While experts fiddle, COVID-19 is a raging inferno. Why are they so afraid of this drug?
During this COVID-19 pandemic, Pierce County residents expect our public health system to aggressively confront the virus.
Data from South Korea and France demonstrate hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin taken orally for five days have striking results — for example, 95% of severely ill treated patients had symptoms quickly resolved, vs. 25% of untreated patients —and evidence builds that malaria and lupus sufferers taking hydroxychloroquine are COVID-resistant.
These are not “gold standard” double-blind studies. But a delta of 70 points is strong evidence that hydroxychloroquine suppresses viral replication and mitigates disease severity, preventing hospitalizations.
Our health experts have known about this treatment for a long time, but still resist recommending it for use before a symptomatic patient must be hospitalized. Why?
Are they afraid of a “run” on these meds? That word makes us think of a mosh pit of people grabbing for toilet paper at the grocery store.
But these meds require a doctor’s visit, where the doctor identifies the patient’s symptoms and risk profile, and writes the prescription if it’s called for. Then a pharmacist checks the prescription and dispenses the meds. The fear of a “run” just isn’t real.
Are they afraid hydroxychloroquine won’t be available for rheumatoid arthritis or lupus patients? Its half-life is 40 days (that’s how long it stays in the patient’s system after being ingested); it is often not the primary med for R.A.; and the supply can be replenished quickly, as it has been recently.
Meantime, fewer elders with co-morbidities will be hospitalized and die with COVID.
Are they afraid of side effects? Those haven’t kept doctors from prescribing hydroxychloroquine for R.A. or lupus, so why the great concern with COVID?
Remember, these same experts knew weeks ago that non-symptomatic COVID carriers could infect others but told us wearing a mask wasn’t effective to suppress its spread. Last week, they admitted that’s untrue.
Are they afraid hydroxychloroquine doesn’t have final FDA approval for COVID? Doctors often prescribe medications “off-label” after assessing the patient’s health and the risks and benefits. Now even the FDA has approved this.
Worst case, it doesn’t work. Best case, it does. So why not use it with high-risk patients who have COVID symptoms, to prevent hospitalization?
Are they afraid it will displace another effective treatment? Unlikely, since there isn’t another one generally available. The public health system is touting the infusion drug remdesivir, which requires hospitalization, also has side effects (like infections at the infusion site) and will cost hundreds of times the cost of two little pills taken at home for 5 days.
Maybe remdesivir’s huge income potential for the health system is relevant to this conversation.
Are they afraid that stories of hydroxychloroquine’s healing effects are true, so they call them “just anecdotal?” Well, a delta of 70 is a little more than “anecdotal.” And if it’s your spouse or favorite auntie, avoiding severe health problems is a pretty powerful outcome to be dismissed with “just.”
The thousands of known “anecdotes” are real stories about health recovered, hospitalizations prevented, COVID’s spread in a home stopped and lives saved; they cannot be so easily dismissed. And they are being acted upon outside of our health system.
As our public health experts wait for more research, or for a higher authority to give its approval, hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin are being used around the world to attack COVID and prevent hospitalizations.
It is past time for health experts here to suppress their fears, use their reason and fulfill their primary duty to protect our community’s health. Our neighbors are dying for it.
Will Jones of Puyallup is a former regulatory lawyer now working in healthcare compliance in Pierce County.