COVID-19, Guest Column, Media & Press, Politics, What's New

Dr. Jane’s Pearls

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COVID-19: Who Is Responsible for ‘Unfathomable’ Deaths?

You may well ask why the U.S. should be a world leader in per-capita COVID-19 deaths. Our morning paper calls passing the 200,000 mark “unfathomable.”

A better question: Why is the death rate about 75 percent lower in many countries?

The gap seems to be between countries that treat COVID-19 early or prophylactically with hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) and those that, like the U.S., discourage or prohibit its use.

Findings of favorable results with HCQ or chloroquine began to be reported in global publications as early as Feb 6. Most Americans first became aware of HCQ on Mar 19, when President Trump mentioned it during a press conference, alongside other hopeful treatments. He said: “Now, this is a common malaria drug. It is also a drug used for strong arthritis… And it’s shown very encouraging—very, very encouraging early results… I think it could be a game changer. And maybe not.”

After this, the war on HCQ was on. The President was accused of “touting” an “unproven” and even “very dangerous” remedy. Most of more than 160 media reports published in April and May managed to work the adjective into headlines or opening sentences. Positive evidence mounted but was dismissed as “anecdotal.” Americans were told that we needed to await the “gold standard”—randomized controlled trials (RCTs). Organized medicine discouraged use, and state governments restricted or banned HCQ for COVID-19 (but not for lupus or rheumatoid arthritis).

The treatment of HCQ goes “from bad science to malpractice,” according to a just-released white paper “Hydroxychloroquine and the Burden of Proof: An Urgent Call to Depoliticize Medicine in the COVID-19 Pandemic,” The Economic Standard, September 2020. Take-home lessons:

  • Flawed and even falsified studies were published and promoted by media outlets eager to discredit Trump, while positive studies were impugned or ignored.
  • HCQ is commonly prescribed for at least 25 indications in addition to malaria.
  • HCQ’s prolongation of the QT interval is in the mid-range of 30 commonly used drugs.
  • Hundreds of drugs have been approved without RCTs, including tetanus vaccine, insulin, tetracycline, warfarin, heparin, prednisone, Keflex, and high-dose penicillin for neurosyphilis.
  • Only 8.5% of the American Heart Association’s guidelines are supported by RCTs.
  • A meta-analysis covering 43 studies concludes: “HCQ was found consistently effective against COVID-19 when used early, in the outpatient setting,” adding, “No credible study found worse outcomes with HCQ use. No mortality or other serious safety issue was found.”
  • Four RCTs were problematic for many reasons.

A hundred thousand lives may be needlessly lost because safe, effective treatment was denied. Who is responsible? Influential bureaucrats who control policy and messaging? Social media censors? Major media outlets? Health plans and hospitals? Professional associations?

September 22, 2020

COVID-19, Guest Column, Medicine, What's New

Ending COVID-19 Infectious Precautions with the GGRX Prophylaxis and Treatment Protocol

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by Wayne L. Iverson, MD. August 24, 2020

After 8 months of having the American public follow specific infectious precautions by government mandate, the various medications, antibiotics and anti-viral therapies have had no impact on ending the COVID-19 infectious precautions. The COVID-19 infectious precautions with face masks, sterilization of public surface areas, social distancing, avoidance of personal contact, the closing of businesses, schools, shopping centers and even church, have pushed the concept of infectious precautions to an extreme level. COVID-19 infections fall into the category of Community Acquired Illness (CAI) and join the list of other Community Acquired Organisms (CAO). Various opinions have been offered as to the virulence and prognosis of COVID-19 as an agent for infection responsible for a CAI.

I believe it is well recognized that some people merely contract COVID-19 and do not manifest an illness. Others have an acute respiratory infection or flu like illness and spontaneously recover with their own body’s defenses. Additionally, others, especially those with uncompensated and debilitating medical conditions such as being immune compromised as a cancer patient on chemotherapy or a patient with COPD on nasal oxygen or CPAP, when infected by any CAO including COVID-19, may progress, have additional complications and die.

In my experience, as a physician who is American Board Certified in Internal Medicine, who practices clinical medicine and actually diagnosis and treats patients with CAI, I have had a chance to form a considered opinion about COVID-19. On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the most severe, I would rate COVID-19 as 6 and a moderately severe case of Influenza as 8. As such, healthy patients with medically compensated conditions who manifest an illness from COVID-19 recover as usual for a CAI. Patients who have an uncompensated and debilitating medical condition may not recover from COVID-19 or any other CAO.

Recent and current government mandated infectious precautions have produced an unprecedented economic loss and multifaceted hardship on the American public. These mandates have caused the loss of tax payers’ dollars from congressionally approved programs, the loss of income of working people, the loss of business revenue from closures, the loss of new tax dollars from a stable economy, and the loss of best practices in school education. The American public has developed extreme worries and concerns to the point of being germaphobic and feeling like they are being forced to live in a bubble. These negative economic factors and hardships can be remedied by ending COVID-19 infectious precautions with the GGRX Prophylaxis and Treatment Protocol.

This article outlines a return to normality in American day to day activities with the GGRX Prophylaxis and Treatment Protocol. This Protocol allows Federal, State and local governments to discontinue all government mandates related to infectious precautions with COVID-19 and return any related policies and procedures to the local physicians, hospitals and medical community. The government mandated infectious precautions have been unduly extreme to the point of forcing every healthy person, including those who have immunity from COVID-19, in every venue, to highest level of Infectious Precautions donning extensive garb in the mode relegated to Reverse Isolation. The Standard Infectious Precautions that were in place in 2019 can be resumed and COVID-19 can be dealt with in the same manner as Influenza or any other CAO.

Gamma Globulin (GG) has been an FDA approved treatment for years for various types of infections and conditions. Its use for COVID-19 would be designated off label, but for 2020 any medication, antibiotic or anti-viral treatment for COVID-19 would be designated off label as well. GG has been used successfully for decades as prophylaxis and treatment of Infectious Hepatitis Type A. 

The theory of how GG works is that it contains immunoglobulin antibodies which boost a patient’s immunity against disease. Reports on GG effectiveness for Hepatitis A infections have been as high as 85-95% and is considered a safe therapy. Although GG has not been aggressively promoted as a therapy for COVID-19, this lack of recognition, in my opinion, is due to logistics and misconceptions and should not be a barrier for using GG to combat COVID-19 and mitigate government mandates at this time. 

AP News on August 11, 2020 published a report that the governor of Oklahoma and others are donating plasma to COVID-19 patients to help them recover. Johns Hopkins University of Medicine has tallied and published in the Wall Street Journal vast numbers of Americans deemed to be COVID-19 cases and it is generally believed that the number of such individuals is actually higher. That being the case, there should be vast numbers of people who have antibodies against COVID-19 and the harvesting and production of fresh GG in the 2nd and 3rd quarter of 2020 may be especially effective in treating COVID-19. This latter conclusion alone could very well have been one reason GG usefulness was not recognized earlier this year.

The Gamma Globulin Prophylaxis and Treatment Protocol (GGRX Protocol) I am suggesting is as follows: 

1) Return America to normality and end government mandated infectious precautions. 

2) Local Physicians, Hospitals and Medical Facilities, resume their prior 2019 Standard Infectious Precautions for community acquired illnesses (CAI) and community acquired organisms (CAO), and handle COVID-19 as any other CAO. 

3) Healthy individuals (including individuals who have compensated medical conditions) should resume life as normal. This means, go back to work, school, sporting events, church and the like as they did in 2019. 

4) If a healthy individual is going to a location or a venue considered high risk for COVID-19, he or she could elect to receive a GG injection prior to entry. 

5) If a person becomes ill with a COVID-19 infection, he or she can elect to have a GG injection as adjunctive treatment. This individual could receive his or her physician’s usual therapy for a CAI. 

6) In people who have been ill with COVID-19 or any CAO, 24 hours after recovery (feeling better and having no fever) they can elect to resume all of their usual daily activities. 

7) GG injections may be used in conjunction with COVID-19 vaccine in the same manner as Hepatitis A Virus (HAV) with this objective factored in by the pharmaceutical companies manufacturing the vaccine. 

8) Ordering COVID-19 Screening Tests and COVID-19 Antibody Tests should only be performed by physicians on specific patients under their medical care and be obtained with the consent of the patient. These tests may be used to help guide treatment protocol.

In summary, the GGRX Protocol is designed to provide an additional treatment option in the fight against COVID-19. The use of Gama Globulin outlined in this Protocol is one which physicians and their patients should decide if it is advisable and should be used on a case by case basis. Additionally, the GGRX Protocol provides an end to government mandated infectious precautions which have been so disruptive to the economy, Americans’ livelihood and their freedom to enjoy their daily activities.

Wayne L. Iverson, MD is a Physician in Winchester, KY and a Former Candidate for Congress 2012 CA District 52 Media Contact: Wayne Iverson (858) 204-8701 Mailing Address: P.O. Box 4197 Winchester, KY 40392 Email: [email protected]. This article may be freely republished with acknowledgement of the author.

COVID-19, Elections, Guest Column, Politics, What's New

Off the Record with Dr. Adams

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Rhinoceros Logic

When the mind is locked in, logic means very little. No matter how many pieces of information and no matter how much evidence is presented that contradicts the party line, the indoctrinated populace laps up all the convoluted explanations and excuses that make no sense, simply because it keeps dissonance from seeping into their heads. Logic dictates that if something looks like a horse, smells like a horse, and eats hay, a clear thinker would generally conclude that it is a horse. But not if you have been convinced that it is a rhinoceros. And not if you want to believe that it is a rhinoceros, because somehow you have been convinced that rhinoceros belief makes you a better person—no matter how many pieces of solid evidence are presented that the thing is actually a horse. If you’re desperate to believe it’s a rhinoceros you just shut reason out.

Statistics came out last week from the heretofore worshipped CDC explaining that only 4-6% of the previously considered Covid deaths were actually caused by Covid and Covid alone. This should be cause for massive celebration! This is by far the biggest news since the outbreak began. Yet, not only was this monster story underreported, but it was convolutedly denied by the powers who stand to gain the most by maintaining the rhinoceros theory. 

Shouldn’t this have been a headline splashed across the world—that fewer people in the United States have died from Covid alone than have died from being hit by a car? And that the number of Covid only deaths in the U.S. are about the same as the number of Americans who die from foodborne illnesses every year. By this new rhinoceros logic ALL FOOD should be banned until there’s a cure for food poisoning.

Why on earth should such a moment to rejoice be kept so quiet and so well hidden? We know why. It’s because it is a whole lot harder to maintain lemming status amongst a population when the people aren’t terrified that they will die from breathing. So, the most excellent news we could possibly hope for has been swept under the rug. And there will be no mask-free dancing in the streets for some time (if ever?) Maybe we should rename this the rhinoceros virus. Or, more aptly, the November 3 virus.

September 10, 2020

COVID-19, Current Events, Guest Column, Health Policy, Politics, What's New

Dr. Jane’s Pearls

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Sep 8, 2020

COVID-19: What Do the CDC’s “Death with COVID” Statistics Mean?

Now that we are told that only a small fraction of COVID deaths were from COVID only, will you throw away your mask?

It is true that most death certificates have additional conditions listed. Also, there is a financial incentive to code for a COVID death whenever possible, say if there is a positive COVID test in a motorcycle crash victim.

Many COVID deaths are in elderly people who are at the upper limit of life expectancy, with many comorbidities. Their diabetes or lung disease or hypertension might have killed them. Was COVID just incidental, something that tipped them over the edge a month sooner, or the main reason they died now rather than two years from now?

One can’t figure this out without a look at each individual case. The ultimate answer is found at autopsy—rarely done these days. From a small series that was done in Germany, a surprising finding was that more than half had probably died from blood clots, small or large. Was this caused by the virus, or by the body’s response to the virus? It certainly showed the need to consider anticoagulation.

Lacking autopsies or even careful case reviews, we really do not know how many people died “with” COVID or “from” COVID.

The other huge unknown is the meaning of a positive test. Many labs in Florida reported an impossibly high rate (98–100 percent) of positive tests. But let’s assume we have competent, honest labs. More than 800,000 tests are being done every day. If we define every positive test as a “case,” massive numbers of new “cases” are guaranteed—most of whom will never get sick. The test may have picked up a fragment of a long-dead cold virus.

Given the heavy politicization, the corruption, and the unknowns in the constant barrage of statistics, the only reliable figure is the number of deaths. These are constantly decreasing (see graph below).

How about waiting for a vaccine? In 1957, the Asian flu, deadlier than the coronavirus, did not shut the country down. The late arrival of a scarce, 60% effective vaccine had no appreciable effect.

It is time to return to sanity. A National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) working paper shows that once a region reaches 25 total COVID deaths, the growth rate in deaths per day falls to approximately zero within a month—no matter what interventions such as lockdowns and mask mandates a country imposes.

For further information: “A Perspective on SARS-CoV-2, the Most Dangerous Virus in History”

COVID-19, Culture & Society, Current Events, Featured, Op-eds, Politics, What's New

Only in America

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What a great country we are! Where else do we have immigrants from around the world who stood in line for years or risked their lives to be part of the U.S. and also mobs of people who want to overthrow the government that brought the world individual liberty, due process under the law, and the right to peacefully protest? These violent mobs are burning down Black-owned small businesses in the name of improving Black lives. The most liberal city in America, blessed with a socialist congressperson, boasts an angry horde chanting the Iranian mullahs’ favorite saying, “death to America” as they vandalized private property. 

While Black lives are clearly as precious as anyone else’s, supporters should beware. Black Lives Matter’s co-founder describes herself as a “trained Marxist” and its manifesto rejects private ownership, individuality and the traditional family. 

Only in America can we have an internationally acclaimed, Princeton and Harvard law school-educated, over-paid hospital administrator, wife of a former two-term Black president, who lives in a lily white neighborhood in a $12 million, 7,000 square foot, 29 acre beachfront estate, cast herself the poster child for aggrieved Black victims of evil white people? Obviously, Mrs. Obama has nothing in common with the hapless Black folks caught in the crabs-in-the-barrel, anti-education mentality that drives them to quit school, or worse, commit crimes and run from the police and wonder why things do not end well. This privileged person relishes in telling a story of someone who cut in front of her in line, concluding it was fueled by racism. No, it was a rude person who likely always cuts in line. This screed is a well-known tactic among radicals: create an enemy and demonize him at every opportunity. 

 It is vexing to see privileged people emphasizing their tribal identities (e.g., race, gender, sexual preference) and embracing critical race theory that preaches that American government and culture is racist (sexist, homophobic), that oppressed people can never overcome the racism (sexism, homophobia), and that even people who are not racist are racist because they like America. Thus, America must be reformed into a Marxist utopia. Fact alert: Thomas More’s Utopia, written in 1516, was political satire. “Utopia,” derived from the Greek, literally means “nowhere.”

In the march to a collectivist society, we’ve entered the phase of erasing history. Despots through the ages have airbrushed their enemies out of photographs and history books. Mobs and woke politicians initially toppled statues of offensive historical figures. Now, no historical figure is safe: the mayor of Washington DC wants to take down or “contextualize” the Washington monument and the Jefferson Memorial. 

Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 presciently depicted an American society where books (representing history and culture) are outlawed and burned. First, our statues, next our books. As George Orwell wrote in 1984, “Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered… History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.” A submissive, compliant populace drugged by government largesse or simple apathy is a recipe for a massive societal shift. Censorship by the news media and taking down websites and social media posts are the polite 21st century version of exiling the enemies of the state.

Generally, 2020 was going well with high employment rates, rising salaries, and racial harmony. Along came coronavirus. Those who want to fundamentally change America knew fear was an effective tool to drive us to acquiesce to unreasonable government demands. Some governors confined us in our homes indefinitely, unable to attend funerals or religious services to have our moral principles reinforced. Wearing masks that prevent flashing a friendly smile to strangers of all colors while strolling down the street fosters distrust. 

By the time more was known about the new virus’s low probability of death for the average person and about the uselessness of lockdowns, we were raw and susceptible to emotional manipulation. The drumbeat of social justice über alles is pounded into our psyches. In what sane world would anyone swallow the leftist swill that looting is justified as reparations for slavery? 

How does labeling some Americans the “oppressors” and others the “oppressed” based on skin color advance societal harmony? How does having employers force Caucasians to take classes to learn that they are racists and how to repent for their “white privilege” engender warm feelings? 

Instead of whining about the past, advocates for improving Black lives should march through the Black-on-Black violence-ravaged sections of Chicago and let people know that success – while not easy – is possible. And all liberty lovers must wake up from our fear-induced stupor and actively protect our freedoms and reject mob rule while treating our fellow man with respect. 

COVID-19, Featured, Media & Press, Op-eds, Politics, What's New

The New Population Control: Fear and Isolation

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Planet of the Humans, a Michael Moore vehicle, came and went with little fanfare. Perhaps it was the message that our feeble attempts at halting climate change were just that: feeble and useless. Solar panels, wind turbines, electric cars and the like were criticized as mere “band-aids” and corporate moneymakers that leave a larger human footprint on Gaia. In truth, the sole savior of the Earth is controlling the root of energy consumption: our population. 

Mother Earth aside, Margaret Sanger and her eugenicist friends tried to control population by cruel design in the early 1900s. She opposed philanthropy as it perpetuated “human waste.” To achieve world peace, Sanger proposed that “the whole dysgenic population [including epileptics, feeble-minded, prostitutes] would have its choice of segregation or sterilization.” 

Government-sponsored forced sterilizations became too much for civilized society to bear and ceased in 1981. Margaret Sanger’s legacy soldiers on, conducting “God’s work” at Planned Parenthood abortion clinics disproportionately located in minority neighborhoods. Taking it up a notch, pediatrician Governor Ralph Northam (D-Va.), who while in medical school wore either black face or a KKK hood—he doesn’t remember which—grotesquely believes it’s OK to kill babies who are born alive.

The new standard bearer for the current brand of population control is fear. Dressed as the Angel of Death, he appears on CNN as an ever-present sidebar flashing numbers of COVID-19 “cases,” rarely making the distinction between those who are ill and those who simply had a positive test for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. 

We are never told that 81 percent of cases are mild. Nor are we told that well over 99 percent of Americans have recovered. We were never told that the military ships dispatched to accept patients served a handful of patients. We were not told that the death statistics include people with “presumed” COVID-19 or who died of other causes but coincidentally had a positive test. Never are we told that sadly 42 percent of American deaths were nursing home residents who make up only 0.6 percent of our population. Nor are we told that 90 percent of hospitalized patients have underlying health conditions and 80 percent of deaths are in those over 65 years. Most importantly, we are not told that deaths and hospitalizations are decreasing. 

Meanwhile, in an attempt to undermine our rays of hope, politicians are rewriting history. The woman who plans to be President irresponsibly asserted that Obama-Biden deftly handled the “Ebola pandemic.” Pandemic? Unlike the highly contagious COVID-19, Ebola virus disease was an outbreak centered in West Africa caused by a virus that was only spread through exchange of bodily fluids. The U.S. had 11 Ebola cases, 9 of whom were evacuees from, or contracted Ebola in other countries. The 2 people who contracted Ebola in the U.S. were the Ebola patients’ nurses—both of whom recovered. And at the time, infection control experts criticized the “lax” federal Ebola guidelines.

The misery campaign worked. In a few short months we have gone from level-headed folks dealing with the vagaries of life to house arrestees acquiescing to ever-changing restrictions, privacy intrusions, and punishments for noncompliance. Isolation has consequences. Verifiable domestic violence has doubled. Forty-one percent of thousands of adults surveyed by the CDC in June 2020 reported an “adverse mental or behavioral health condition,” including 10.7 percent seriously considering suicide. One study predicted 34,000 U.S. cancer deaths due to delayed diagnosis. Unscientific lockdowns are on pace to kill more people than the Devil’s spawn, COVID-19. 

The suggestion that we accept this stygian existence until a vaccine is available is magical thinking. Recently, genomic researchers reported 73 variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Variants and mutations could present a challenge for developing an effective vaccine. 

Viruses will always be part of our environment. Exploring all possible treatment options, including building our general immunity, is crucial to saving lives. Hydroxychloroquine is one such option that is effective in many patients if given early. Yet the pot-smoking President wannabe labelled our teetotaling President a “drug pusher” for speaking positively about hydroxychloroquine. And the infectious disease expert and cardiologist Bill Gates claims its side effects are severe. The President is in good company with Yale Professor Harvey Risch, MD, physician researchers, and well-respected clinicians regarding hydroxychloroquine’s overall and cardiac safety.

Our scientists and physicians are working hard to preserve our population. If we are allowed out of our cocoons, enough people might develop permanent population (“herd”) immunity to SARS-CoV-2 and the transmission of the virus could burn out. 

Fear and agenda-driven political manipulation are drowning out the facts. We may look back and find that the media-political complex is the prime method of population control. 

As Malcom X said, “you been misled. You been had. You been took.” 

COVID-19, Current Events, Featured, Op-eds, Politics, What's New

Lowering the Barr

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The excoriation of Attorney General Barr at the congressional hearing was as low as politicians could go on the lack of humanity and civility scale. The Barr hearing was more like a Roman circus than a search for answers to important national issues. If this is what congress calls performing their duty under the Constitution, we are in for real trouble. Finger wagging, talking over, showboating, and developing soundbites for their reelections are not a search for truth.

It appears some congresspersons had been to a training session where they were told to call Attorney General Barr “Sir” as an expression of contempt, not respect. Chairman Nadler advised him that “our members expect sincere answers today and our country deserves no less.” However, unfriendly congresspersons continually asked questions in the form of statements and as Attorney General Barr began to respond, the congresspersons instantly interrupted him by “reclaiming their time.” To his credit, Attorney General Barr calmly responded, “but this is a hearing. I thought I was the one that was supposed to be heard.” Accusing someone of a crime and then gagging him officially crosses into Stalin’s henchman’s “show me the man and I’ll show you his crime” territory. 

Two moments sank to a new low. Referring to Attorney General Barr’s kind words about the recently departed John Lewis, Rep. Cedric Richmond obnoxiously declared, “you should [sic] really should keep the name of the honorable John Lewis out of the Department of Justice’s mouth.” Descending into the realm of subhumans, Chairman Nadler refused to grant Attorney General Barr a 5 minute break after hours of grilling. Refusing someone a (likely bathroom) break is a tactic straight out of enhanced interrogation techniques for dummies. 

The next day, during a congressional hearing on anti-competitive activities, the four “Big Tech” CEOs of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Alphabet (Google) were treated with kid gloves by all but a few congresspersons. Perhaps to protect a large source of campaign donations, denials of bias were allowed to go unchallenged despite evidence to the contrary.

 Concurrently, physicians trying to save their patients’ lives are being “cancelled.” YouTube removed as “misinformation” videos of the physicians who advocated for the use of hydroxychloroquine for early treatment of COVID-19, based on their extensive personal as well as international treatment successes. Hydroxychloroquine is an FDA-approved medication with a 65 year history of safety—not morning glory seeds. 

With all the garbage on Twitter, the removal of the physicians’ video based on the justification that it did not comport with World Health Organization (WHO) recommendations seems extreme. Recall that WHO also did not recommend wearing masks, the new Holy Grail of COVID-19 prevention. And are we to believe the same crowd who excoriated President Trump as racist for blocking travel from China at the end of January while they were encouraging people to frolic in crowded Chinatown in late February? 

Let’s look at a couple of examples of accepted medical tenets that were initially dismissed. Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis, a Hungarian physician, famously was ridiculed for advocating handwashing after performing autopsies before touching living patients. In less than 6 months after handwashing was instituted, post-partum (childbirth) fever mortality rates dropped 90 percent, from 18.3 percent to less than 2 percent. Despite the evidence, he was vilified and eventually was admitted against his will to an insane asylum where he died 2 weeks after being severely beaten. Now, failure to wash hands is unthinkable.

More recently, in the mid-1980s Dr. Barry Marshall was convinced that stomach ulcers were caused by bacteria, rather than the stress, acid, and spicy foods theory. Resistance was fierce: “Everyone was against me. But I knew I was right.” Finally, he drank a Petri dish with some thousand million bacteria, including cultured Helicobacter pylori and shortly developed documented stomach ulcers. Dr. Marshall received the 2005 Nobel Prize for this discovery.

Given that other prior coronaviruses, MERS (2012) and SARS (2003) still pop up, it is likely that the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 will be with us for the foreseeable future. Accordingly, physicians want safe, affordable (less than $30 per full treatment), readily available COVID-19 treatments for their patients. Hydroxychloroquine—not a big Pharma moneymaker—is effective for many patients and physicians with experience simply want to educate others about another weapon in the fight against an ugly virus.

The vitriol and disregard for fact-finding on the part of congresspersons and the dissembling on the part of the social media giants leaves one wondering: Do the people who savaged Attorney General Barr and gave big tech a pass want people to live in fear of living life? Do they want people to be unemployed and dependent of the government for survival? Do they want children to stay home from school and regress from normal childhood development? Do they want the country’s economic boom to remain in the rear view mirror? Would they allow people to needlessly die in order to gain political power?

COVID-19, Current Events, Featured, Medical Ethics, Medicine, Op-eds, What's New

COVID Chaos: A Prison Without Bars

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The COVID-19 lockdown has its benefits: a chapter a day of the unabridged version of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago, a study in fear and redefined “normal” values, among many other lessons.

Lately I’ve seen face coverings stenciled with “I can’t breathe.” The beauty of the statement is its dual meaning. It can be a nod to George Floyd, an arrestee who apparently suffocated at the hands of a rogue law enforcement officer or it can be a statement of the wearer’s condition behind the mask. More generally, it can be a statement about the suffocation of society as a whole.

Free speech is the bedrock of our politics, but media manipulation is now rampant. Under the guise of fact-checking, our modern day newspapers—YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter—have become the arbiters of what constitutes a worthy opinion or fact in contrast to “misinformation.” Scientists were certain that something heavier than air could not maintain flight. The misinformed Wright brothers proved them wrong.

Vladimir Lenin recognized that the media are propagandists and their information presented should be “easy to digest, most graphic, and most strongly impressive.” With COVID-19, the media create irrational fear with daily charts of deaths and case numbers without corresponding recoveries. They fail to mention that many deaths were of patients with serious underlying conditions or who were already in hospice and had weeks to live and coincidentally tested positive. The raw numbers are unaccompanied by the CDC’s instruction to classify a death as COVID-19 even if merely suspected or, in some cases, with a negative test. There is no corresponding warning with blinking lights that the tests have false positives or that the daily report of “increases” includes old tests that were not previously reported.

As Lenin noted, “ideas are much more fatal than guns.” Thus, where propaganda and media bias do not succeed, censorship will. Currently, a vocal physician is being silenced and investigated for questioning the motives and possible over-reporting of COVID-19 as the cause of death. Censorship is our polite version of “disappearing” dissidents. We are not Communist China and cannot allow the treatment of Dr. Li Wenliang, a Wuhan ophthalmologist to be the “new normal.” In December 2019, he courageously warned his colleagues on social media about the new SARS-like pneumonia cases but knew that he “would probably be punished.” Indeed, Chinese officials forced him to sign a letter accusing him of “making false comments” that had “severely disturbed the social order.” Fortunately for scientific advancement of our relentless search for COVID-19 treatments and mitigation, many questioned the official story about the novel coronavirus coming from a pangolin at a Wuhan wet market.

Censorship, corrupt scientific inquiry, and media bias have no place in medicine. It is not clear that lockdowns are scientifically sound. Curiously, social justice protests are allowed despite lockdowns. One epidemiological analysis concluded lockdowns in Western Europe had no effect on COVID-19 deaths. Additionally, studies show severe psychological effects of quarantines. The 5 states with the most COVID-19 deaths from March through April showed a 35 to 400 percent increase in deaths from various non-respiratory underlying causes, including diabetes, heart diseases, Alzheimer’s disease, and cerebrovascular diseases. Some 80,000 diagnoses of five common cancers may be missed or delayed by early June because of disruptions to medical care caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Most reviews conclude that masks do not slow down the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus (that causes COVID-19). Studies show non-medical masks do not stop aerosolized droplets less than 2.5 microns. A group of 239 scientists from multiple disciplines from 32 countries have recently agreed that SARS-CoV-2 is spread by such small droplets. They recommend improving indoor ventilation infection controls as the key protective measure. Handwashing and social distancing—but not masks—were advised. The CDC recommends masks.

Faced with a global pandemic, physicians were exploring hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), which had been favorably studied during the 2003 SARS epidemic, as a prophylactic or an early treatment. Numerous reports of HCQ’s efficacy on thousands of patients continue to mount. Once the media labelled it “Trump’s drug,” the fix was in. The long-awaited randomized clinical trial showing no benefit was gleefully reported by the media. However, the media were silent when the study was found to be so corrupt that it had to be retracted. Detroit’s Henry Ford Hospital’s large 3-month observational study that showed a significant reduction in mortality in hospitalized patients with HCQ and validated HCQ’s over 60-year record of safety garnered little media attention.

These (purposefully) chaotic times are an opportunity for a movement toward government control and the suppression of individuality. Lockdowns keep us apart and stifle the free exchange of ideas and social communion. As Eric Hoffer explained in True Believer, a mass movement deliberately makes the present “mean and miserable. . . . People whose lives are barren and insecure seem to show a greater willingness to obey than people who are self-sufficient and self-confident.” Becoming a psychological cripple is not an option.

Is this chaos a new form of plastic surgery? When the bandages (masks) are removed will you be a changed person?