Despite proof of reinfections, some bleat on and on about how the “lockdown” prevented “herd immunity” and made us less safe. Others make the false claim that Sweden with no lockdown fared no worse than others. In fact Sweden’s economy was de facto locked down by the nonparticipation of Swedes who on their own used the same measures as in other countries, and Sweden still has a higher mortality rate, for which the government has apologized to the elderly. Still others dispute that the lockdown reduced the infection rate, while others claim any reduction in Covid deaths was offset by higher suicides caused by “lockdown depression.”
To put these claims in perspective: two months ago the US had 100 known Covid cases; today the US has 1.5 million. The difference is not accounted for by an increase in testing. Ths US has 100,000 deaths blamed on the virus—twice the deaths of US soldiers in the long Vietnam war. Some claim that the deaths were caused by preconditions, not by the virus—but the people didn’t die until they got the virus. Others point out that economic incentives cause an over-reporting of Covid deaths. There is little doubt about that, but over-reporting does not account for 100,000 deaths. It remains to be seen whether the reopening will result in a jump in infections and deaths.
At a time when accurate information is essential, the waters are instead muddied by disinformation in the service of political, ideological, and profit agendas. The irresponsibility of those putting their self-interests first is extraordinary. It indicates that the social bond between people that made America a country has been dissolved by greed, multiculturalism, and Identity Politics. America has become a country without a common interest. It is a narcissistic state.
This article is limited to the campaign against HCQ. HCQ—hydroxychloroquine—has been in use for 65 years for the prevention or treatment of malaria, lupus, and rheumatoid arthritis. It is officially labeled a safe drug. Many doctors treating Covid patients have found and reported HCQ, when used early enough together with zinc and the antibiotic azithromycin to be an effective and safe treatment.
I have reported and made available many of the reports of HCQ’s efficacy and safety. See for example:
https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2020/05/06/why-was-an-effective-cure-for-covid-19-withheld/
Despite 65 years of safe use, HCQ is alleged to be dangerous and to cause heart attacks. Its use is officially approved only for “adolescent and adult patients hospitalized with COVID-19.” Generally, by the time a patient is hospitalized the virus has progressed to a later stage in which treatment is less successful. Studies of HCQ’s effectiveness, such as the VA one and apparently the more recent one reported in The Lancet, are limited to later stage hospitalized patients and seem to exclude the essential zinc component of the HCQ treatment. In other words, the studies seem to be designed to exclude from official approval the treatment that doctors have found most effective. It is not easy for a layperson to know what the studies actually say as the media report the studies in an anti-Trump manner. For the media, what is most important is criticism of Trump, not the effectiveness of a treatment.
In contrast, the untested investigational antiviral drug, Remdesivir, which has no record of safe use and is extraordinarily expensive compared to HCQ, has been given the same clearence for use. The media is not interested in the effectiveness and safety, or lack of, of this new and untested drug. Trump isn’t taking it, and it is a potential profit-maker for Big Pharma. If Remdesivir fails, the failure will be used to dispose of the hope for cures and to focus on vaccination.
It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that HCQ/zinc is being sidelined in order to clear the way for a profitable vaccine and a vaccination mandate. But the vaccines are not panning out. The Moderna vax touted by Bill Gates and Dr. Fauci caused severe illnesses in one-fifth of the test recipients.
The other fast-tracked vaccine developed by the Oxford Vaccine Group proved ineffective. The vaccine produced insufficient antibodies to prevent Covid-19 infection. https://groups.google.com/forum/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer#!msg/newsfromunderground/3JuCRrxBHHc/BzGQ-2S2AwAJ
It will be instructive to see what reopening brings. Bay county (Panama City Beach) and Walton county (Seaside, Rosemary Beach) quickly closed spring break and the beaches, restaurants, bars, vacation rental houses and condos, and non-essential businesses. Consequently, the two Florida counties had hardly any Covid cases. People were able to go about without masks as if there were no pandemic.
These two counties are blessed with “America’s most beautiful beaches,” and host millions of visitors. Panama City Beach has 13,975 permanent residents and 17 million annual visitors. http://www.pcbgov.com/about-us/about-the-community
With the reopening, tourists will be coming in from infected locations. If they bring the virus with them, the counties will find that the Covid-19 virus is real after all. Other locations spared by the lockdowns might find reopening brings the virus.
If so, and there is a second closedown, we will be led by fear and be vaccinated regardless of the vaccine’s safety and effectiveness against the virus. Did those protesting the closedown think about this?
The Campaign Against HCQ—Part II
A few years ago the British medical journal, The Lancet, published a paper touting the safety of HCQ. But this was before HCQ with zinc was found effective if used earlier enough against Covid-19. Covid-19 turned HCQ’s effectiveness into a big problem for Big Pharma’s big profits.
The solution was another study by medical professionals some of whom have ties to Big Pharma and none of whom, apparently, are involved in the treatment of Covid patients. The study lumps together people in different stages of the disease and undergoing different treatments. It touts its large sample, but many of the patients in the sample received treatment too late after the virus had reached their heart and other vital organs. Most likely the people who died from heart failure died as a result of the virus, not from HCQ.
To be effective treatment has to stop the virus early. Waiting until the patient must be hospitalized has given the virus too much of a head start. Every doctor, and there are many, who reports success with the HCQ treatment stresses early treatment. President Trump used a two-week treatment with HCQ as a prophylactic as he was constantly coming into contact with people who tested positive for the virus. Many medical professionals who are treating Covid patients also use HCQ as a prophylactic.
The Lancet study was a rush job as it was essential for Big Pharma to prevent the spread of the HCQ treatment and awareness of its safety and effectiveness. The study’s authors completed the data collection around the middle of April and the study was published on May 22. As soon as it appeared, it was used to close down the World Health Organization’s clinical trial of hydoxychloroquine in coronavirus patients citing safety concerns. Most likely, the trial was aborted in order to prevent an official agency from finding out that HCQ worked.
The media, of course, used the suspended trial to cast more doubt on Trump’s judgment for recommending and using the treatment, the implication being that Trump had put himself at more risk from a heart attack than from the virus itself.
The Daily Mail, which is often somewhat skeptical of official reports, even misreported French virologist Didier Raoult’s report ( https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2020/04/11/professor-didier-raoult-releases-the-results-of-a-new-hydroxychloroquine-treatment-study-on-1061-patients/ ) of his success with treating 1,061 patients with HCQ/AZ as consisting of only a small sample of 30 patients ( https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-8355273/WHO-says-SUSPENDING-trial-anti-malaria-drug-hydoxychloroquine-coronavirus-patients.html ). A small sample is considered to be inconclusive. Thus 1,061 people became 30.
The Lancet study claims a high mortality from HCQ treatment, reporting a death rate ranging from 5.1% to 13.8%. In response to a journalist when asked about this claim, Didier Raoult said that he and has colleagues have followed 4,000 of their patients so far. They have had 36 deaths and none from heart problrems for a death rate of 0.009%. According to The Lancet study, he should have between 204 and 552 patients dead from heart problems. He has zero. Raoult had more than 10,000 cardiograms analysed by rythmologists (a special kind of cardiologist) searching for any sign of heart problems.
NIH’s Dr. Fauci denies that Raoult’s hard evidence is evidence. On May 27 Fauci said, without showing shame of his ignorance or his lie, that there’s no evidence that shows the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine is effective at treating COVID-19. https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/499704-fauci-data-shows-no-evidence-hydroxychloroquine-is-effective-at-treating?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=30230
Perhaps what Fauci means is that no study undertaken by NIH or another Big Pharma friendly official body has been done and that only such studies constitute evidence.
When hard evidence such as Raoult’s is suppressed and misreported while “studies” doctored to produce a predetermined conclusion that serves Big Pharma profits are rushed into publication, we know that money has pushed ethics out of medical research. A number of concerned people have been telling us this for some time. We are past due to listen to them.
Private medicine is profit driven, which makes it susceptible to fraud. In long ago days fraud was restrained by the moral character of doctors and the respect for truth of researchers. These restraints, never perfect, have eroded as greed turned everything, integrity itself, into a commodity that is bought and sold.
The intent is to bury HCQ as a low cost effective treatment and to put in its place a high cost alternative whether effective or not, and to supplement this enhancement of profits with mass vaccination which might do us more harm than the virus itself. Big Pharma could care less. The only value it knows is profit.
This intent has garnered the support of the French, Belgium and Italian governments. Using The Lancet study and WHO’s termination of its HCQ trial as the excuse, the French government revoked its decree authorizing HCQ treatment. Belgium’s health ministry issued a warning against the use of HCQ except in registered clinical trials. Italy’s health agency wants HCQ’s use banned outside of clinical trials and suspended authorization to use HCQ as a Covid-19 treatment. https://www.rt.com/news/489904-italy-belgium-france-hydroxychloroquine-coronavirus/
Does this mean that Raoult and his team who by treating Covid patients with HCQ have achieved the remarkable low death rate of 0.009% are prohibited from using the proven cure to save lives? Will Raoult and his team be imprisoned if they continue to save lives? What about the people who will die from the three government’s prevention of a safe and effective treatment? Will France, Belgium, and Italy accept responsibility for these lost lives?
I can’t avoid wondering if the revolving door between Big Pharma and the NIH and CDC which corrupts US public health decisions also operates in France, Belgium and Italy. Are European health officials elevating themselves by climbing over the dead bodies of their victims?
Author
Paul Craig Roberts has held academic positions at Virginia Tech, Tulane University, Stanford, George Mason University, and Georgetown among others, practiced journalism as editor and columnist for The Wall Street Journal and columnist for Business Week and the Scripps Howard News Service and authored numerous books on international policy and economics, served as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and as a consultant to the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Department of Commerce. In business, he served as advisor to J.P. Morgan asset management, to Tiedemann-Goodnow, to Lazard Freres Asset Management and as an executive and a member of corporate and financial boards. He is chairman of The Institute for Political Economy. He brings his considerable experience and acute insight to one of the most widely read and influential columns in alternative media, https://www.paulcraigroberts.org, which we recommend you visit. - Ed.
