First: high fives all around for fans of quality science! Our months’ long position that both hydroxycholorquine+azithromycin+zinc and ivermectin showed strong promise as cheap, effective treatments vs covid-19 now appears to be proven correct.
Of course, up until this point, the media has parroted “junk science” talking points designed to malign and vilify these treatment candidates, very likely on behalf of Big Pharma who can’t reap $billions off of them. And in the meantime, millions of sick patients worldwide have likely been denied these drugs as a result.
How many people have died/suffered as a result?
Other big developments to note: covid-19 appears to have mutated into a more contagious strain, more evidence is mounting that the virus spreads in an airborne manner, and it seems herd immunity without a vaccine may be harder to achieve than previously anticipated.
All this leads us to maintain our expectation that the world has a long way to go yet before the pandemic is anywhere near “under control”.
GET YOUR RESILIENCE SHIRT! If you want your own RESILIENCE shirt to proudly wear like Chris & Adam, click here.
Circulated on facebook. (Unfortunately, it came via the EM Doctors group with a tone of “how dare this quack write this kind of trash, we must stop him…”
My name is Brian C. Procter MD and I am a Board-Certified Family Physician in McKinney, Texas. I am a colleague of Dr. Ivette Lozano that was interviewed a few weeks ago. [posted here on PP by OliveOilGuy and Jim H]
I respectfully suggest that there is a much bigger issue/story here. Most commentators are discussing inpatient treatment only. If patients are admitted to the ICU then their chances of survival are dismal. But what happens when we treat patients 3-6 weeks earlier, when they first develop symptoms? I have been treating COVID-19 patients in the outpatient trenches for over 2 months now just like Dr. Lozano. I like her, I am using Hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin, losartan, aspirin, and zinc (all for less than $50 at my local pharmacy). We have identified, diagnosed, and successfully treated these patients at a relatively early point in the course of the disease.
It is these statistics that are amazing. I have treated over 50 patients without a single death, ventilator, or hospitalization. Dr. Lozano has treated twice that many with the same success. I even treated one patient that was discharged from a hospital the day before who was treated with IV fluids only for 4 days and released, still feeling terrible! We are two community docs using EARLY AGGRESSIVE OUTPATIENT TREATMENT to handle the disease with a 100% success rate (ZERO Admissions, ZERO).
Therefore, If we can treat patients EARLY for $50, we seem to be successful at preventing hospitalizations, ICUs, and death as well as saving tens of thousands of healthcare dollars per sick patient. My local ICU doctors have pleaded with me to keep doing what I am doing. The answer seems to be EARLY AGGRESSIVE OUTPATIENT TREATMENT and NOT contact tracing (which is communism and ! cannot even get the Public Health Dept on the phone), quarantine (which destroys millions of lives), wearing masks (which is ridiculous as a long term solution w/o proven data), a vaccine (by the time we get it, likely won’t need it), social distancing (which won’t sustain or GDP with 25% occupancy), testing (ALL tests have a high false negative rates, or watchful waiting (a tactic that has needlessly resulted in 100,000 deaths).
We could also place all Nursing home patients on HCQ prophylaxis for 180 days on a voluntary basis of course. This could theoretically prevent thousands of needless hospitalizations and deaths.
In conclusion, if we treat COVID-19 just like anything else we treat (ie, the flu, pneumonia, a sinus infection, hypertension, and diabetes) early and aggressively with a regimen that costs $50 out of pocket or less with 100% success (which is a far better stat than treating all those other conditions), then why is the country shut down and doing social distancing? This political sham must stop.
The American people deserve to know they can go to their regular doctor and get treated early with a regimen that is completely safe and extremely effective, and they do not need to worry about ending up in the hospital and dying. The public is UNAWARE of this, please educate them with the truth. The country needs to return to normal NOW.
This is the REAL story. Please feel free to contact me with questions. My heart goes out to all those who have needlessly suffered and continue to suffer during this sham crisis and a disease that is extremely treatable if treated EARLY!!!
BRIAN C. PROCTER MD
Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is a systemic disease characterized by both lung pathology and widespread extrapulmonary virus dissemination causing multiple organ injuries. In this regard, renal dysfunction is an ominous sign in patients with SARS. Indeed, clusters of SARS coronavirus (SARS-CoV) particles have been detected in the cytoplasm of renal tubular epithelial cells in postmortem studies, explaining the presence of infectious virus in the urine of SARS patients. In order to investigate the potential SARS-CoV kidney tropism, we have evaluated the susceptibility of human renal cells of tubular and glomerular origin to in vitro SARS-CoV infection. Immortalized cultures of differentiated proximal tubular epithelial cells (PTEC), glomerular mesangial cells (MC), and glomerular epithelial cells (podocytes) were found to express the SARS-CoV receptor angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 on their surface. Productive infection, however, occurred only in PTEC but not in glomerular cells. A transient infection with poor virus production was observed in MC, whereas podocytes were not permissive to SARS-CoV infection. In contrast to the cytopathic infection of the Vero E6 cell line, SARS-CoV did not cause overt cytopathic effects in PTEC or MC. Of interest, PTEC, but not MC, maintained stable levels of SARS-CoV production in serial subcultures, suggesting a persistent state of infection. In this regard, a SARS-CoV variant with increased replication capacity in PTEC was selected after four serial subculture passages. This SARS-CoV variant acquired a single nonconservative amino acid change from glutamic acid (E) to alanine (A) at position 11 in the viral membrane (M) protein. The E11A point mutation was sufficient for enhanced SARS-CoV replication and persistence in PTEC when introduced in a SARS-CoV recombinant infectious clone. These findings indicate that human PTEC may represent a site of SARS-CoV productive and persistent replication favoring the emergence of viral variants with increased replication capacity, at least in these kidney cells.
Not sure if this is useful but thought worth posting just in case.
Thanks for the correction and thread. I found that in my research, which I still have a lot more to do. The whole “Gain of Function Research” and findings being kept secret really irritates me. Hope to post more as I dig deeper. You’ve given me a great thread to pursue.
I took a friend to an appointment this morning. While waiting in the parking lot, I tuned the radio to NPR. I used to listen quite a bit to NPR while commuting. I hardly ever listen to it anymore now that I’m retired.
“Morning Edition” was on when I tuned in. As per usual, they said which topics would be discussed during the next half hour at the top of the hour. One of the subjects concerned the coronavirus crisis. That piqued my interest. I thought to myself, “let’s see how they present this.” https://partners.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/07/07/884957449/the-pandemic-is-pushing-scientists-to-rethink-how-they-read-research-papers
It was presented by Brian Harris. He started talking about science and how the facts should dominate the conversation. It shouldn’t matter if a publisher is well known or not as long as the facts support their conclusion. (So far, so good!) Then, there was a minute or so about discussing prominent VS unknown publishers and how we tend to trust prominent individuals. (Why was this included ???) Then, the segue about a paper that came out of China in early May … Jonathan kimmelman, a professor of biomedical ethics at McGill University was quoted -
He first asks himself a basic question: Can I trust what I'm reading here?
"Knowing where a researcher is, or who a researcher is, can be part of establishing that trust," Kimmelman says. "But I do think it harbors some dangers."
Sometimes the freshest ideas come from young and relatively unknown scientists. And sometimes scientists with big reputations produce flops.
In the case of coronavirus research, a lot of important results come out of labs he's never heard of, produced by people he doesn't know. So Kimmelman tries to look for signals of quality in the papers themselves.
He recalls one paper out of China in late March that touted the benefits of hydroxychloroquine, a malaria drug that has been promoted as a possible treatment for COVID-19.
"This [finding] was pretty quickly taken up by TheNew York Times, and a number of different experts had fairly positive statements to say about the clinical trial," Kimmelman recalls.
Rather than diving directly into the data and analysis, Kimmelman first looked at how the researchers had approached their work. Studies involving human beings are supposed to be registered in government databases such as clinicaltrials.gov. There, scientists declare in advance the specific hypothesis they are testing and describe how their experiment is designed.
In the case of the hydroxychloroquine study, Kimmelman discovered that the reported results had veered significantly from their previously stated experimental plan. "Those struck me as a lot of major red flags," he says. "It probably took me something between 15 minutes and 30 minutes to come to the conclusion that this paper wasn't worth the time of day."
Sure enough, the promise of hydroxychloroquine as a COVID-19 treatment eventually crumbled, as several larger studies failed to show any benefit. [My bold.]
I was so angry after hearing this bullshit that I could have eaten nails. They took one little HCQ study that had some identifiable integrity issues and painted all the HCQ treatment studies with the same broad brush. The only conclusion that one of their "thinking" listeners could draw was that HCQ is a worthless treatment option.
Now that the "cognizant" have been informed, they "know" that there is nothing to be gained by considering HCQ as a treatment option. Why? Because they heard it on NPR.
This is what we're up against.
Grover
I quit listening to that bullshit years ago.
It is funded by a smorgasbord of corporations and Foundations.
I can’t believe anybody outside of brain dead liberals (redundancy alert) takes any of the dulcet tone crap seriously
[Dr. Baric's] commitment and expertise is what led to the quick trials and widespread use of remdesivir and other compounds, including a pill called EIDD-2801 [ribonucleoside analog studied in his lab] when the SARS-CoV-2 virus emerged.
An email from someone that says, ‘Thank you, remdesivir saved my life,’ makes the exhaustion worth it.
Now a quick comparison of study results:
Remdesevir in hospitalized patients (multi-center, double blind): Difference in mortality did not reach significance. Primary outcome measure changed to reduced time to discharge from hospital (reduced from about 15 to 11 days on average). Official reaction: " A game changer!" "New standard of care!"
HCQ in hospitalized patients: Mortality cut in half in hospitalized patients. No significant cardiac side effects. Official reaction: Crickets.
Regarding standard of care, from NIH website as of today:
June 16, 2020, Update: On June 15, The Food and Drug Administration revoked the emergency use authorization (EUA) that permitted the use of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine donated to the Strategic National Stockpile to treat certain patients with COVID-19. In light of this announcement, the following sections of the COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines have been updated to remove the information regarding the EUA:
Antiviral Drugs Under Investigation
Chloroquine or Hydroxychloroquine
Table 2b
NIH Panel on COVID treatment - financial disclosure of participants
The Panel recommends against the use of chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine for the treatment of COVID-19, except in a clinical trial (AII) [emphasis on the website]
(A)
“Within a few hours of each other last week, two of the world’s most prestigious medical journals - the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) and The Lancet - each retracted an article about treatment of patients with Covid-19.
The Lancet publication had suggested that hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) increased the risk of death in coronavirus patients.
Since the findings of both studies could not be substantiated by the authors, the papers were retracted.
But much damage had already been done.”
https://twitter.com/raoult_didier/status/1281107799175544832
Dr Raoult posts a comment on Remdesivir.
His own comments are very negative about the drug.
Remdesivir does not heal - worse it causes kidney insufficiencies: on 5 patients treated by this medication at Bachat Hospital Paris, two were put on dialysis.
When do we get the Discovery results?
What is the WHO waiting for before reacting?
Organisation Mondial de Santé = World Health Organization
https://mapthenews.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/5df19abcf8714bc590a3b143e14a548c
Since Chris posted a map of Spain - here is one of France. On the right-hand side you can see concentrations of hospitalized patients - Paris and population density!
Perhaps even more “parlant” speaking - visual - is when you touch the réanimation function (ICU) and you see the 0% on most of the rest of the country. In the upper right-hand corner you can click to make this the only presentation on the page. Seine Saint Denis in the north of Paris still in first place with 56% of ICU beds occupided.
PS Anyone think that it was a stupid idea to lock us up inside so noone would get infected?
I was curious how you’d report on that HCQ study, but I must say that I’m disappointed. You previously said that you were only after the truth, that you took no position on HCQ, yet words like “Vindication!” and your eagerness to accept this result suggest otherwise.
Lack of zinc has been blamed for negative results in other studies, so how come the results here are believable? (If a study can’t work without zinc, then logically this one shouldn’t have worked.) In fact, the non-randomization provides a few alternative explanations for the results, explanations that you chose to gloss over. For example, the patients receiving HCQ tended to be younger than those who weren’t, and they were the patients who lacked any conditions that would have made HCQ dangerous, e.g., heart conditions, so it’s not so surprising that that group fared better. (Additional limitations are discussed here.) The authors themselves point all this out and conclude:
"However, our results should be interpreted with some caution and should not be applied to patients treated outside of hospital settings. Our results also require further confirmation in prospective, randomized controlled trials that rigorously evaluate the safety, and efficacy of hydroxychloroquine therapy for COVID-19 in hospitalized patients.
Now, I have no intention of criticizing the study. It seems like good science, and it adds a data point. It’s just not the conclusive evidence that HCQ proponents are making it out to be.
Welcome to PP. Good to see you have created an account today.
The critique of the HCQ critic is “disappointing” as it goes after Chris M’s integrity in a an unwarranted manner. The your criticism of the study is valid, Chris clearly spelled out the study’s limitations during his podcast albeit a little less in-depth as podcast time is limited. He also stated he wanted better studies on HCQ meaning the jury is still out & there needs to be much more evidence before conclusions can be drawn. He ran out of time and didn’t even speak about Ivermectin.
Btw, the study’s authors had to put that nice phrase at the end of their article warning HCQ should not be given outside the hospital setting. The FDA has been threatening to take away medical licenses from physicians who prescribe HCQ outside the hospital even though HCQ has been widely prescribed around the world to millions of patients for 70+ years. Curiously, the FDA has not put out blanket warnings on other pharmaceuticals before. All sorts of medications are prescribed off-label all the time, and many have even more severe potential side effects. Just 2-3 years ago the WHO (presumably not corrupt then) put out a statement saying how safe HCQ is and that they had no evidence not to prescribe it for malaria prophylaxis, etc. And, lawyers like doctors writing warnings on things.
There have been a lot of terrible studies reportedly showing how dangerous the potential side effect of cardiac arrhythmias in patients taking HCQ. Nearly all of these so-called studies have have been disproven. Certainly, pre-existing conditions such as cardiac disease raise one’s risk, but the main risk of giving HCQ is in people with advanced symptoms from CV-19. CV-19 infection directly affects the heart in some, and in others becomes extra irritable from the overall deterioration of patients conditions. There is no data I’m aware of supporting the so-called dangerous risks if giving HCQ early in CV-19 infection.
Thanks for the link the study critique.
