A Timely Question for Doctors: Are You Treating Me Based on Science or Politics?

By Paul Dowling

“It’s been around for a long time, so we know if things don’t go as planned it’s not going to kill anybody. . . .  It’s shown very, very encouraging early results, and we’re going to be able to make that drug available almost immediately.”  – President Donald Trump, on March 19, 2020, promoting the use of Hydroxychloroquine, a veritable cure for the Wuhan Coronavirus that is being lied about by America’s conspiracy media, with deadly results for the patients of those doctors who base their medical treatments on politics, rather than on science

“If President Trump could actually cure cancer, make people in wheelchairs walk . . . guess what – the media still wouldn’t be happy.”  – Talk Show Host Sean Hannity, on August 23, 2017, predicting the bad behavior of Leftists in the media who have since influenced many not to take the curative Hydroxychloroquine, because they would rather see people die than end up admitting President Trump has saved lives by recommending a cure

Just What Is Hydroxychloroquine?

“I happen to be taking it.  I’m taking it.  Hydroxychloroquine.  Right now, yeah.  A couple of weeks ago, I started taking it,” President Donald Trump reported to the press.  On May 18, 2020, the president confirmed to reporters that he has been taking Hydroxychloroquine and Zinc as a preventative against the Wuhan Coronavirus.

Hydroxychloroquine is a drug that has been prescribed safely for decades to patients of all kinds, from juvenile children, to pregnant women, to alcoholic men.  It is prescribed for malaria, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, and juvenile idiopathic arthritis, as well as for off-label uses, according to the judgment of qualified doctors.  And the president has pointed out that front-line medical professionals have also been using Hydroxychloroquine as a prophylactic against contracting the Wuhan Coronavirus.

President Trump Promotes Hydroxychloroquine

Hydroxychloroquine has been touted by President Trump as a treatment for the Wuhan Coronavirus with potentially curative effects, although the president is quick to point out that he is not a medical doctor and recommends that people seek medical advice before taking it.

According to Fox News, “White House coronavirus task force response coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx joined ‘Hannity’ . . .  to answer questions surrounding the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine and its experimental use to fight the coronavirus.  ‘I think we do a lot of drug use off-label.

Physicians do all the time.  And I think that’s why the president made it very clear that this is up to the physician and the patient.  And what the president has worked really hard on is making sure that the medication is available in pharmacies and hospitals around the United States,’ Birx told host Sean Hannity.”

Trump’s Treatment of Choice Works as a Cure

The low percentage of medical doctors prescribing Hydroxychloroquine in the United States is a direct result of fear being generated by the conspiracy media that is controlled by Deep-State actors in their efforts to deprive the people of their liberty.  If no cure exists for a disease, then fear may be used by unscrupulous politicians to persuade people to give up their freedom and stay home for the sake of safety.

According to Town Hall, “a well-controlled peer-reviewed study carried out by the most eminent infectious disease specialist in the world – Didier Raoult, MD, PhD – out of the south of France . . . showed a 100 percent cure rate against coronavirus.”  Dr. Raoult’s study, which was conducted “from early March to March 16th,” used Hydroxychloroquine with twenty patients, six of whom also received Azithromycin, while sixteen patients not wanting the drug were used as a control group.

Dr. Raoult describes the result of his experiment thus: “Despite its small sample size our survey shows that hydroxychloroquine treatment is significantly associated with viral load reduction/disappearance in COVID-19 patients and its effect is reinforced by azithromycin.”  In other words, “After 6 days 100% of patients treated with HCQ + Azithromycin  were virologically cured.”

Dr. Oz Weighs In

Dr. Mehmet Oz, a renowned medical doctor, spoke with Sean Hannity about treating patients afflicted by the Wuhan Coronavirus with Hydroxychloroquine.  “I had the opportunity to interview Dr. Raoult.  I was very impressed by him.  And I told the vice president today that what he told me at the end of the interview stunned me.  He said that he thought it was unethical to withhold this treatment based on what he knew [about Hydroxychloroquine].  Again, this is not a fly by night fellow, he’s very well respected.”  Dr. Oz has called Dr. Raoult’s treatment a “game-changer,” because it combines two well-known medications and “repurposes them to shorten the amount of time of infection while potentially reducing complications,” making what ails the patient “more like the flu than coronavirus.”

Doctors Worldwide Prefer Hydroxychloroquine, but the American Left Blocks Its Use

According to the New York Post, “An international poll of thousands of doctors rated the Trump-touted anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine the best treatment for the novel coronavirus.  Of the 6,227 physicians surveyed in 30 countries, 37 percent rated hydroxychloroquine the ‘most effective therapy’ for combating the potentially deadly illness. . . .  The survey, conducted by the global health care polling company Sermo, also found that 23 percent of medical professionals had prescribed the drug in the US – far less than other countries.  ‘Outside the US, hydroxychloroquine was equally used for diagnosed patients with mild to severe symptoms whereas in the US it was most commonly used for high risk diagnosed patients,’ the survey found.  The medicine was most widely used in Spain, where 72 percent of physicians said they had prescribed it. . . .”

That only 23% of American medical professionals were prescribing this life-saving drug is of concern, especially to patients seeking treatment who know that America’s Leftist media are, in actuality, partisan individuals who would sooner risk killing Americans than admit President Trump to be right about a cure.  Indeed, Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo – both Leftists – have issued executive orders making it harder for doctors to prescribe Hydroxychloroquine off-label to victims of the Wuhan Coronavirus in their states, placing their non-medical judgments first in line ahead of the wisdom of trained professionals in the field of medicine.  These executive decisions have had a ripple effect, perversely influencing medical and pharmaceutical regulatory boards throughout the United States.  Sisolak and Cuomo have, no doubt, achieved the effect of causing the needless deaths of more than a few patients.

Enlightened American Doctors, Simone Gold and Jeff Barke, Talk Back to the Leftists

Dr. Simone Gold reports to Dr. Jeff Barke, in an interview, that the medical board of her state has sent out a letter to all licensed physicians warning them not to use Hydroxychloroquine.  This is alarming, according to Dr. Gold, because Hydroxychloroquine is a safe drug that is even prescribed to women who are nursing.

This would imply that physicians who should know better are claiming a curative drug to be unsafe solely for political reasons.  Dr. Barke, who practices in California, says that his state has done the same thing and that pharmacists have begun to quiz doctors on their reasons for prescribing this politically-incorrect drug; in effect, this makes pharmacy workers into the official censors of medical doctors and the treatments they are allowed to offer, a dangerous precedent to set in terms of the worsening patient outcomes that will be caused by this practice of permitting the tail to wag the dog.

Dr. Barke says that this situation of physicians having to explain their treatment choices to pharmacists is new.  Dr. Barke and Dr. Gold both express concern about this development in a profession where, according to Dr. Gold, doctors prescribe drugs “off-label about 20% of the time.”

Dr. Barke has become popular among freedom-fighting patriots, ever since his impassioned speech in Riverside County in defense of freedom and in condemnation of quarantining the healthy.

Dr. Barke has pointed out that, as people fall victim to the tyrannical side-effects of a societal lockdown, the government-prescribed cure will turn out to be worse than the disease.

Quoth Dr. Barke, “As we see unemployment rise to Depression levels, we see suicide increase, we see domestic violence increase, we see child abuse increase, we see alcohol and drug abuse increase, all because the government has overstepped its reach.”  Dr. Barke’s fight against the Left’s agenda of prolonged house-arrest for the country has resulted in his videos being censored by the virtual book burners of the Left.

These videos have been repeatedly reposted on patriotic websites, however, in an effort to fight the cyber censorship of the Left.

Texas Doctors Fight for the Lives of Their Patients Against the Deadly Narrative of the Left

Dr. Robin Armstrong, medical director of The Resort, a nursing home for the aging in Texas City, Galveston County, has cured patients using Hydroxychloroquine.  According to news reporter Jason Whitely, “the 65-year-old anti-malarial drug became controversial after Pres. Trump said it was a promising possibility for COVID-19 patients.  Dr. Armstrong is a Republican activist and said he supports the president, but at first questioned whether hydroxychloroquine would work for patients with coronavirus symptoms.  ‘When this hydroxychloroquine came out, I was a bit skeptical,’ he explained, ‘because I know the World Health Organization actually was not initially including it in their study, because they didn’t think that it was very effective.’ . . .  [I]f the president didn’t bring attention to this drug, it’s doubtful there would be any political controversy around this pharmaceutical.  ‘I don’t think so,’ Armstrong said.  ‘I don’t think this would even be a conversation, honestly.’”  With the Leftist media campaigning against any and all solutions offered by President Trump, medical culture cannot help but be negatively impacted, as the politicization of medical decision-making has likely contributed to the deaths of a number of patients.

Also in Texas, Dr. Ivette Lozano has been prescribing Hydroxychloroquine to patients who are coming to her office in Dallas all the way from “Austin, Houston, San Antonio. . . .”  Dr. Lozano has explained to Laura Ingraham, during a televised interview, that Hydroxychloroquine is becoming difficult to procure.  There is a reticence among apothecaries to fill prescriptions for this life-saving drug that has been safely prescribed for decades as a prophylactic for patients visiting places where malaria is pervasive, as well as being used in the treatment of lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, and other health conditions.

Medicos of the Left Are Lying About Hydroxychloroquine

So, is it not possible that America’s government experts, such as Dr. Anthony Fauci, are only acting out of an overabundance of caution, when they say Hydroxychloroquine is unproven against the Wuhan Coronavirus?  The truth is this: the National Institutes of Health’s own Virology Journal published an article on August 22, 2005, entitled “Chloroquine is a potent inhibitor of SARS coronavirus infection and spread.”  The results reported in the article indicate . . . “that chloroquine has strong antiviral effects on SARS-CoV infection of primate cells.

These inhibitory effects are observed when the cells are treated with the drug either before or after exposure to the virus, suggesting both prophylactic and therapeutic advantage.  In addition to the well-known functions of chloroquine such as elevations of endosomal pH, the drug appears to interfere with terminal glycosylation of the cellular receptor, angiotensin-converting enzyme 2.  This may negatively influence the virus-receptor binding and abrogate the infection, with further ramifications by the elevation of vesicular pH, resulting in the inhibition of infection and spread of SARS-CoV at clinically admissible concentrations.”  To put it simply, Chloroquine blocks SARS-CoV [aka SARS-CoV-1] from entering the cells of primates.

Related Drugs and Related Viruses Portend Similar Treatment Outcomes

Fauci was at the NIH during the time this article on Chloroquine’s effect on CoV-1 was published and, as one of the top-cited researchers (in his chosen field of “pathogenesis and treatment of immune-mediated and infectious diseases”), his high level of competency in virology would indicate that Fauci had to be familiar with the findings of this article.  “The importance of [Fauci’s] research is indicated by a study by the Institute of Scientific Information that showed that Fauci ranked thirteenth among the most-cited authors from 1983 to 2002 among the several million authors in all science fields.”  Fauci joined the NIH in 1968, where he has stayed on as a chief virology expert ever since.

So, here is the kicker: “The COVID-19 bug is likewise a coronavirus, labeled SARS-CoV-2.  While not exactly the same virus as SARS-CoV-1, it is genetically related to it, and shares 79% of its genome, as the name SARS-CoV-2 implies.  They both use the same host cell receptor, which is what viruses use to gain entry to the cell and infect the victim.”  Because of this, the same Chloroquine that could beat SARS-CoV-1 should be able to defeat SARS-CoV-2 as well.  Hydroxychloroquine is merely a milder form of Chloroquine, and it has been reported that, with respect to entering a cell, “HCQ [aka Hydroxychloroquine] effectively inhibited the entry step, as well as the post-entry stages of SARS-CoV-2 [aka CoViD-19], which was also found upon CQ [Chloroquine] treatment.”  If this information is readily available to this author, then why would Dr. Fauci, a world-renowned virologist, not be familiar with this?  Why is Fauci claiming that the curative effects of Hydroxychloroquine on SARS-CoV-2 (aka the Wuhan Coronavirus) are unproven, even as medicos with much less medical prestige than Fauci has garnered over the years prove him wrong on this point daily?

In the Meantime, Dr. Zelenko Treats New Yorkers with Hydroxychloroquine

Dr. Vladimir Zelenko, of Monroe, New York, reports that his medical team “has treated approximately 350 patients in Kiryas Joel and another 150 patients in other areas of New York [with a regimen of Hydroxychloroquine, Azithromycin, and Zinc].  Of this group . . ., we have had ZERO deaths, ZERO hospitalizations, and ZERO intubations.  In addition, I have not heard of any negative side effects other than approximately 10% of patients with temporary nausea and diarrhea.”

The “Surprise Outbreak” Fauci Himself Predicted

To pose the same question asked by Bryan Fischer, “If Dr. Fauci has known since 2005 of the effectiveness of HCQ, why hasn’t it been administered immediately after people show symptoms, as Dr. Zelenko has done?  Maybe then nobody would have died and nobody would have been incarcerated in place except the sick, which is who a quarantine is for in the first place. . . .  While the regressive health care establishment wants the HCQ cocktail to only be administered late in the course of the infection, from a medical standpoint, this is stupid.

Said one doctor, ‘As a physician, this baffles me.  I can’t think of a single infectious condition – bacterial, fungal, or viral – where the best medical treatment is to delay the use of an anti-bacterial, anti-fungal, or anti-viral until the infection is far advanced.’  So why has Dr. Fauci minimized and dismissed HCQ at every turn instead of pushing this thing from jump street?  He didn’t even launch clinical trials of HCQ until April 9, by which time 33,000 people had died.”

Fischer’s questioning of Fauci’s motives is entirely justified, especially in light of the fact that Fauci should have been better prepared in advance of the Wuhan Coronavirus outbreak, having predicted the coming of this pandemic, back on January 10, 2017, in a speech on “Pandemic Preparedness” at Georgetown University.  HuffPost reports that “Dr. Anthony Fauci, the U.S. government’s top infectious disease specialist, warned in early 2017 that a ‘surprise outbreak’ would occur during the Trump administration, and he said that more needed to be done to prepare for a pandemic.”  So, if there was “no question” that a “surprise outbreak” was coming, then why did Dr. Fauci not help the Trump Administration better prepare for the very pandemic that he himself predicted?

A Question for All Seasons: Will My Doctor Choose Science or Politics?

Perhaps the lesson to be learned from all of this is that so-called “experts” cannot necessarily be trusted to save lives.  Indeed, in some cases, such as that of Nazi Dr. Hans Münch, experts have been known to cause intentional “loss of health” to patients in order to serve a state-driven agenda.  So, while statist bureaucrats, such as Dr. Fauci, dither – planning future clinical drug trials that fail to help in the moment – it is, more often than not, caring problem-solvers with common sense and experiential wisdom who are needed in the applied world.

Dennis Prager has lamented that, when bombs are falling from the sky, and someone offers an untested missile system to defend against the air attacks, it would be foolish for leaders to insist on future experimental missile trials before putting the defense system to use.  By the same token, if people are dying of a deadly virus, why would it be a good idea to deny patients the right to try a new drug protocol in an effort to preserve their lives?  As experimental clinical trials drag on, how many lives stand to be lost in the meantime?  And why would loss of life be preferable to allowing off-label use of a safe drug like Hydroxychloroquine?  Indeed, something is rotten in the State of Denmark, when political correctness demands that physicians refrain from prescribing a life-saving drug or combination of drugs.

The opinions of experts should not be considered the be-all and end-all when it comes to an individual’s right to choose life.  A timely question for doctors is this one: When treating patients, are you guided by medical science or political correctness; are you open to new ideas or mired in political censorship?  How a doctor chooses to answer could mean the difference between life and death.

For Further Research:

Hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin as a treatment of COVID-19: results of an open-label non-randomized clinical trial (This is the report on Dr. Didier Raoult’s medical trial, proving that Hydroxychloroquine cures CoViD-19): LINK

X22 Report, “On any given day, the VA uses 42,000 doses of this drug [Hydroxychloroquine].” (Listen to this internal video clip from the 20:00 mark to the 21:30 mark, in order to hear this, as well as and related commentary): LINK

Dennis Prager’s Fireside Chat: Episode 134 – Which Will Do More Harm: The Virus or the Lockdown? (This episode of Dennis Prager’s popular series of casual conversations with his audience points out how poverty-inducing lockdowns will kill more people than any virus ever could): LINK

Pandemic Preparedness in the Next Administration: Keynote Address by Anthony S. Fauci (Dr. Fauci predicts, on Jan. 10, 2017, that a “surprise outbreak” is coming during the upcoming Trump Administration): LINK

Dr. Yvette [sic] Lozano MD Interview with Laura Ingraham 05/14/2020 (In Texas, Dr. Ivette Lozano has reported trouble with medical censorship in filling prescriptions for Hydroxychloroquine): LINK

Another Doctor Speaks Out | Dr. Jeffrey Barke [say BAR-KEY]Riverside County Rally May 5 2020 (Dr. Barke points out that the “cure” is worse than the “disease” when the state institutes lockdowns): LINK

Dr Jeff Barke, MD, testifies (Dr. Barke talks with Dr. Gold about Hydroxychloroquine): LINK

Texas Doctor Robin Armstrong talks to Fox News’ Laura Ingraham (Dr. Armstrong talks to Laura Ingraham about his results with patients he has treated with Hydroxychloroquine): LINK

California Doctor Delivers Chilling Message About Covid-19 FULL VIDEO (This is one of the early videos to wake people up about the problems of longtime lockdowns for healthy people, especially when relatively few people are getting sick with CoViD-19, and many are refusing to leave home to get much-needed medical treatments, out of fear of the Wuhan Coronavirus): LINK

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Paul Dowling

Paul Dowling has written about the Constitution, as well as articles for American Thinker, Independent Sentinel, Godfather Politics, Eagle Rising, and Conservative Notions.

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