Yale epidemiology professor Harvey Risch advocates use of hydroxychloroquine

Yes, when I read that statement I also started to think that Dr. Risch is an unreliable source of information. On that basis, I cannot trust his judgement. Unfortunately, that statement makes him sound like a conspiracy theorist rather than an academic physician

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An anonymous source has this to say about that study:

“ Botton of page 5: 97 HCQ events in US from December 1, 2019-May 6, 2020. FDA EUA goes into effect March 29. # Covid ases through March 28, 125,000 (I’m doing this from memory, you can check the exact numbers). Number of covid cases through May 6, 1,250,000. Therefore 90% of US covid cases during EUA, when FDA required use to be only in severe hospitalized patients (not even mild or moderate hospitalized patients). So only 10% of US use in this document possibly in outpatients, i.e., 9.7 cases. Of these any deaths? Unknown but maybe 1 or 2. That’s the data the FDA used to make its outpatient warning.”

@pevaquark, Risch began his article stating:
“ I have also argued that these drugs are safe and have made that case privately to the Food and Drug Administration.“

So his speculations about the motives of the FDA are probably based on direct personal experience, as well as the fact that the FDA has no objective scientific or medical reason for not issuing an EUA for HCQ for outpatient use.

Okay. But are you going to dispute the idea that the data about side effects observed in healthy users as a malaria prophylactic should not be assumed to be the same for people with COVID? Do you agree that the 65 years of data we have does not include detailed study of all the possible drug interactions that may be relevant to COVID cases?

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My point here is about our failure to advise the population about their ability to protect themselves against severe infection. Vitamin D and these other supplements very likely would prevent thousand of people from developing severe illness and may even be related to preventing long term complications. Many doctors are dumbfounded by our failure to advise our population that they can protect themselves against the virus. In addition it’s clear that we need to treat this virus in everyone early to prevent possible severe illnesses and the long term effects.

I would like to take this discussions about T cell immunity to another post if that’s ok because it’s off the hcq subject. But interesting epidemiological studies are explaining why we see these virus outbreaks peaking and then there appears to be a relative dimuntation In spread due to hitting a lower than herd immunity but still reduction in spread due the high susceptible spreaders getting the virus and then like a brush fire runs low on fuel even at 20% infection the virus infection rate reduces. I think that we are seeing in these outbreaks and then they are out of susceptibles and spread slows. The T cell immunity may not be protective against infection but may be related to mitigation f the virus and asymptiomatic. Just the same it’s interesting not only why there is this population of tcell reactivity but more why not all the population has this response and I suspect that this is related to the underlying immune health of individual with 40% obesity in US they may have impaired immune response.

Hi Michelle. Thank you for your insight. I appreciate people in the medicalprofession and difficulty that they are facing during these challenging times.

The problem here is restricting doctors at the ground level in responding to the patients needs. I think we should learn from the Dexamethasone fiasco that recommendations were made at the cdc and high levels to not use corticosteroids in Covid patients mainly based on an article in the lancet by authors with no experience with covid. This resulted in most doctors at ground level not using the steroids even though reports from China were showing effectiveness.
This resulted in the loss of thousand maybe tens of thousands of lives.

I think that we have to be careful here at this stage to not restrict doctors from treating their patients as called for. I think that the data shows that hcq is not likely beneficial as the virus progresses but the reports seemed to suggest it may have some benefit in early stages particularly with zinc. No doubt hcq has contraindications but every doctor know those. In addition about 10-15 % of patients are developing long term conditions that we do not know if hcq may be beneficial. I know that some doctors have been frustrated as not being able to administer hcq due to restrictions on them when they believed it was potentially useful early in the infection.

All that said there are many new treatments that some doctors are using that are showing promise and again I think that it’s now clear that we should be advising especially high risk people to take vitamin D C k2 and zinc and when someone contracts the virus they need to promptly begin treating themselves with a regimen to prevent onset of severity and long term effects.

While taking vitamins could be a good idea for general health and keeping the immune system working at its optimal level, I get concerned when my parents, who are in their 70s say that they are not worried about getting Covid because they are taking vitamins, so they will be fine. Where have they gotten this idea that vitamins would provide such complete protection?

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I understand your concern. As our loved ones age they often develop alarming notions about health care.

As Mark Twain said

Those that don’t read the news are uninformed and those that read the news are misinformed.

I sympathize that it’s difficult for many people to understand this virus but we need our healthcare leaders to step up. It is criminal that people with darker skins as well as some D deficient children are more susceptible to the virus in part due to D deficiency and are not being informed of this.

Sinclair Broadcast Group is scary. Early on, they were interviewing a doctor who was advocating IV vitamin C, I’m pretty sure it was, for COVID therapy.

Twenty-three years ago when I lost my mom to an inoperable glioblastoma (in only a month from onset of symptoms!), my aunt, a very capable woman (she had been a VP of the National Association of Manufacturers), wondered how my mom could have gotten cancer – “She always ate her broccoli!”, or words to that effect. Mom was 80, and my aunt a couple years older.

Serious side effects from HCQ come after prolonged use. It is safer than Tylenol. When you present data of significant adverse effects in Covid patients, then you stop using it. That has not happened. The FDA should approve an EUA for high risk outpatients.

You have two choices for high risk outpatients: Don’t treat and allow the virus to multiply until it overwhelms the body and the patient must be admitted to the hospital. Or treat early and try to stop the virus from getting out of hand. There are no RCTs for early high risk outpatients. Which do you choose? Doctors who have treated high risk outpatients early with HCQ, AZ or Doxycycline and Zn report great success. You really want them to stop until the RCTS are done?

Besides having anti-viral properties, HCQ and Ivermectin are also Zinc ionophores, which means they can get the Zinc inside the cell, where it can block replication of the virus.

Since neither is prescribed as a prophylaxis, I take Quercetin and Zinc. Quercetin also has antiviral properties, and is also a Zinc ionophore. I’m 66, obese, cardiovascular disease, and hypertension. But so far, so good.

Which reports do you recommend reading?

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What have you read that demonstrates this?

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I recommend starting with the first two. Not sure about the third one.

I take the D, C, and Zn. I also take the Quercetin, since without an ionophore, the zine won’t be able to get inside the cell, where it can block viral replication.

I didn’t know about the K2. Thanks. I’ll check it out.

Again, what population was studied to come to these conclusions. People with COVID infections? People taking other medications that might provoke negative drug interactions? I am utterly unconvinced about its safety based on assumptions that side effects will be the same as in healthy populations or populations with different health conditions.

Yes you are right about quercitin along with zinc. I also think that Nac nacetylcysteine or glutathione may be beneficial prophylatically but check with your doctor as the nac may have slight blood thinning effects.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/340917045_Endogenous_deficiency_of_glutathione_as_the_most_likely_cause_of_serious_manifestations_and_death_in_patients_with_the_novel_coronavirus_infection_COVID-19_a_hypothesis_based_on_literature_data_and_ow

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/9886500_Oxidative_stress_in_endothelial_cell_dysfunction_and_thrombosis

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1538-7836.2004.01085.x

Here is some of the reports for vitamin d and zinc. k2 goes with vitamin d protecting endothelial cells that are attacked by the virus s. There have been more recent reports on vitamin d including from Israel clearly showing link. I have other posts on biologos detailng these. It’s pretty clear that the underlying immune health is critical in immunity to this virus. These supplements are a component to this immune health. Just as you would expect as when someone becomes rundown they are more susceptible to getting a cold. This is exactly what we are seeing in Covid patients susceptibility.

children get plenty of vitamin D either in their milk or with their daily vitamins and though likely not necessary to supplement with vitamin D it may be worthwhile to be sure that certain kids with poor diets have good vitamin D levels. It seems that the rare occurrence in some infected children of a Kawasaki like syndrome is likely related in part to vitamin D deficiency and that vitamin D supplementation of children may reduce their chance of their coming down with kawasaki like syndrome with little downside of taking the vitamin D. Again please be sure to not to give more than this dose of vitamin D due to potential side effects.

The virus is particularly more severe in a group of people with metabolic syndrome such as diabetes, cardiac and vascular diseases such as cardiac arrhythmia and hypertension as well as a high BMI. These same groups often times have deficient vitamins D levels which likely plays a role in their susceptibility.

Zinc

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6882434/

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/jf5014633

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7087583/?report=reader