In an abrupt about-face, the Ohio Board of Pharmacy and governor of Minnesota have recently retracted their decisions to ban the use of hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19 patients. As the saying goes, it’s better late than never.
For mostly political reasons, hydroxychloroquine has become a highly controversial drug. Ever since President Trump voiced his support for the drug as a viable treatment for coronavirus, the liberal mainstream media has gone berserk and have done all in their power to discredit hydroxychloroquine.
Keep in mind, the liberal mainstream media are not doctors.
On March 21, President Trump tweeted:
“HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE & AZITHROMYCIN, taken together, have a real chance to be one of the biggest game changers in the history of medicine. The FDA has moved mountains - Thank You! Hopefully they will BOTH … be put in use IMMEDIATELY. PEOPLE ARE DYING, MOVE FAST, and GOD BLESS EVERYONE!”
Finally, nearly five months after Trump’s tweet, some state leaders are allowing residents in their states to take a drug that could literally save their lives.
At this point, you may be wondering why this drug has become so controversial. It surely isn’t due to lack of safety, even if the mainstream liberal media says so. In fact, hydroxychloroquine has been approved for more than 65 years. It is commonly used to treat diseases such as arthritis, lupus, and other autoimmune diseases.
Despite the misgivings of mainstream media morons, who have no idea what they are talking about, hydroxychloroquine is an off-patent drug that is affordable, accessible, and could make a huge difference in the fight against coronavirus.
Here is a pointed question for the media hypocrites who decry hydroxychloroquine: How many Americans need to die before safe and viable treatments, such as hydroxychloroquine, are made widely available?
As of now, anyone who questions the mainstream liberal media’s narrative regarding coronavirus or potential treatments is heavily criticized. Unfortunately, even medical experts who have no political skin in the game are put on the chopping block if they offer a counter viewpoint.
Such is what happened to the highly esteemed Harvey A. Risch, MD, PHD, a professor of Epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health. Risch has been bombarded with insults from media lightweights because he published a piece in the American Journal of Epidemiology, titled “Early Outpatient Treatment of Sympotmatic, High-Risk COVID-19 Patients that Should be Ramped-UP Immediately as Key to the Pandemic Crisis.”
Risch’s work has garnered national attention. He was recently featured on Mark Levin’s TV show, where he gave an irrefutable case for using hydroxychloroquine as a treatment and prophylactic for coronavirus.
As Risch stated, his findings suggest that “hydroxychloroquine … has been widely misrepresented in both clinical trial reports and public media.” What a sad state of affairs.
Doctors across the globe have offered mountains of evidence that hydroxychloroquine in combination with zinc or azithromycin, when used by patients not yet hospitalized and recently infected, yields extremely positive results.
Even though YouTube has pulled videos of doctors promoting the use of hydroxychloroquine and the mainstream media continues to purposefully mislead the public about this drug, Americans are still aware of the overwhelming potential this drug offers for those suffering with the dreaded and deadly coronavirus.
Fortunately, some states are realizing how ludicrous it is to prevent their residents from attaining a drug that has been around for more than six decades and has been used by millions of people across the globe.
What is scary is the fact that several states, in cahoots with a malicious media campaign to destroy the president, have decided it is politically desirous to prevent their residents from using a drug that could literally save thousands of lives.
Health care is an extremely personal decision that must remain in the hands of the individual, not the collective. COVID-19 has demonstrated without a doubt that dirty, rotten politics often transcends common sense, compassion, and decency, even in life and death situations.
It is time that Americans demand the ability to make their own health care decisions, in consultation with their doctors, not media blowhards who probably couldn’t tell the difference between a stethoscope and a microphone.
Christina Herrin (cherrin@heartland.org) is the government relations manager of Health Policy at The Heartland Institute, a non-partisan, free-market think tank headquartered in Arlington Heights, Illinois.