huisarts-zink-lijkt-nodig-bij-corona-bestrijding/rutgervandennoort/
https://www.limburger.nl/cnt/dmf20200408_00155572/inspectie-huisarts-moet-stoppen-met-experimentele-behandeling-coronapatienten
Thank you for this episode! So much bad science out there, magnified by so much BAD journalism, amplified by so much political BS! I’m a biologist and a population health expert. You are the light in the darkness! Carl Sagan would be very proud of you! I’ve been following you since February and your efforts are GREATLY appreciated! You have the potential to be an even greater voice, if you wish to be. I believe that every member here would do their utmost to support and promote your leadership. Up or down, not left or right! Thank you! PS - I started my garden two weeks ago!
French connexion #13: Good to know that the stock were not stolen. All I had to go on was this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tw082CdLugQ
Interesting that your doctor was so against it. I saw on the Suisse news that Macron visited Dr Raoult and was quite supportive. Maybe they are beginning to worry about the fallout? Who knows.
I was hoping for something positive to come of that visit - on an Easter Friday. He addressed us on the Monday. Macron is married to a divorced woman, much older than himself, Brigitte - her daughter caught COVID-19 - was cured by HCQ+ treatment.
So I think you can see why I was hoping for an opening - but no.
We are stuck in a theater of the absurd, A Waiting for Godot. The official opening of France is for May 11th. Companies are organizing themselves - with the “accord” of the ministry of travaille (work) - presenting their plan for opening to be approved.
Quite honestly - there is no need for government!
I am watching the news, why does Mnuchin talk about opening by summer’s end? Absolutely crazy.
Clearly something is wrong, seriously wrong:
1 When you read the thread here - doctor/patient relationship taken over by government. Fake News getting the best publicity.
2 No matter how bad the news is re: economy - stocks go up. OK in the past we could hope for stimulus of some type - but the Oil market - we are talking about Dead in the Water! yet you would never know by looking at a stock chart that things are worse than they have ever been during my entire life.
Hello all, just as a heads up:
Dank je wel Marisca voor die informatie. Kan zin hebben dat in de gaten te houden.
(For the non-Dutchies) Interesting info here. It is a local newspaper, I (Dutch, but not living in the Netherlands at the moment) have not heard of that. It’s nowhere else in the news.
More info here: https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/sci-tech/flattening-the-curve_swiss-hospitals-launch-drug-trial-to-prevent-covid-19-infection/45711180?utm_content=o&utm_campaign=own-posts&utm_medium=socialflow&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR2CtO6Q7DwVlqEPOa6LBZL-QKj4I284iV0CwbdD3xHOspavqtWWYNfmagk
This article also has a link to a list of both submitted as well as submitted and approved clinical trials in Switzerland. Might be interesting to keep an eye on.
It’s almost as though governments worldwide want a thinning of the population. First they say not to worry, Covid isn’t too bad. New York City health commissioner says “it’s ok to ride the subway, be sure to attend the parade”. Don’t wear a mask, you’re too stupid to know how to use one. Studies show hydroxychloroquine will kill you. Thank God my doc will prescribe hydroxy, and z-pack if I can get a confirmed positive test. (I’ve got the zinc) That won’t happen unless I’m hospitalized in later stage of the disease when the protocol will probably do no good. 4 million more on unemployment, another 2500 deaths, businesses closing, supply chains down, oil to 0, state and other retirement funds in jeopardy, and the stock market goes up? We’re the government and we’re here to help. What a flipping joke, why am I not laughing?
GCTIII…I have to disagree with you about Trump’s tweets, especially as concerns HCQ therapy. The President has both a duty and a right to communicate with citizens. As our national leader in this time of crisis, it is also his duty to give us appropriate hope.
It is pretty obvious that most of the media hate Trump’s guts. Their Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) is just off the charts–incurable and inoperable. They cannot or will not report honestly on him. Whatever he is in favor of, they are opposed to. It might be amusing if it weren’t so damned serious.
In the case of Covid-19 it is literally a matter of life and death that we have the facts. Most of the media, including this Politico article that Chris has analyzed, are not interested in the facts, they are interested in making Trump look bad. Read the Comments section to see what I mean. (Disclaimer: I provided a couple of comments)
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/21/malaria-drug-virginia-coronavirus-study-198590
So Trump was right to speak about HCQ weeks ago as offering some hope. He had communicated with Dr. Zelenkov who has successfully treated hundreds of Covid-19 patients with zinc, HCQ and Z pack. I am sure Trump also considered other evidence, and then he communicated with us. There was (and is) no time for a “gold-standard”, double blind/placebo/peer-reviewed publication (2 years minimum).
A good leader acts on incomplete information and does not hide behind “experts”. Trump did so. Good for him. No matter what your politics, he made the right call and I don’t care if he tweeted or used smoke signals to communicate with us.
By the way, you might be interested in this piece about a Michigan Democrat lawmaker who believes her life was saved because of Trump’s tweeting about HCQ and zinc. Enough anecdotes make a very believable story…it is called the law of witnesses.
https://www.newsweek.com/dem-lawmaker-says-trump-saved-her-life-recommending-hydroxychloroquine-coronavirus-1496469
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.It's worse than a tendency, it's all I've got to work with! I've got the German MD with 6 divers. I've got anecdotes coming out my ass. What I don't have is large, peer-reviewed data sets of "mild" cases or survivors. I'm scouring daily for anything more concrete. But we're very early on in a major pandemic. So I kind of expect that and do the best I can. Same thing back when Fukushima broke. I was staying up nights scouring crappy, low-res videos, reading sloppy newspaper accounts in my efforts to uncover what was actually going on. It got so bad Adam and I paid out-of-pocket for our very own satellite fly-over photo. What resulted? Our analysis of what happened - which stirred up no small amount of backlash from actual nuclear engineers telling us we were hopelessly off-track and "cherry picking" - turned out to be completely confirmed. But only many years after the fact. I don't profess to be equally right this time, but I am very, very good at collecting anecdotes that fit the underlying patterns. So when I turn to certain accounts from Reddit, they are anything but randomly selected. They fit the hundreds of clinical reports I've read through. I wish we had better, but I haven't found the source yet. They will come. My prediction is that in the future we will know:
- Which missing micro and macro nutrients lead to some patients being slammed by Covid and not others
- Which genetic phenotypes lead to worse & better outcomes
- That some types of Covid damage are permanent
- That other sorts of damage heal, but very slowly
- That some 'forms' (mutations) or serotypes of Covid are worse than others
- The interplay of Covid damage with other external environmental factors (such as air pollution levels and types, dietary habits, etc)
I’m sure the families of these 8 patients that recovered would beg to differ. What are they so afraid of? Or is it a matter of money? Is a company slipping money to them to promote their vaccine? It sounds like HCQ has been tried all over the globe with varying degrees of success. If it works, and the family wants to try it, then why not, right? Nothing to lose if your mom or child is teetering on the brink of death.
I was telling a group of students this morning about the news industry in the U.S. Decimated news rooms over the last 20 years (Cleveland and Denver since the virus) have left insufficient resources for news organizations to dig into the facts. A superficial look at something, a press release, and voila. The role of specialized reporting has been taken over by web sites such as Peak Prosperity. Not enough people realize that yet, though.
I’ve seen multiple reports of doctors (in my nursing forum) stating that they have patients coming in and talking on their cell phones, but have very low O2 saturation. That’s not “normal”, normally patients are tripoding and “working to breathe” when their oxygen is low. I think this is why it’s so dangerous and lethal because of the “silent hypoxia”. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/20/opinion/coronavirus-testing-pneumonia.html https://www.healthleadersmedia.com/covid-19/nyc-doctor-says-high-ventilator-settings-damage-coronavirus-patients-lungs
Siddharth Narendran, MD
University of Virginia, Department of Ophthalmology
Siddharth Narendran is currently a fellow in the Department of Ophthalmology and the Centre for Advanced Vision Science at the University of Virginia. He completed his residency at Aravind Eye Hospital, Madurai, India before joining as a fellow under the mentorship of Dr Jayakrishna Ambati. He has received the AIOS-HOYA Young Research Scholarship award from the All India Ophthalmological Society. His current research lies in understanding the role played by mechanotransduction, processes through which cells sense and respond to mechanical stimuli by converting them to biochemical signals, in inflammation and retinal pigmented epithelium degeneration in Geographic Atrophy. He is committed to pursuing a career as a clinician-scientist and hopes to serve patients both through direct clinical care and translational scientific research.
https://aupo.org/programs-servicesawards/resident-and-fellow-research-forum
I posted a photo on FB of a family in their front yard all wearing masks from the 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic. I posted this back in March and got 1 “like” from my sister who is a hospice nurse. My caption, “This could all be over by summer if EVERYONE was required to wear a mask in public, social distancing, washing our hands regularly and cleaning commonly touched surfaces.” Now, we have people rioting in the streets, no masks, elbow to elbow, shouting with spit flying about how unfair all this is. If they would all adopt the aforementioned practices, then they could go back to work.
I love your candor and cutting through the “noise” in all this, and the fact all your predictions to date, have come to pass. You and Adam are fighting the good fight. I wish I’d subscribed a lot sooner than I did, no doubt it would have saved me anguish with regard to my retirement account.
Coronavirus: The Economic ‘Rescue’ Is Shafting Us
Part of an announcement by my Local Hospital:
Across the Network, St. Luke’s has discharged about 450 COVID-19 patients who are now recovered or on the road to recovery.
Among the discharged patients are many who were on ventilators. Network-wide, St. Luke’s has extubated about 50 patients thus far
.
“These remarkable figures reflect the incredible, lifesaving care that our doctors, nurses and other caregivers are providing our community, and the incredible innovations St. Luke’s has implemented to meet the unique challenges presented by COVID-19,” said infectious disease specialist Jeffrey Jahre, MD, St. Luke’s Senior Vice President of Medical Affairs.
Deborah Stahlnecker, DO, St. Luke’s Pulmonary and Critical Care Associates and Medical Director of the Anderson Campus ICU said her team has been working tirelessly to provide the best care possible for our COVID-19 patients, and it’s paying off.
“We developed a comprehensive medication protocol based on the best evidence available that includes hydroxychloroquine, high dose vitamin C, zinc, atorvastatin and steroids,” Stahlnecker said. “We also utilize non-invasive techniques such as high-flow nasal cannula and self-proning maneuvers, where patients spends up to 12 hours a day lying on their stomachs to help distribute oxygen more effectively in the lungs. Many of these measures were used to help Mr. Ding and others recover from COVID-19 across the St. Luke’s Network.”
Among St. Luke’s other innovations: The Network is one of the first institutions worldwide to use Masimo SafetyNet. Masimo SafetyNet uses a tetherless, single-patient-use sensor to monitor patients’ vital signs and provide doctors with valuable clinical data that helps to inform difficult treatment decisions such as when to use a ventilator.
“This technology is incredibly helpful in light of the crush of demand on our hospitals during this COVID-19 pandemic,” Aldo Carmona, MD, St. Luke’s Senior Vice President of Clinical Innovation and Chairman of the Department of Anesthesia and Critical Care, said.
For more information on the St. Luke’s/Masimo partnership, go to https://www.slhn.org/blog/2020/st-lukes-uses-new-tech-to-monitor-covid-19-patients.
About St. Luke’s
Founded in 1872, St. Luke’s University Health Network (SLUHN) is a fully integrated, regional, non-profit network of more than 15,000 employees providing services at 11 hospitals and 300 outpatient sites. With annual net revenue greater than $2 billion, the Network’s service area includes 11 counties: Lehigh, Northampton, Berks, Bucks, Carbon, Montgomery, Monroe, Schuylkill and Luzerne counties in Pennsylvania and Warren and Hunterdon counties in New Jersey. Dedicated to advancing medical education, St. Luke’s is the preeminent teaching hospital in central-eastern Pennsylvania. In partnership with Temple University, St. Luke’s created the Lehigh Valley’s first and only regional medical school campus. It also operates the nation’s longest continuously operating School of Nursing, established in 1884, and 34 fully accredited graduate medical educational programs with 263 residents and fellows. St. Luke’s is the only Lehigh Valley-based health care system with Medicare’s five- and four-star ratings (the highest) for quality, efficiency and patient satisfaction. St. Luke’s is both a Leapfrog Group and Healthgrades Top Hospital and a Newsweek World’s Best Hospital. In 2019, three of IBM Watson Health’s 100 Top Hospitals were St. Luke’s hospitals. St. Luke’s University Hospital has earned the 100 Top Major Teaching Hospital designation from IBM Watson Health seven times total and five years in a row. St. Luke’s has also been cited by IBM Watson Health as a 50 Top Cardiovascular Program. Utilizing the Epic electronic medical record (EMR) system for both inpatient and outpatient services, the Network is a multi-year recipient of the Most Wired award recognizing the breadth of the SLUHN’s information technology applications such as telehealth, online scheduling and online pricing information. St. Luke’s is also recognized as one of the state’s lowest cost providers.
In the attached interview, Nicole Foss praises you a great deal, Chris. I agree with her, completely. I have seen her speak in Milwaukee, and followed her for many years. The only mistake she made was in telling people too early, if that is actually a mistake (I personally don’t think so).[embed]https://youtu.be/yjbw4LeZBBw?t=120[/embed]