Posted on 04/09/2020 7:11:23 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Dr. Mehmet Oz, host of the “Dr. Oz” show, told Fox News Channel’s “Hannity” on Tuesday that the French infectious disease specialist he spoke to said the complications from the use of the drugs hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin were “trivial like rashes.”
Host Sean Hannity said that despite arguments to the contrary, Dr. Daniel Wallace, a board-certified rheumatologist practicing at Cedars-Sinai medical center in Los Angeles, wrote that “hydroxychloroquine is a very safe drug” and has been given to “tens of millions” of people around the world since it was approved 65 years ago “and as monotherapy has not been associated with any deaths in the recommended dose.”
Wallace wrote, “In 42 years of practice, no patient of mine has ever been hospitalized for a complication,” Hannity said.
“He’s not alone. A lot of his colleagues agree with him,” Oz said. “When I spoke to [Dr.] Didier Raoult, the famous infectious disease specialist from France. He’s now acquired 1,000 patients on the combination of the hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin.
“He also says the complications have been trivial, things like rashes, any minor issues, but this man was born in Africa and knows this drug very well because of the malaria he has faced in his practice and he says there's been a billion doses prescribed,” he said.
“It's not what they worry about, but Dr. Wallace said what was interesting and might catch the attention of the viewer is that in their protocols, they don't ever mention complications from hydroxychloroquine because they are so uncommon,” Oz said.
“That stated, a doctor has to be involved. They should be checking out the possible issues that may come up, but the issues I keep hearing are heart problems, blindness. Blindness by the way, the eye issues occurred at 0% in five years, 1% of people at 10 years of chronic use. We’re talking about a week or maybe 10 days of use maximum, so those issues aren’t real. I don't want to create more problems for people when we have enough already,” he added.
Oz said he wants to hear from anyone diagnosed with lupus or rheumatoid arthritis who take hydroxychloriquine to treat it and who have been diagnosed with COVID-19. He asked his viewers to share their story with his show.
Oz said he wanted to know whether any of Wallace’s lupus patients on hydroxychloroquine got COVID-19.
“My interest was to find out could it actually prevent people from getting sick because normally, you’d think lupus patients are immunodepressed. They'd be more likely to get sick from COVID-19 but he has no patients in his practice, and he is part of this experience we are looking at,” Oz said.
“We’ve now run 9 million insurance records through, identified 14,000 people who are like these patients. They have lupus. They’re taking hydroxychloroquine. Zero of those patients so far have COVID-19. I don't want to over interpret that. This is a tiny little biopsy of America, but working together with CMS, and we've gotten a lot of support from their leadership. Seema Verma’s fantastic. “The Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, they’ve gotten together,” he said.
“Our partners at Share Care are writing the numbers, and I want to get to 100 million Americans and confirm what the rheumatologists are observing, which is it doesn't seem right, but their patients aren't getting COVID-19, and maybe there's something there that’s a clue to us, because if that's true, we might consider using this at the trials with doctors and nurses and people who are at risk of getting this infection,” Oz said.
bttt
If it turns out that very few (or no) lupus patients have COVID, then HCQ is protective.
The question becomes then, “At how low a dose?” Instead of 200 mg or 400 mg, can we drink 60 mg of quinine in 3 glasses of tonic water and get some protection?
A second question is, “Are they immune, or do they catch the virus, but slow it down so much that they build antibodies?”
Then a third question would be, “What low dose level of quinine/HCQ is protective, and is it protective in the sense that it provides immunity only while taken, or does it allow one to build resistance by getting a mild, asympotmatic case with low viral load?”
Is HCQ used to fight malaria in Africa? If so, could that be a reason why the numbers out of Africa are so low?
That was my theory why India is not overrun with Chinese flu cases.
“Pre-exposure prophylaxis: Loading dose: 800mg of hydroxychloroquine salt (620mg base) taken at 0-hours, then 400mg (310mg base) taken at 6-hours, 24-hours, and 48-hours. Ongoing treatment: 400mg hydroxychloroquine salt (310mg base) taken once weekly.”
Ref the following link: https://keleefitness.com/covid-19-prophylaxis-in-healthcare-workers/
That’s current practice. If I were being regularly exposed, I’d want the hammer in my dose.
The lower limit isn’t known, nor are its more subtle prophylactic effects at lower dosages (if any). A lot of lab animals are going to find out, I’d guess.
i watched this on Dr Oz the other day- the first time i ever watched his show. The doctor from NY Sinai who treats the lupus patients said something very interesting when asked about the potential shortage of hydroxy- he said the drug stays active in you 2-3 months after you’ve taken it, hence he was not concerned about a shortage for his lupus patients...
I know when our church sends teams to Africa they have to get vaccinations against malaria before they go. Is the same true of travel to India?
...then HCQ is protective
Or Lupus/Rheumatoid Arthritis/Autoimmune disorders are protective
Or some other thing is related
Avoid post hoc, ergo propter hoc statements
But yes, it is encouraging news
“He was not concerned about a shortage for his lupus patients”
Unless one is created
And large parts of Africa too.
Can you imagine how upset big Pharma will be if a cheap generic drug that cost pennies a pill is a broad-spectrum antiviral prophylactic and therapeutic medicine for virus?
Imagine the entire over the counter cold and flu aisle wiped out at your Walgreens.
Good.
Now maybe the NPCs will wake up.
The headline is bogus. Hydroxychloroquine’s more serious side effect is extending the QT interval. If you are lucky (/s) enough to have a long QT to start, prolonging it further is dangerous, possibly fatal.
We bought a bunch of tonic with quinine. Looms like everyone had the same idea because its getting hard to find. We actually scored toilet paper and tonic at Publix yesterday.
I agree with your logical correction. It is conceivable, absent any other knowledge on my part, that the state of immune upset in lupus might be the protective cause rather than the drug itself.
A study of dosages and effects will elucidate that. Unless, everyone just forgets about this after the level of infection dies down, and the research interest dies down.
Dr Duggirala (Silicon Valley MD @csentropy) tweeted:
“For the life of me, I can’t understand the absolute ignorance in the press about Plaquenil. That applies to doctors as well. I cannot emphasize enough the safety of Plaquenil. We rheumatologists literally don’t think twice about prescribing it. Over 90% of patients with lupus are on it.” — A brilliant rheumatologist friend.
Plaquenil is tradename of HCQ.
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