Guest post by Rud Istvan
There are as of today (5/1/2020) several newish developments enabling further skeptical comparisons to ‘climate science’. These involve post #4 on two possible therapies (remdesivir and the chloroquines), and post #7 on ivermectin. The bottom line is yet more contradictions and speculations, all reported without full disclosure. This post pulls a new overview together from public sources and from previous comments to other posts.
Remdesivir
Two initial clinical trials have been reported. The first was done in China using remdesivir synthesized there without regard to Gilead’s patent, and after China filed for a patent using remdesivir to treat CoViD-19. The second was done in the US by Gilead and reported midweek. The results contradict each other, sort of like modeled ECS versus observed ECS in climate science.
The China study was reported apparently inadvertently by WHO early this week, and later disappeared by them. 158 symptomatic patients were given remdesivir compared to 79 symptomatic controls. WHO reported remdesivir was “not associated with differences in time to clinical improvement” and the trial was terminated early after significant side effects emerged in 12% of the treatment arm. The Financial Times of London commented that the China trial was a flop. Dr. Fauci never mentions it, although he must be aware of it.
The Gilead study Dr. Fauci is touting as a success the past couple of days–even a as possible new CoViD-19 “standard of care”. A patented money maker for Gilead, helped by NIH. Maybe, maybe not. The actual trial results are not yet available, only Fauci’s enthusiastic take on them.
Chloroquines
There have been three reported ‘trials’.
Brazil is trialing chloroquine phosphate in high and low dose arms. Chloroquine phosphate is known to have more cardiac side effects (arrhythmias) than hydroxychloroquine. It has a narrower therapeutic window. It was the fish tank cleaner that killed a man in Arizona and sickened his wife when they self-administered overdoses. The high dose arm was discontinued when the inevitable side effects emerged. This was proclaimed a failure by the media, when in reality the low dose arm continues with no result yet reported.
The VA did a retrospective study on elderly vets and concluded hydroxychloroquine did not work. The press loudly proclaimed the VA failure this week, condemning President Trumpt for having mentioned the drug after France’s Dr Raoult and New York’s Dr. Zelenko reported success. The VA study was designed to fail. We now know from NYC that about 85% of ventilated over 65s die. That was the ONLY group the VA evaluated retrospectively. And, Dr. Zelenko said the key was hydroxychloroquine plus zinc. The VA did not add supplemental zinc. Dr. Fauci noted the VA failure without noting the bias and the flaw. Neither Fauci nor pharma want HCQ to succeed because there is little money in an off patent inexpensive therapy.
The third true clinical trial is a joint effort of U. Minnesota and McGill. It is well designed with three arms in two cohorts testing two endpoints. Arm 1 is control. Arm 2 is hydroxychloroquine. Arm 3 is hydroxychloroquine plus zinc. Cohort one is people known to have been exposed to Wuhan coronavirus, but not yet symptomatic. The endpoint is progression to symptoms or not, a test of prophylaxis potential. The other cohort is symptomatics. The endpoint is recovery or progression to serious/critical, a test of CoViD-19 therapeutic value.
The media are not covering this study, but McGill put out some good news this week in Canada. Based on results to date, they are modifying the original statistical design by curtailing the number of enrollees, with the goal of a preliminary result by end of May rather than July. This can only mean they are seeing some statistically meaningful positive results. Else, they would continue with the original design to get the originally planned statistical answers.
Repurposing other old drugs
This was the theme illustrated by R#7 Ivermectin. Yesterday (4/30/2020) there was a long illustrated article in The conversation.com by Nevin Krogan of UCSF, discussing a longer paper on the same topic that also appeared yesterday in the prestigious journal Nature.
Krogan reports that his team worked tirelessly for two months to map in silico ALL the possible Wuhan/human protein/proteins interactions. Using this computer model ‘map’, they then tested in silico (more computer models based on chemical mechanism of action–MOA) ~2000 drugs approved for other uses. They identified 69 candidates that might affect a mapped protein interaction either therapeutically or detrimentally. They have now tested 47 in vitro and found a few promising therapeutics and one definite detrimental.
Seemingly big rigorous science news reported in Nature! Except it really isn’t as good as it sounds once the issues are understood, which are unpacked below. MBH98’s hockey stick seemed rigorous until Steve McIntyre showed it wasn’t.
PMC2373733 discusses ‘libraries’ of protein structure. The full structures of about 15000 proteins are known, but many are non-human. This has taken decades because of the complexities of protein folding. The ‘outside’ counts for biology, the ‘inside’ usually doesn’t. PMC4419399 discusses the more common protein fragment libraries. These are typically less than 100 amino acids long, and ‘outsides’. For example, they are used to build DNA or RNA oligomers for ‘gene chips’, or for the new Wuhan coronavirus RNA tests. Building an incomplete and uncertain in silico Wuhan/ human protein interaction ‘map’ is certainly possible in two months using existing libraries. It cannot be complete, and the interactions are only modeled.
Comparing known drug MOAs to this interaction map is also possible in silico. All FDA approved drugs must have an experimentally proven MOA. Although aspirin predates the FDA, its MOA is now known many decades after first used. Aspirin irreversibly inhibits cyclooxygenase (COX-1), thus suppressing signaling for prostaglandins and thromboxanes, thus reducing pain and inflammation. If Wuhan had a protein section resembling COX-1, aspirin might be a therapy.
Testing 47 of the 69 in silico candidates in vitro is possible also. In fact, it is almost criminal that Fauci’s NIH has not already done so with HCQ alone, and plus zinc. Epithelial cells of the African green monkey are a traditional in vitro method for respiratory disease. These were infected with Wuhan in petri dishes and then half were dosed with test drugs (the remainder were controls). Of the 47 drugs identified in silico, 8 appear therapeutic, one is detrimental, and the rest have no impact. That 38 out of 47 (80%) had NO interaction shows how uncertain the UCSF in silico model methodology actually is.
So there may be 8 new drug candidates against CoViD-19 reported in Nature yesterday. Two work via the same MOA as the combination of HCQ plus zinc, by inhibiting the RNA polymerase from assembling new virions. Six supposedly inhibit the ‘sigmaR1 and sigmaR2’ portion of the S spike protein, a “new” therapeutic modality—except it isn’t, since the Conversation article ends by noting that HCQ also binds these, except ‘less efficiently’, thus providing the MOA for HCQ alone. I cannot tell for sure from the articles, but this is probably just the S2 neutralizing antibody target renamed. S1 binds the virion to the ACE2 receptor. S2 enables the virion to pass thru the cell wall into the cell to unpack its RNA and begin replication. Blocking either is neutralizing.
The intent of the rushed Nature article is to get the 8 into CoViD-19 clinical trials and then EUA (temporary Emergency Use Authorization) approval. Two of the 8 are cancer chemotherapies. One of those, zotatifin, is apparently intentionally misrepresented in both the Conversation and Nature. It is only in clinical stage 2A dose ranging, far from a normal post phase 3 FDA approval. The company that is developing it as a new cancer therapy is already touting the Nature article just a day later. It turns out that one of the Nature paper authors is ALSO the company founder. What a Mann like coincidence. I therefore did not bother to track down the rest of the ‘repurposed’ Wuhan drug candidates.
Rud thanks for your continued posting on the Covid subject, I learn something new with every post you put out.
Regarding Dr Raoult, I don’t see any other explanation for his success other than the drug works. Perhaps he has a selection bias but if he treats everyone that shows up I can’t see a high selection bias, unless somehow high risk patients are not going to him.
I realize the organization below is fly-by-night but their statement is rather provocative.
Hydroxychloroquine Has about 90 Percent Chance of Helping COVID-19 Patients
https://aapsonline.org/hcq-90-percent-chance/
Well, that’s not very reassuring to people who want a sure cure.
If it only works for 50% that is still better than 0%.
Rud has done a really good job on this.
Couple of points:
1. There is and likely never will be a “sure” cure unless an effective anti-body is created.
Most flu vaccines are reported by CDC as only about 30% effective (one made it to 60%). It’s not very likely a CV-19 vaccine will land in about the same range.
2. The much praised remdesivir “breakthrough” was a trial of 1,600 which resulted seems to indicate it will reduce (as in make shorter) recovery time in perhaps 26% of patients compared to placebo.
And, of course, there’s lots of money to be made from a patented drug over a generic regardless of what deals are made with the patent holder. Especially a drug with a not-very-effective clinical track record for it’s original purpose. For the non-business folks, that translates into better some money than none noting that “good will” is a business asset.
CAUTION: when reviewed the pharm/FDA/CDC/Fauci trials of remdesivir, always dig out the actual numbers and compute the percentage effect yourself. Pharm companies and smart folks with agendas routinely use relative percentages (search it) to hugely inflate apparent effect and proclaim “reductions in risks”. That’s how a 1 in 100 improvement over a placebo inflates to 50% up to 100% “reduction in risk” as an “effective drug”.
Association of American Physicians and Surgeons
Hydroxychloroquine Has about 90 Percent Chance of Helping COVID-19 Patients
https://aapsonline.org/hcq-90-percent-chance/
I’ve read 3 different ways that HCQ supposedly works:
* Changes pH so virus can’t enter cell
* Modifies ACE2 limiting virus’ ability to attach to it
* Zinc ionophore
All three are plausible.
I’d be VERY interested to get your take on another aspect being investigated by Dr. Roger Seheult of “MedCram” – a YouTube channel normally dedicated to helping medical students study. Dr. Seheult is a practicing pulmonologist treating Covid patients.
If it piques your interest, here are the videos where he explains this avenue of his ongoing work:
Coronavirus Pandemic Update 61: Blood Clots & Strokes in COVID-19; ACE-2 Receptor; Oxidative Stress
https://youtu.be/22Bn8jsGI54
Coronavirus Pandemic Update 63: Is COVID-19 a Disease of the Endothelium (Blood Vessels and Clots)?
https://youtu.be/Aj2vB_VITXQ
Coronavirus Pandemic Update 65: COVID-19 and Oxidative Stress (Prevention & Risk Factors)
https://youtu.be/gzx8LH4Fjic
Yes yet another way that COVID-19 is different to the flu virus.
It is very worrying that patients around 50 are having strokes induced by COVID-19.
But the clotting can attack all the body’s organs.
Still curious on Rud’s take on the ACE2 / hyperoxidation angle.
Semaphore flare fire two! ;^)
So why has this always been dismissed if there has been proven benefit via a trial?
Conspiracy theorists want to know.
Or is it cells versus say clumps of cells (aka a human being) are 2 different things?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chloroquine is a potent inhibitor of SARS coronavirus infection and spread
Martin J Vincent, Eric Bergeron, Suzanne Benjannet, Bobbie R Erickson, Pierre E Rollin, Thomas G Ksiazek, Nabil G Seidah & Stuart T Nichol
Virology Journal volume 2, Article number: 69 (2005) Cite this article
215k Accesses 109 Citations 16890 Altmetric
https://virologyj.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1743-422X-2-69
Indeed. For sure the first two. I’ve seen no studies that quinine is a zinc ionophore (although CQ and HCQ appear to be), but quinine does reduce hepatic metabolism of zinc (which is why it used to be approved for sale as a treatment for leg cramps… now it’s just recommended to take zinc, calcium and magnesium supplements for leg cramps).
Chloroquine is a non-enzymatically bioactivated form of quinine. Hydroxychloroquine is a prodrug form of chloroquine.
So the body metabolizes HCQ into CQ, then bioactivates it into quinine… the end active ingredient in each case is quinine. The only difference is in how long it takes the body to metabolize / bioactivate it into quinine (the synthetic versions reduce side effects due to rapid absorption of the quinine).
Quinine is rapidly absorbed / expelled by the body, and thus has a short half-life of ~18 hours, so frequent dosing is necessary, whereas for HCQ, for instance, the time between doses can be as long as a week, but the drug is less active (more of it is hepatically metabolized and expelled before it can be converted to quinine), paradoxically necessitating higher dosages.
Quinine interferes with sialic acid biosynthesis. SARS, MERS and Covid19 use sialic acid moieties as receptor sites to attach to human cells… so quinine makes it more difficult for the virus to attach to cells (for anything to attach to a cell, a pH gradient must exist).
There are studies which show that the tendency for Covid19-infected people to lose their sense of taste and smell is linked to acute zinc deficiency.
I pre-dosed with 83 mg/day of quinine in the form of 1 L of Indian tonic water. 8 days after I’d started dosing, I was exposed to the virus heavily for two days, and all I got 5 days later was a slight tickle at the back of my throat (enough to know I had a cold or flu coming on) and a feeling like someone had pulled my power cord (no energy), but it went away the next day (after dosing up on more quinine, 4000 mg of vitamin C, 10 mg zinc, and 800 IU of vitamin D, and a good night’s sleep).
That was more than 2 weeks ago, no subsequent symptoms yet.
Another thing… nicotine is being studied now as having the same effect as quinine (acts upon the ACE2 receptor).
Excellent!
to: LOL@Klimate Katastrophe Kooks
Here’s a link to your previous post on this subject, LOL:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/04/08/coronavirus-wuhan-coronavirus-guest-post-four/#comment-2959870
Quite the compelling (and interesting) story, LOL, and thank you for the update.
“So the body metabolizes HCQ into CQ, then bioactivates it into quinine…”
False.
Not even close.
Made up nonsense.
Nicholas: Thank you for posting. I have told people I found no evidence that quinine and drinking tonic water to get some, was shown to act as an ionophore for Zn. I see that you agree. Is this correct? Thank you again!
It is easy to look up what happens when these drugs are metabolized.
In fact I posted as much a short time ago on another thread.
KKK just makes up almost everything he says.
He then copy/pastes a litany of nonsense and it looks impressive to people who just believe what they read.
In fact, anyone who knows anything about chemistry at all can see that quinine is very different from the other two.
Organic chemistry may be mysterious for a lot of people, but for those who are trained as chemists, many things are obvious just by looking at the structure of a molecule.
Organic chemistry categorizes groups of atoms and specific arrangement of atoms into what are called functional groups.
Functional groups cause various molecules that share those groups to share some characteristics, and to be very different from similar molecules that lack those groups.
And as a general rule, it is impossible to pull one functional group out of the a carbon backbone of an organic molecule and insert a different one.
But that is what would have to happen for HCQ or CQ to be made into quinine.
Quinine has the nonaromatic portion of the molecule attached to the quinoline by a carbon with a hydroxyl substituent.
But CQ and HCQ have a secondary amine nitrogen at that position.
And in quinine, the nonaromatic portion of the molecule is itself a bicyclic molecule…a sort of unusual one called a bridged polycyclic molecule.
In particular, it has a very unusual group called an azabicyclo group.
Perhaps KKK could explain exactly how this is synthesized in a human being?
Just to be clear, HCQ is not a prodrug of CQ.
It is not transformed in the body into CQ.
Neither could even possibly be made into quinine in our body.
Quinine
In general our metabolic pathways do not make molecules more toxic than they started out.
And it does not generally perform complex intermolecular functional group substitutions.
In fact this never happens to my knowledge.
All three molecules are quinolines, which is a bicyclic heterocyclic aromatic molecule.
Most people probably know what benzene is, and many may know that it has a property called aromaticity…it’s valence electrons are not bound to one or another of the carbons in the ring…they are in a state of resonance.
In any case, a molecule that looks like two benzenes stuck together is called naphthalene.
This is called a polycyclic aromatic molecule.
It is in fact the simplest of these.
If you substitute one of the carbons in the naphthalene molecule with a nitrogen (but not one of the ones shared by both rings, one of the ones next to a shared carbon), that molecule is called quinoline.
Many organic molecules start out with this functional group, with various substitutions.
I could go into a long explanation of how it is impossible in a human being for numerous the the functional groups in quinine to be synthesized from those in HCQ or CQ, but there is no need.
It is easy enough to just look up the metabolic pathways of each of these, and see that none of those pathways involve any of them being converted to any of the others.
Basically, the sort of BS he spews is what I call “pure BS”, meaning it is made up out of thin air.
You will find no scientists who think these things are true, and no book or text where these things are asserted.
It is not controversial or in dispute, it is simply nonsense, made up from nothing by someone too ignorant to know it is impossible for it to be true.
AFAIK, one CQ has been shown to be a zinc ionophore.
I have asked many times on many threads for anyone who asserts that HCQ is to please cite a source.
Or perhaps someone is aware of research that shows that the aromatic portion of the molecule is what transports zinc?
If so, is the assertion that any molecule with a quinoline group acts to transport zinc?
And as far as that goes, there is nothing in the literature asserting that transporting zinc is how these drugs work.
At this point there is a grab bag of mixed up and mostly unsupported assertions being kicked around by people who have somehow decided based on zero research, actual knowledge, or clinical finding, that all manner of separate effects and mechanisms of action are at work.
And as time grinds on, the information that is trickling out continues to paint a less than rosy verdict regarding the actual ability of any of these drugs to cure anybody of COVID or help them survive longer or even get better faster.
Besides for all of that, there is ample reason to be certain that people with ANY mineral and/or vitamin deficiencies are going to be less healthy and at greater risk in general, and especially when they get sick.
There are many such nutrients that are known to play important roles in our immune response.
But no reason to think that taking some gigantic amount of any one thing that we need in small amounts is anything like a great idea.
In a post today:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/05/05/many-effects-of-hydroxychloroquine-against-covid-19/
This text: “HCQ is known as Zn ionophore – it crosses cell membranes and carries Zinc with it [8]” (This has been known for some months now on WUWT; Welcome to the party.)
Points to this reference:
“[8] J. e. a. Xue, “Chloroquine Is a Zinc Ionophore,” PLOS ONE, 2014.”
Well,
if you want a excellent review of the Chinese study and US study on remdesivior
This is excellent.
Chinese test had no power.
https://youtu.be/Z2hfGcTokiY?t=50
watch it
I spent hours last night going over the china study with a fine tooth comb.
It is not as bad as claimed by most people.
By every measure that showed a difference, the remdesivir group was sicker, and they recovered two days faster.
I spent hours.
The comment disappeared.
I am not gonna redo it…I mean I spent hours and took the study apart line by line.
I am sure China is hiding something.
They got remdesivir from Gilead when the virus was raging through their people back in January.
Rud is wrong…they did not make their own.
Gilead gave them a huge supply.
I doubt they threw it away.
They still have sick people to this day.
I think it is at least as likely they did not want to keep giving people placebo, so they jacked the results, and did what they wanted to do.
The gave almost everyone in the study many other drugs, both before day 1 and during the trial!
I think they wanted to give everyone the drug that they could, or they wanted to save the supply of the drug, which takes a year to manufacture and has rare precursors, for their leadership or something like that.
They do not throw away anything.
But they have stopped using HCQ and CQ after getting that whole thing started with a tiny inconclusive study.
They were given almost all of the then completed supply of remdesivir…they did not bootleg it as Rub bizarrely claims.
I hope my comment from last night shows up.
Would you mind expanding on “…they did not make their own.”?
I ask because I remember China claiming that “BrightGene” – a Chinese company – had manufactured enough for the trial they claimed they were starting.
Not saying Gilead didn’t supply Remdisiver to them, because it was reported they were offering to, but if the CCP spoofed them into doing so it’s yet another reason to hate the SOB’s.
“The China study was reported apparently inadvertently by WHO early this week, and later disappeared by them. 158 symptomatic patients were given remdesivir compared to 79 symptomatic controls.”
WHO may have disappeared it from their site, but it is still here:
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31022-9/fulltext#seccestitle150
“We thank Gilead Sciences for providing the study drugs “
“The China study was reported apparently inadvertently by WHO early this week, and later disappeared by them. 158 symptomatic patients were given remdesivir compared to 79 symptomatic controls. WHO reported remdesivir was “not associated with differences in time to clinical improvement” and the trial was terminated early after significant side effects emerged in 12% of the treatment arm. The Financial Times of London commented that the China trial was a flop. Dr. Fauci never mentions it, although he must be aware of it.
The Gilead study Dr. Fauci is touting as a success the past couple of days–even a as possible new CoViD-19 “standard of care”. A patented money maker for Gilead, helped by NIH. Maybe, maybe not. The actual trial results are not yet available, only Fauci’s enthusiastic take on them.”
Rud is all wrong.
watch
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2hfGcTokiY&feature=youtu.be&t=40
here is the “disappeared paper”
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31022-9/fulltext
The china test has no power. Low N.
when will people GET THIS!
Not finding an effect can be due to LOW N.
This is WHY you do a design of experiments and take the POWER of the test into account to
set your N.
FFS.
“Not finding an effect can be due to LOW N.”
You mean as in the “hep B vaccine does not cause MS” studies?
Were you these when these studies showing no link were mentioned in WUWT?
“Were you these when these studies showing no link were mentioned in WUWT?”
nope I usually avoid vaxx stuff
If a Covid test has a 3% success rate, it would be deemed a monumental failure, but an expensive, patient protected treatment with a 3% success rate is hailed as a wonder drug.
You need a clumsy, elaborate, “perfect” trial to find such impotent wonder drugs, so I would argue that the emphasis on massively powering these studies is the real problem.
3% success rate?
what the study found is that you have to treat 28 people to cure 1.
3.5%
and it reduces hospital stay.
wunder drug? hmm, I am making no claims.
Its just data, I apply no adjectives
“You need a clumsy, elaborate, “perfect” trial to find such impotent wonder drugs, so I would argue that the emphasis on massively powering these studies is the real problem.”
You can argue anything you want. But folks who do design of experiments are in charge.
Type I and Type II errors rule the day.
Do your own science if you disagree
Yeah sounds like a typical standard of government efficiency— 27 out of 28 patients get no benefit. Sounds like a good candidate for a $9 trillion Phase 37 bailout bill. Democrats sign on as long as the lockdown is extended to Nov 4
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/government-researchers-changed-metric-to-measure-coronavirus-drug-remdesivir-during-clinical-trial/ar-BB13ui2k
And they did a Texas Marksman switcheroo too. Just the data… lol.
Well I’ll bring a little dismal science to ruin the party hahaha.
While no fan of conspiracy ummm … speculations, as an economist I firmly believe in the power of incentives, and as a student of freshman psych (and former insomniac), believe in the strong influence of the subconscious mind. Empirics on this would be the risk-sharing contracts we designed with BCBS to “influence” specialty MD’s to think a bit on hospital costs.
OK – so that said, it’s still rather disturbing to reverse-engineer a possible impact of the incentives at work with folks like Fauci, Gilead, etc. WHO WOULDA THUNK that downplaying or “poo-pooing” the efficacy of a cheap EARLY STAGE drug such as HCQ might POSSIBLY be related to the setting of the expensive LATER STAGE drug such as remdesivir…? I mean, if the early stage treatment leads to fewer late stage patients….
I don’t think that btw … well, not that I’m aware of LOL ….
The MedCram video is indeed excellent. I hesitate on one point — he thinks p=0.05 is the line between significant and not. That’s a pretty weak line and can be less than shown (Bonferoni, etc)
“The china test has no power. Low N.”
True, but not the usual excuse — they couldn’t find enough covid patients!
We are searching for a cure and looking at beneficial effects of a drug with known side effects. We should demand strong evidence.
When we look at possible harmful effect of a widely used drug for prevention (like vaccines), we should accept weaker evidence, for reasons that if I need to spell out to the audience, the audience should not make health, policy, or any important decision what so ever.
no more mr niceguy.
When we look at possible harmful effect of a widely used drug for prevention (like vaccines), we should accept weaker evidence, for reasons that if I need to spell out to the audience, the audience should not make health, policy, or any important decision what so ever.
You make a definitive, authoritative, condescending statement without the slightest justification or data. Not even a wiki page. I don’t mind that you present such a bromide but it’s the number of people that will blindly say, well ok. You should put your application in for Biden’s VP.
agreed on the .05.
There is a growing concern that the supply of patients will dry up.
There are hundreds of non coordinated studies.
Neither Fauci nor pharma want HCQ to succeed because there is little money in an off patent inexpensive therapy.
…
In fact, it is almost criminal that Fauci’s NIH has not already done so with HCQ alone, and plus zinc.
I’m not a fan of Dr. Fauci, but is is he really that far off base? I cringed when I read those two lines.
My 2¢ worth? When we come out from hiding in our houses, whether that’s tomorrow morning or six months from now that virus will still be there waiting. So why are we hiding? Why are we going into debt and ruining our economy? You Tube has censored Dr. Erickson – if you want to label something criminal, that gets my vote. Google, You Tube and a few others need to have anti-trust legislation generously applied. I am being denied access to public information.
“I’m not a fan of Dr. Fauci, but is is he really that far off base? I cringed when I read those two lines.”
Yeah, me, too. Unsubstantiated conspiracy theories are not helpful.
Chloroquine the malaria fighting chemical, is absolutely useless in fighting the virus without Zinc supplements!
And there are invitro tests that prove that Chloroquine is a Zinc ionophore (our cells are negative and the Zinc ion is +2 positive) and another invitro tests show that the zinc in our cell stops the virus from replicating.
This is simple safe method to stop covid. The Choroquine dosage can be 15mg/day and Zinc 30 mg/day based on invitro tests. Those are the same as long term safe dosages for other things.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4182877/pdf/pone.0109180.pdf
Peer reviewed studies have shown: Chloroquine is a Zinc Ionophore (it gets a tiny amount of zinc into our cells) and then that tiny amount of zinc makes the ACE-2 molecule that the virus must connect to slightly positive, which stops the virus from connecting to it and replicating.
And Peer Reviewed studies have also shown: That a tiny amount of Zinc in our cells stops the covid virus from replicating.
https://techstartups.com/2020/04/03/updates-from-dr-vladimir-zelenko-now-treated-700-coronavirus-patients-with-99-9-success-rate-using-hydroxychloroquine-zinc-sulfate-and-z-pak-1-outpatient-died-after-not-following-protocol-exclusi/
And a Jewish physician has treated 700 of covid patients with the low dosage Chloroquine and Zinc supplements with a 99% success rate.
The cure for covid-19 is Chloroquine 30 mg/day plus 30 mg/day of Zinc. The amount of Zinc is the same as current Zinc supplements sold in drugstores.
Wow, only 30 mg/day of CQ? Given that CQ is a non-enzymatically bioactivated form of quinine, that means one can easily and cheaply get more than that (83 mg / day) of quinine in the form of 1 L of quinine-fortified Indian tonic water. That’s ~75 cents per day for treatment (not taking into account the cost of zinc, vitamin D and vitamin C supplements to go along with it).
How much does Remdesivir cost per dose again? Analysts at RBC Capital Markets expect Gilead would price the drug at around $900 to $1,000 or lower per course, which is 10 days… so ~$90 to $100 per day.
Anyone wonder why they’re fast-tracking an expensive drug when the NIH knew from as far back as 2005 that chloroquine is “a potent inhibitor of SARS coronavirus infection” [1] and since SARS binds to the same cell receptors as Covid-19, and since chloroquine is a synthetic version of quinine, why they’re attempting to quash the cheaper (and arguably more effective) option that’s been known about and studied for more than 90 years?
[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1232869/
Something I commented on to CtM before he posted this latest rumination, but which did not make his post intro. After this was submitted today, FDA gave an EUA to Gilead remdesivir, announced by PDJT from the Oval with Gilead CEO. Shows the hopeful political power Fauci has. Now the stark two published trial differences could be things like differences in dosing regimen, which we dunno yet. But the medical equivalent to possibly bogus climate science is starker than ever.
” Now the stark two published trial differences could be things like differences in dosing regimen, which we dunno yet. But the medical equivalent to possibly bogus climate science is starker than ever.”
or more mundane: China study had no power to find the SMALL benefit found in the larger study
N
Type 1 errors
Type II errors.
The Chinese study did not find NO EFFECT. it found a difference that was not statistically
significant. the Low N, 237, made the power of the test ( the ability to find small effects)
too weak.
The larger study found a small effect. they did not run out of patients as the Chinese study did
they enrolled ~1000 and stopped the trial when they hit an endpoint
The endpoint was reduction in time in hospital. This was found early in the study and
Ethically they cannot continue to continue the placebo arm
MOA: Mechanism Of Action ?
Yes, as explained per CtM rules in the text.
“The Gilead study Dr. Fauci is touting as a success”
being an UN-reviewed and UN-published and UN-verified “study”, its promotion is a serious scientific fault for which the media should be shaming Fauci each day and every day until he admits it is a fault both of communication and of scientific conduct.
“The hydroxychloroquine is an unproven drug and it’s unethical to promote it” crowd is silent on that one. It’s no surprise as it’s the “believe all women” crowd, the “man should just shut up” crowd, the “it’s unfair to question a victim’s motives” crowd… and they all cover to Joe Handsy Biden.
In fact hydroxychloroquine has a few dangerous side effects, but most of these occur only for long term use. Dumping the list of hydroxychloroquine possible side effects was a stupid scare tactic from the “fear is the weapon of the extreme right” crowd. (Cardiac effects are a problem though, as the Kung Flu often lower potassium.)
OTOH the Gilead drug is quite nasty side effects even for short term use.
But what did you expect in term of pharmacovigilance from the “Joe did nothing wrong and if he did rape some women, Orange Man rapped more” crowd?
Mish-mash and late-to-the-party; you’re doing nothing except ‘raising the noise floor’ and diluting the SNR (signal to noise ratio) …
Jim, your comments here are always insulting noise.
Coming from a verified idiot, I do not know if I can say this is “high praise” or not …
BTW, why are you here, Dunning-Kruger? Do you really think you “fit in” here?
@mods
Please.
Do.
Something.
re: “mods do something”
“Save me – save me from the mean bully! Even though I fully earned this rep by foolish and nonsensical postings – SAVE ME!”
Playing the victim, oh yeah, a ‘trick’ of the left: Antifa, any SJW group one can think of …
Go fish.
Psychological projection is a right b*tch, ain’t it? Most of the accursed souls held in its grip don’t even realize they’re doing exactly what they accuse others of… it’s what makes a liberal a liberal. LOL
“The media are not covering this study, but McGill put out some good news this week in Canada. Based on results to date, they are modifying the original statistical design by curtailing the number of enrollees, with the goal of a preliminary result by end of May rather than July. This can only mean they are seeing some statistically meaningful positive results. Else, they would continue with the original design to get the originally planned statistical answers.”
Searched. found nothing.
part of the problem
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/368/6490/476
Hopefully the study will make it past our chicom loving, liberal globalist, gun stealing dear leader.
Canadian prime Minister Trudeau also known as socks for his weird factuation with fancy socks.
The study does exist, but from the links I found, they are still looking for subjects. No results yet.
https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04308668
“Post-exposure Prophylaxis / Preemptive Therapy for SARS-Coronavirus-2 (COVID-19 PEP)”
https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/calgary-researchers-hope-to-prove-hydroxychloroquine-effective-in-covid-19-treatment-1.4893803
Tweet from head of study.
One big thing not being discussed is the backend of covid is septic shock covid style.
See this link for the HAT septic treatment from a few years ago.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30441816
Here you will see china was using a modified version of HAT
https://covid19data.com/2020/03/04/expert-consensus-on-comprehensive-treatment-of-coronavirus-disease-in-shanghai-2019/
Here the sepsis alliance points this out. Treating covid means treating septic shock.
https://www.global-sepsis-alliance.org/news/2020/4/7/update-can-covid-19-cause-sepsis-explaining-the-relationship-between-the-coronavirus-disease-and-sepsis-cvd-novel-coronavirus
The WHO ect.. put out a treatment that did not address this issue and got a lot of people killed. The following article points this out in a politically correct manner.
https://journals.lww.com/ccejournal/pages/articleviewer.aspx?year=2020&issue=04000&article=00018&type=Fulltext
What happens when this is ignored. See following
https://gulagbound.com/60053/murder-nyc-covid-19-patients-left-to-rot-and-die-in-hospitals-sara-np/
The argument about which antiviral to use is about money. Pure and simple. See again the following protocol and read pages 9 and 10 and let it sink in.
https://www.evms.edu/media/evms_public/departments/internal_medicine/EVMS_Critical_Care_COVID-19_Protocol.pdf
The medical system is a meat grinder
… where humans are the preferred meat.
That HAT protocol uses thiamine (B1). I’ve been reading something that says vitamin B3 (niacin) is highly effective in preventing lung tissue damage.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41418-020-0530-3
I have noticed that to, but the vitamin B side of things has been deemphasized and the current thrust has been anti infamitory, anticoagulant, antioxidants, and keeping the immune system in check
In a similar vein, a German doctor had success using passive ventilation on 12 critically ill intubated patients.
https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/929609?src=soc_tw_200429_mscpedt_news_mdscp_ventilator&faf=1
I’m having a hard time processing some doctors’ negative reactions to his success (see link below). One actually said it was heartbreaking that he deviated from established protocol. I’m getting the feeling that protocols are more important to some doctors than saving lives.
https://twitter.com/PulmCrit/status/1255642277063602177
Opening a window may be the best idea of all.
There is more evidence that COVID-19 needs different treatment depending on the state of the patient:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32323287
Thanks Rud – as usual most enlightening.
I have long been bothered by Fauci’s obviously unenthusiastic reading on Hydrochloroquine and almost giddy reporting on the Gilead product. Yet, when I heard his results on the Remdesivir on Fox I was struck by the strong similarity in the reported results. In both drugs, apparently a few days less hospital time on average.
Gilead is also reported to be a big financial supporter of the charity? connected with NIH which Fauci leads Any more details on this connection? The conflict is pretty obvious especially since Remdesivir is a patent drug and presumably is very expensive and hydrochloroquine is definitely not costly.
re: “I have long been bothered by Fauci’s obviously unenthusiastic reading on Hydrochloroquine”
NIH (not invented here) syndrome writ large; I’ll bet he’s never read any of the dispatches from Raoult and associates.
If hydroxychloroquine proves as effective as Remdesivir then people will use hydroxychloroquine and it won’t matter who or how much Remdesivir is promoted, the cheaper drug will win out.
The French study showed hydroxychloroquine cleared the body of virus in five or six days.”Cleared the body of the virus” sounds good to me. That would seem to be the goal, and the sooner the body gets cleared, the better, going by the way this virus progresses.
If I get the Wuhan virus, I’m going to take hydroxychloroquine. President Trump made that possible and Dr. Fauci did not prevent him from doing so.
We’ll be getting the results of the hydroxychloroquine tests in the near future. Dr. Fauci isn’t stopping those tests, either.
At the risk of violating a commandment of commenting, reposting a comment I just made above:
Well I’ll bring a little dismal science to ruin the party hahaha.
While no fan of conspiracy ummm … speculations, as an economist I firmly believe in the power of incentives, and as a student of freshman psych (and former insomniac), believe in the strong influence of the subconscious mind. Empirics on this would be the risk-sharing contracts we designed with BCBS to “influence” specialty MD’s to think a bit on hospital costs.
OK – so that said, it’s still rather disturbing to reverse-engineer a possible impact of the incentives at work with folks like Fauci, Gilead, etc. WHO WOULDA THUNK that downplaying or “poo-pooing” the efficacy of a cheap EARLY STAGE drug such as HCQ might POSSIBLY be related to the setting of the expensive LATER STAGE drug such as remdesivir…? I mean, if the early stage treatment leads to fewer late stage patients….
I don’t think that btw … well, not that I’m aware of LOL ….
New insights on the antiviral effects of chloroquine against coronavirus: what to expect for COVID-19?
The multiple molecular mechanisms by which chloroquine can achieve such results remain to be further explored. … preliminary data indicate that chloroquine interferes with SARS-CoV-2 attempts to acidify the lysosomes and presumably inhibits cathepsins, which require a low pH for optimal cleavage of SARS-CoV-2 spike protein
Zn2+ Inhibits Coronavirus and Arterivirus RNA Polymerase Activity In Vitro and Zinc Ionophores Block the Replication of These Viruses in Cell Culture
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4632443/
Lonicera japonica is a plant found as possible treatment in this study:
http://dx.doi.org/10.2471/BLT.20.255943 Source
Looking further over Lonicera japonica, I found further:
Scientists Discover First ‘Virological Penicillin
Identification of natural compounds with antiviral activities against SARS-associated coronavirus
Traditional Chinese Medicine in the Treatment of Patients Infected with 2019-New Coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2): A Review and Perspective
hey wow many thanks
very interesting reading indeedy
and heres me with honeysuckle growing madly
one of the few things that is doing well in my garden lol
think id be buying the readymade though
To me the most blatant part of the HCQ soap opera is the breathless blaring articles that it is dangerous/deadly for people to take it unless they are in a hospital or a clinical trial.
Then in tiny muted text, a note that all those taking HCQ daily to treat other conditions should ignore everything the article just said and continue taking it.
I know no drug without any side effects, even if there was one in thousand clinicalt test occured, the side effect has to be published in the enclosed label and is known. As well as the contra-indications, that are known too and to consider before any treatment.
In so far I can’t understand why some people are riding that striped (rare) horse to discredit HCQ + AZ
Krisna
Since I’ve been one of the more vocal ones here, let me state why I’m riding the striped horse. There have been many posters here who have falsely claimed that there are no significant side-effects to HCQ. I take exception to falsehoods, whether they be purposeful lying or simple ignorance. In order to evaluate the cost/benefit ratio, one first has to acknowledge that there ARE potential costs in the form of both mild and severe side-effects. Those considering taking HCQ should have ALL the facts. HCQ may work, particularly in the presence of zinc (And, zinc may be more important than HCQ!). The side-effects are not inevitable, and are mild more often than they are severe. However, that is of little consolation to those (and their family) who happen to be hypersensitive, or develop one of the known severe side-effects such as heart arrhythmia or suicidal tendencies. It is the infrequent, but severe, reactions that dictate that administering a drug of uncertain efficacy be closely monitored to preclude losing people that might have recovered on their own, or might have been given an alternative treatment. At this point in time it appears that everything from a “Hail Mary” to zinc gluconate for colds might be as efficacious as HCQ.
The facts are that there is no rigorous clinical trial that proves HCQ works as claimed by advocates; we don’t know the optimal dosage, we don’t know the optimal length of time to use it because we don’t know if it really works, and we can’t evaluate the relative cost/benefit if we don’t know if it works and we don’t know whether a patient will react poorly to the drug. My sense is that most of the advocates hold the position they do, not because of medical evidence, but because Trump recommended it — a form of inverse TDS, or hero worship.
Just to be clear, I support Trump’s positions on economics, illegal immigration, and gun control. However, he has made it abundantly clear that he knows little about medicine or even general science. He has an inflated opinion of his intelligence. He is the last person in the world I would seek out for medical advice. Having said that, he is a far better candidate for the presidency than anything the democrats can field! However, that is a sad commentary on the state of our politics and leadership.
re: “My sense is that most of the advocates hold the position they do, not because of medical evidence, but because Trump recommended it — a form of inverse TDS”
No, its on the basis of the accounting of the effectiveness as related by Dr. Vladimir Zelenko (you i***t! BTW, I recognize the new “inverse TDS” talking point from elsewhere on the web.)
Here’s the core of this article: https://uncoverdc.com/2020/04/30/medical-misinformation-part-1-hydroxychloroquine/
People like you, Clyde Spencer, are NOT as well-read as you think you are …
.
First of all to your last point, what Trump said or recommanded doesn’t touch me in the one ore the other way, I live in Germany, so he can or may tell what ever he will.
As I read for the first time here about HCQ, Trump was in no way involved at this time, in so far… So my thoughts are not conducted by an inverse TDS, really not, beware !
I have problems with the TDS of media and doctors, who prohibit the use of HCQ.
But I read and followed several studies about, f. e. from Raoult, and I remember well to have read, that in one of his first papers, he wrote about the need of ECG control during treatment, so he was aware of possible side effects in that direction.
If I’m ill or have a medical problem that has to be treaten by what ever drug, prescribed by my doctor I’m aware of the fact, that I could be the one of no idea how much persons tested in earlier days of the developpement of that drug that suffers one of these side-effects, knowing that even Aspirin isn’t free of.
As I was young and had, the one or the other time somewhat like flu, I got s. th. that was usualy given by doctors.
As I had to change my doctor, because my earlier retired, and came with flu symptomes to the new one, asking for that usual drug, he told me, no I’ll not prescribe it, because of the side effects of the ingredient Phenacetin of that drug, that damages the kidneys. Since then, Im aware of side effects, beside the fact, I worked for two big pharmaceutical enterpises, at the beginning and at the end of my job history.
So I see no reason to ride that striped horse knowing that all other drugs are not free of side effects, even the patented as Remdesivir that gets a lot of promotion, why ever.
PS
show me one person in politics of what country ever that has any knowledge of medicine, or even climate science 😀
You will point on no one….
re: “show me one person in politics of what country ever that has any knowledge of medicine,”
In the US House of representatives from Texas, Dr. Michael Burgess, MD. Texas 26th District, since 2003.
OK, but you won’t compare him with f.e. Trump, Merkel, Macron or Johnson ?
There are 20 licensed physicians in the current US Congress.
Four of those are Democrats (and one of those … Psychiatrist). Not that I counted or anything….
There are a lot of doctors in the US congress, both house and senate.
Rand Paul for one is an MD.
In fact there are 3 senators, and 14 representatives in the US congress as of last September, who are doctors.
It is not at all uncommon.
https://www.patientsactionnetwork.com/physicians-116th-congress
This is good news and is interesting on a technical level also.
This could have happened 10 years ago. This is industry disrupting. It changes medicine to engineering with predictable and perfect results in eliminating threats and fixing microbiological defects in the body.
Covid and Trump made this possible.
We could have a Covid-19 ‘vaccine’ by this September.
Trump has given $500 million, to a new breakthrough disruptive technology, that uses the human cells to create a synthetic copy of the covid-19 virus’ spike protein.
This is very different than the old medical technology ‘vaccine’.
This is an engineered microbiological entity that is smart and only does what we want. This is the start of ‘engineered’ biology.
If it work (and it did for Ebola) this is going to make all of the old technology vaccines obsolete and this is just the start of this new technology.
This is a game changer. The time to develop old technology vaccines, a year before tests and then the test vaccine could fail. More than one vaccine is developed to protect against failure. And the viruses change and the process is so slow and expensive. i
… and the tests and failures are complicated to analyze and resolve, expensive, and dangerous to people. The manufacturing of the vaccine is complicated and expensive.
This ‘vaccine’ like entity was developed in 42 days. It is not complicate. It does one thing and it then dies and is absorbed in the cells.
The test to ensure it is safe is simple. There is less that could go wrong. If a problem is found in tests the entity can be changed to fix the problem.
What was stopping the use of microbiological entities to ‘fix’/change the body rather than dumb chemicals or dead viruses was….
The body’s immune system.
What changed to enable engineered ‘virus’ like entities to do our bidding…
….was the development of software that can emulate any virus or virus like entity in a computer and emulate the bioactive response of the human body.
This complex software representation of the ‘virus’ like entity can ‘learn’ in computer simulation how to defeat the human immune system…
This ‘evolved’ software version of the virus like entity is then turned into a physical virus.
The physical version of the virus like entity will be able to defeat the human immune system and then do good things.
Note this virus like entity cannot reproduce so there is no risk it could evolve and hurt the host. It only does one thing.
It uses some of the human’s cells to create a copy of spike like protein that the covid-19 virus has. This spike like protein then teaches the human’s immune system how to defeat the covid-19 virus.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/01/us/coronavirus-moderna-vaccine-invs/index.html
Moderna, Inc. — originally called Moderna Therapeutics — was founded on a big idea that would disrupt the pharmaceutical industry.
Here is a series of lectures on covid that I think everyone here would find interesting
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_voXEIX5Xhvo-4N-Wg7rFuG7JwY8AOHp
drbeen lectures
Link to VA retrospective study here:
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.16.20065920v1.full.pdf
Rud’s comments on this above are fair. The VA retrospective study involved examining data for 368 males of median age greater than 65, already sufficiently ill to require ventilators, and more than half of the 368 were ethnic black. We know from NYC data and Washington state data that, for age groups 65 and older with verified Chinese virus, in late stage infections and on ventilators, greater than 80% will die regardless of any other treatments. We also know, for as yet undetermined reasons, ethnic blacks suffer more significantly from the Chinese virus infections. All this retrospective study really succeeded in demonstrating was HydroxyChloroQuine and HCQ+Zpack were ineffective therapeutics for +65 males in the late stage of Chinese virus infections. Note that zinc therapeutics were not included in the VA retrospective study.
As for ethnic reasons, read up on vitamin D
I’m not sure if HQC is effective but it pisses me off no proper studies have been done on it. I would like to see study where zinc and HCQ given immediately. Don’t even wait for test of covid results. Treat suspected case right way with it or placebo. Do it randomized. The government is either totally incompetent or is corrupt by not having this study already DONE. There is nothing complicated about it.
Need a study that compares the antiviral portions of all this in a manner that separates out the septic shock part. In the end it is not the virus that kills.
Oddly, in the VA study I could not find the dosage and duration for each patient wrt either Hydroxychloroquine or HCQ+Zpack. The study only notes the 3 study subgroups had HCQ, HCQ+Zpack, or No HCQ at all. Whether the individual dosages varied and by how much is unstated.
This was a study where they just read the patients charts after words.
I have seen this pattern before. I will not go into history.
I call it the WHSN, World Harvard Spin Network
1. Announce a bullshit study to be published in the New England Journal of Medicine. (Harvard written all over it)
2. The study has absolutely no chance of getting thru review.
3. The WHSN affiliates spin the story around the world fasting than a speeding virus.
4. The FDA acts…
5 . BIG PHARMA makes a bundle
I read that study. Total garbage, from a statistical integrity (or is that scientific integrity) point of view. What a world we live in….
“All this retrospective study really succeeded in demonstrating was HydroxyChloroQuine and HCQ+Zpack were ineffective therapeutics for +65 males in the late stage of Chinese virus infections. Note that zinc therapeutics were not included in the VA retrospective study.”
By this late stage of the disease it seems the out-of-control immune system is what is doing the damage and eliminating the virus does not eliminate the inflamation and the damage that has caused.
Anyone in the at-risk age group who shows symptoms should probably be treated with hydroxychloroquine or Remdesivir at that time. We don’t know in the beginning if the disease is going to be fairly benign or if it is going to progress into a devastating stage, so we should probably err on the side of caution and treat it and get the virus out of the body as soon as possible.
And we still need to determine what kind of damage, if any, is done in the early stages of infection before symptoms appear. We might need to detect this virus earlier and treat it earlier.
These medications are the key to us getting our lives back to normal. The good news is some of these treatments look like they might just do the job. If we have confidence in a cure, then we can resume our lives without fear.
On the prevention side an interesting question is how well quercetin vs hydroxychloroquine works as a zinc ionoporo. An interesting discusion is found here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9YFXo84lCk&list=PL_voXEIX5Xhvo-4N-Wg7rFuG7JwY8AOHp&index=4&t=0s
Back in March my doctor read me the EVMS prevent protocol. First time I have ever heard a suppliment recomendation from my Dr. On hearing what I had learned, my daughter went on a rant about Trump making money off hydroxychloroquine and biased news sources. Here it what I told her.
1. Everyone is biased.
2. Understand how people are aligned.
3. Understand their true motivation
4. Then search for the nuggets of truth in the noise.
As for my motivation:
1. I am at risk so to speak.
2. I am trying to get my immune system in shape as best I can.
3. When, not if, I am exposed to the sars-2 virus, I want to know my treatment options.
4. When the nurse from comes to my home, will my Dr beable to prescribe hydroxychloroquine for myself at home.
5. Should I end up in the hospital, what back end protocol will be used. Hope it is not NYC style.
In full, this is what drives me these days. My recomendation: read and really understand the EVMS protocol, prevention and treatment.
Thanking my daughter for her rant that put me on this journey looking for the few nuggets of truth that are out there
Btw, Terry, Trump doesn’t make any money on hydroxychloroquine. That’s just more disinformation from the Leftwing Media.
I understood that, that is why my daughters rant sent me on a mission to find exactly where my drs advice came from
Tom I would add that also, HCQ and Zn do not kill the virus. Zn and HCQ might still be effective at stopping new replication of the virus, but that the virus in these late stages is well established already. So stopping replication by that time might be too late.
I think it’s fair to point out that none of the drugs “kill” any virus population in toto … far as I know (and please, correct me if I’m wrong). They inhibit it, and the immune system does the rest. If someone could make a quip off of “Justice delayed is Justice denied” I’d appreciate that too … haven’t had enough coffee yet, drawing a blank LOL….
You’d be correct…
Quip of the day.
Hypothetical President comments: “I see the war planes and bombers heading to our country to continue their attacks on us, but let’s first do a scientific study to find the best munitions to use before we start a defensive attack. It would be wrong to try the munitions that have not been shown to be effective at defending ourselves against this particular enemy”
Nice… I believe that dark skin color requires much more sunlight to produce Vit D3, and therefore deficiency is prevalent in dark skinned people who do not get ample sun exposure or who do not supplement D3. D3 is a crucial vitamin needed to support immune function (and many other functions).
“It was the fish tank cleaner that killed a man in Arizona and sickened his wife when they self-administered overdoses.”
https://freebeacon.com/issues/goodman-discusses-investigation-of-arizona-mans-death-from-drinking-fish-tank-cleaner/
As usual, the MSM was too quick and foolishly jumped to conclusions.
Researcher Hervé Seitz of the CNRS (he is a directeur de recherches there, he has the responsibility to direct scientific research; his profile here) happily ate and regurgitated that crap, as in his YouTube channel (where among other things he complains about Raoult direct, unscientific communication via… YouTube):
https://youtu.be/Bm-GJ4PF9ts?t=715
“lui il a fait une overdose de chloroquine, ça l’a tué à 100%”
And he blames Didier Raoult for that death. French scientific elite, lol.
Interesting. This reads like an Agatha Christie homicide plot. Or maybe I’ve just been watching too many “All Crime, All the Time” TV shows while stuck at home.
“As usual, the MSM was too quick and foolishly jumped to conclusions.”
It’s not done foolishly, it is done deliberately.
“Dr. Fauci noted the VA failure without noting the bias and the flaw.”
He should just have said “for the same reason we have expressed doubt over Dr. Raoult non randomized studies, we can’t base our evaluation on the VA retrospective study”.
He did not, ergo, Fauci is a tool – at best.
There are two conditions under which a drug study will be terminated early.
“with the goal of a preliminary result by end of May rather than July. This can only mean they are seeing some statistically meaningful positive results. Else, they would continue with the original design to get the originally planned statistical answers.”
As I understand, it means they are running low on enrollment (patients), and think that with some prospect that the disease will recede over this period, the design is unlikely to be achievable.
That doesn’t seem to agree with what one of the doctors involved in the study said. He said the more participants, the earlier the completion:
Well if I listen to my local media the Covid is everywhere and people are dying left and right. Should be plenty of patients 😉
Derg
A little over 1,000 deaths out of a population of 12 million in the state of Ohio. We may make it to about 2,000 by the time it subsides. That would be a state-wide death rate of 0.02% The best hope for patients would be from our prisons and retirement homes.
Not commenting on the skew in the virus’ selection bias, but I will say the prison data are the best around as far as 100% testing goes.
As of 5/1, at Marion CI there are 8 deaths out of just over 2500 inmates. Concurrent with full testing of the population between 4/16 and 4/19, inmates were separated into Isolated (73% postives) and Quarantined (27% negative) populations. Since then, just over 1/3 of the Quarantined have “converted” to positives, bringing the overall infection rate to 82%.
Of those, 8 have died (0.4%) and just yesterday, 69 were cleared as “recovered” (“out of the woods” as the docs say) … now if we could just get the dang ODH to keep better stats up front, there’d be a lot more information to be had. Frustrating doesn’t begin to describe it.
Anyway … it’s getting to the phase of truly tail end incubation period, so hopefully the death stats will be “finalized” eh. Will be interesting if we can get anything interested out of the longer-term followup re: herd immunity and reinfection.
So they will prescribe this new wonder drugs to 100,000 people, and 97,000 of those never needed it in the first place. And they have no way to predict which 3,000 actually might benefit from it, so everybody gets it.
It reminds me of the decades long lectures about eating too much salt, when the actual scientific basis for it was only in patients with severe hypertension or heart disease. But hey, we did a big study and when we crunch the numbers it spits out some measurable effect, so it must be blindly promulgated for all.
Tests of the Zelenko Protocol
Avni Thakore MD, St. Francis Hospital, New York
Hydroxychloroquine and Zinc With Either Azithromycin or Doxycycline for Treatment of COVID-19 in Outpatient Setting
Compliments to Dr. Thakore for having the guts to test the Dr. Zelenko’s Protocol. This is especially important after such partisan media denigration and New York Governor Cuomo forbidding pharmacies from filling Dr. Zelenko’s prescriptions. Medical animosity was so great that the FDA refused to allow the 31 million doses donated into the US national stockpile from being used outside hospitals – where Dr. Zelenko has proven to be most effective. Dr. Fauci effectively condemned 50,000 patients to death with $3 trillion harm to our economy rather than use an “unproven” treatment.