The anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine has been working in COVID-19 patients, Secretary of Veterans Affairs Robert Wilkie said on Wednesday.
Wilkie’s comments come after a study looking at the effects of the drug in 368 patients in Veterans Health Administration hospitals found no evidence the drug is effective against COVID-19, a new disease caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus.
Responding to the results during an appearance on MSNBC, Wilkie said, “That’s an observational study. It’s not a clinical study. It was done on a small number of veterans; sadly, those of whom were in the last stages of life, and the drug was given to them.”
The drug “has been working on middle-age and younger veterans,” Wilkie added. By that, he meant that it was “stopping the progression of” COVID-19.
These tests and “studies” seem to be skewed to show hydrochloroquine is ineffective rather than reach a scientific conclusion. Those already too far gone or with other underlying illnesses were used to DISPROVE the drug is effective. Democrats would allow people to die simply for the opportunity to denounce something Trump reported as promising.
I am all for a better and more effective drug specifically to treat this virus. However, we don’t have one. Therefore, I put my support 100% behind the drug that does the most good.
This is the way this drug works.
It stops the progression of LUPIS.
It stops the progression of MALARIA.
And, apparently, it also stops the progression of Covid-19.
At a time when faulty models were predicting the Covid-19 cases could easily overwhelm our medical facilities, this drug was seen as one of many ways we could “flatten the curve” of this disease so cases didn’t overwhelm our hospitals before we could get a vaccine.
Now that we see our curve is flattened (partly because the models were wrong) we can even carefully begin re-opening our economy too.
MSM pounced but it seems did not quite do all the digging it could have. HDC as not been known to cause organ damage but the disease has.
We need studies with HDC plus ZPac and HDC plus zinc.
From the mayo clinic: An analysis of several studies showed that zinc reduced the length of a cold by one day, especially when taken within 24 hours of the first signs and symptoms of a cold.
Didier Raoult has extended his trial and has currently more than 1000 patients being treated with HCQ and Azythromicin with just one death
@kitt: Watching the briefing today, I see that the people that continually accuse Trump of lying were called out, again, for lying, misquoting one of the doctors about the possible effects of a dual flu and COVID19 outbreak in the fall. The left is despicable.
@Deplorable Me: We stream it at dinner time, waiting to see which reporter gets slapped about. What the hell do they think we have been doing but fighting 2 seasonal flus plus Kung flu toss in a cold for good measure.
So says a politically-inclined republican lawyer having no medical training, who’s taking the side of the man who appointed him as Secretary of Veterans Affairs. You can give more weight to his comments, or to those of VA doctors who observed that twice as many COVID-19 patients taking hydroxychloroquine died, compared with those who were not.
About 28% of the 368 veterans who received hydroxychloroquine in addition to standard care for COVID-19 issues—IV fluids, breathing support, etc—died of the infection; only 11% of the 368 veterans who got standard care without hydroxychloroquine died.
This wasn’t a formal, carefully controlled, double-blind clinical study—as yet, there have been none where the results are in—but those are how the numbers compare.
“Middle age and younger” patients are less likely to die of COVID-19 infection to begin with, so the fact that fewer do can’t be attributed to hydroxychloroquine.
@Greg: Fact is old sick people die so cant be attributed to hydroxychloroquine. The higher death count might be their “standard care” practices as its twice that of NY city hospitals.
I guess the french doctor actually running a test with 1000 patients and only 1 death your AP reporter wont talk to.
@kitt, #7:
On Robert Wilke’s watch, VA bureaucrats covered up the fact that their hospital and clinical staff are laboring under critical and dangerous shortages of personal protective equipment. It took public action by VA medical personnel themselves, at the risk of disciplinary action, to bring attention to the issue.
I don’t happen to believe that Job One of upper level public servants is to cover the Trump Administration’s backside. They work for the good of the people that their departments or administrations were created to serve, not for any political party, private concern, or president. This president is gradually turning the federal bureaucracy into the very thing his political base professes to dislike about it.
April 16, 2020 – VA secretary refuses to share documents that detail PPE supply, lawmakers say
The French doctor who kicked the whole hydrochloroquine controversy off had conducted no tests. His conclusions were based on 24 patients he treated.
The Trumpian French Doctor Behind the Chloroquine Hype
All of the popular attention this drug has been getting is almost like some sort of reality television celebrity phenomenon. It’s being prescribed without any sound basis. It may be of no benefit at all, and clearly isn’t free of harmful or potentially lethal potential.
@Greg:
What are the ages of the 28% that died, Comrade Greggie? How many of them were over the age of 60? 70? 80?
What percentage of the 28% that died had comorbidity issues?
Sad that you huddle in your home hoping people who are treated with hydroxycholoroquine die. You are a pathetic waste of oxygen, Comrade Greggie.
@Greg: WaPo had a misleading headline today, probably using the b.s. info greg is parroting. He probably got it from the same article.
Interestingly enough, there are more studies than that. Dumb Leftists are anti-science.
But please…I really hope we hear from you the day we know Trump got re-elected, the Senate stays Republican, and the Dems lose the House.
It’s coming, mainly because of idiots like you spreading disinformation.
@Greg: #8 Nice Slate hit piece… of shit, some crazy ass bitch poisons her husband with fish tank cleaner and thats brought up. Edison a most prolific inventor put his name on things that people he hired invented that doesnt mean those inventions were bad does it? There are always those in the medical research world seething with jealousy of people that rise as a star. The article is almost a month old with no mention of the 1000 patient trial. I especially liked the ONE anon source said…..you and your love of anonymous sources its how you so easily fall for hoaxes, and BS propaganda.
@kitt, #11:
Look at page 6 of Didier Raoult’s patient study, which describes the Study Population (the subjects included in the study who were treated with hydroxychloroquine:
So, two main qualifications: The age of the test subjects had to be more than 12 years old, and they had to test positive for COVID-19 illness without regard for their clinical status. In other words, the test group could include people who were very young, and who were not especially sick. It states elsewhere in the report that the median age of the study group patients was only 41 years.
What that means is that he was testing the effects of hydroxychloroquine on a group of people which included subjects who were highly likely to recover whether they were treated with the drug or not. They might well have had the same degree of improvement if given a placebo.
This is faulty methodology, making it impossible to draw any reliable conclusions about possible benefits. Based on his paper, however, and vague anecdotal reports from questionable sources, the drug has been elevated to celebrity status. The truth is that it may be doing more harm than good. The recent VA report and the cancelled Brazilian trial certainly suggest that, but no one really knows for sure.
@Greg: Exactly no one knows for sure, we have to wait for larger medical trials, looks like he did have a control group never hid anything about the testing. As there have been hundreds of papers on HDC and its effect on SARS 1 most in petri dishes where all studies begin. Slate is still a rag, maligning the professor just because he tried a treatment and Trump heard about it, What a bunch of slimeballs your preferred news sources are, you should be ashamed for linking to such a POS article. Do you know if it was’nt Macron that told Trump?
Again the VA study said it may have damaged organs not a known side effect of the medication but a known side effect of the illness.
Brother just stop until you find something solid, I went to the University of Wisconsin site and couldnt find anything on a study of HDC there, but the larger trial being done by the professor was mentioned. Perhaps you can find a link for me, unless it is anonymous then dont bother.
If the left would put as much effort into finding a treatment as they do trying to scour the planet to find instances where hydrochloroquine HASN’T worked simply to try to throw it in Trump’s face (merely for announcing that a good treatment had been found), we would have a cure in no time. But, alas, solving problems is not what Democrats care about, other than the “problem” of someone besides them being in power.
@Deplorable Me: When Kung Flu fighting some one has to get their ass kicked, the leftists just keep stepping up.
@Greg: nothing to show currently that hydroxychloroquine is killing more people than its helping.
Another left-wing media hoax:
Dismissed
@Nathan Blue:
“WaPo had a misleading headline today”, uh, because you say so.
“Interestingly enough, there are more studies than that. Dumb Leftists are anti-science, again, because you say so.
“But please…I really hope we hear from you the day we know Trump got re-elected, the Senate stays Republican, and the Dems lose the House”
That’s a rather fantastic analysis based on, um, your say so.
“It’s coming, mainly because of idiots like you spreading disinformation”, says the party of disinformation based on, well, your say so.
And each hour it seems Trump is exposed more and more as the fake Wizard of Oz behind his bellowing curtain (or as I prefer, a fence post turtle). With 840,000 U.S. confirmed Covid-19 cases and 46,784 deaths as we speak have (more than anywhere in the world), Trump’s scolding the Gov of GA for opening too fast while prodding his neo-nazis and Klansmen to “liberate:” and demand an immediate opening.
Trump’s gift of a great economy handed to him by Obama and Democrats has been reduced to that of the crash and burn GWB/Republican era.
R’s are grabbing record slush funds for the wealthy with incompetent bankrupt cronies receiving multi million $ contract for PPE while we have nurses wearing trash bags.
We have unknown and chaotic authority between states and federal government due to flip-flop ramblings and Tweets from an incompetent leader airing a daily dog and pony show of disinformation and misrepresented facts.
Fox News, Sean Hannity, and the Trump Admin in full blown damage control over hydroxychloroquine, while Hannity viewers are turning more towards ABC’s David Muir’s news shows.
We’re seeing consistent polls showing positive signs for both the Democratic House, Senate, and Biden.
Republicans and Trump are scrambling to exploit this to shove through a long list of plutocratic and Social Darwinism wish lists.
More people dying in R states who’ve failed to take precautions, and here we are today with no widespread testing or contact tracing plans intact and what little we do have is a product of individual states on other entities rather than a result of any competent national leader.
And Moscow Mitch is telling states to get screwed as they’re on their own.
The man is obviously out of his league and still relying on corporate CEOs, Fox and Friends, and his own self-assumed state of stable generousness rather than scientists and/or qualified people.
And even if you want to disregard the abject failures of our Fence Post Turtle, AZ and TX were getting more purple prior to Trumpvirus. And it really doesn’t help your case with Republicans like the TX Lt Gov telling his constituents they can sacrifice the lives of the elderly in exchange for the rich man’s economy.
Why you believe he’s doing so well and that he’s somehow owning the dems is an unknown phenomenon.
@Ronald J. Ward: But every death short of the 2 million Democrats predicted is wholly to Trump’s credit…. RIGHT?
@Ronald J. Ward:
Really? How so? It seems all the hot spots are run by Welfare Queen Democrats.
When did DeBlasio or Coumo shut the subway system down for sanitation? They have blood on their hands.
It isnt just Trump voters going to the let my people go rallys. Its obvious you live in mamas basement you have no business, you wont face bankrupsy or losing your house for lack of income. No one is dragging granny out of her home to force her into a tattoo parlor.
Beg your damn pardon if the governors didnt know of the unused testing equipment in their states, maybe they need competent health officials.
Not everywhere is NY city most have .001% of the population that has tested positive. The other 99.009% have bills to pay you idiot.
@Ronald J. Ward:
Actually, the Washington Compost leading with a misleading headline is nothing new for that piece of garbage. It’s called “clickbait” and if it bleeds, it leads. Nothing new for NYSlimes, Vox, Media Matters or the many other left wing publications that are in the pocket of the DNC.
Your disrespect for the intelligence of the American people is legend. We already know that you view everything (and I do mean everything) thru the prism of racism. Your hated is also legendary. Georgia is not New York. And let’s address those 46,784 deaths from the Chi-Com virus you cite: how many of those deaths were of patients with comorbidity issues. I assume you are a scientist (or perhaps a virologist) and you know if the Chi-Com virus is actually the cause of death or a contributor to an already existing medical condition that was made worse by the body’s inability to fight an existing comorbidity. So why don’t you explain it to us, Dr. AJ/Ward?
Ummm, I live in a red state with 29,000,000 residents (more than New York State). Our body count, as of today, was 561, 2.5% of known cases.
It is the responsibility of individual states to handle their own crisis. If you want a nation that is totally controlled by the federal government, move to Cuba.
You ignore the reason McConnell said those states are on their own. Now why would that be? Can you give me one good reason why the American taxpayer in Wyoming and Oklahoma should be required to bail out the disaster that is the California and New York budgets that were a disaster before the Chinese unleashed their virus on the nation?
https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/politics/albany/2019/11/25/new-york-faces-its-largest-budget-crisis-decade-why/4274198002/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/patrickgleason/2019/04/16/no-californias-finances-are-not-back-in-black/#442ada37b5ec
Please note the dates of these articles.
Lying seem to be your forte. No, Texas is not turning “purple”. There are some blue areas in Texas (Austin, Houston, San Antonio, El Paso) but for the most part, Texas is deep, DEEP red. You also misconstrue what Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said. Obviously, you get your information from the left wing press that hates the fact that some politicians do not subscribe to your form of Communism and think that our Constitution still has meaning and actually do care about the next generation.
Take your disgusting comments over to MediaMatters or HuffingtonPost. They will be welcome there. Here, they are just more lies promoted by the far left wing press that is in the pocket of the DNC.
@Nathan Blue, #16:
No definitive, double-blind clinical study of the drug for COVID-19 illness has been completed yet. If you want to take anecdotal evidence as an indicator, the recent VA study and the discontinued study in Brazil at least involved clinical settings and provided more specific details than anyone making repeated public endorsements of the drug. Recent studies in France and China have suggested the same negative conclusion. There are no clear indications of benefits; there are indications suggestive of significantly higher death rates.
Given the potentially serious adverse side effects that have been previously established for the drug, there’s currently no good medical reason to be publicly touting hydroxychloroquine as some sort of highly promising remedy for COVID-19 illness. It may well do more harm than good, and there are few clear indications that it does any good at all. That’s a fact that exists independently of any right or left political orientation.
I wouldn’t buy a used car from these people, let alone their recommendation regarding treatment for a serious medical problem.
@Ronald J. Ward:
I’m wondering if you can muster those scant brain-cells of yours to understand that the entirety of your own middling “arguments” rely on the same thing: because you say so.
The issue is you present your hate-filled partisan indoctrination episodes as if they have any merit beyond propaganda.
But please…I really, REALLY, hope we hear from you the day we know Trump got re-elected, the Senate stays Republican, and the Dems lose the House”
You are truly one of the stupidest people I’ve ever read on the internet. My 10 year old has better critical thinking skills.
Your list merely shows me that “because they said so” is why “you say so”.
Get a brain.
@Greg: Well, I really hope more people die so you can advance your Left-wing agenda, greg. That would be great.
Please don’t wonder why your party is massacred over this pandemic in November. You brought it on yourself.
” It may well do more harm than good, and there are few clear indications that it does any good at all.”
Yes, I’m aware that’s one of the many hoaxes you have to keep going for political reasons.
@Nathan Blue, #23:
More people may have died because of weeks of this sort of dangerous nonsense. It isn’t a result of anyone’s “left-wing agenda”. It’s because of someone else’s agenda, and those who unquestioningly enable it. I expect them to drop the topic of the drug like a hot potato and move right along to some other accusation or distraction. Maybe you should consider doing the same.
@Greg: You’re one holding the latest “hoax” turd, son.
You should drop it. Eating sh*t the way you do won’t help you survive the coronavirus, or election, either.
@Greg: Promoting and prolonging this crisis is the Democrat agenda. Did you see AOC (AFTER she cheered the collapse of the energy industry and the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs) suggesting people refuse to go back to work… so they can be “free”? Now, when the time comes that it is safe to go back to work, why would any US Representative recommend people “protest” by not going to work? Well, to prolong the misery, prolong the downturn, prolong the pain. It’s the Democrat agenda.
@Greg: I tried your link but there was a super ugly impressionist of Herman Munster that popped onto my screen. Luckily I clicked close before I barfed on my keyboard.
I think I may have the story https://www.redstate.com/alexparker/2020/04/23/824073/
@Nathan Blue, #25:
Dr. Donald:
Maybe you should consider leaving the cult before they serve up the final tub of Kool-Aid, and then bug out with their loot before it all hits the fan. Just a thought.
@Greg:
Key phrase here, Comrade Greggie. “may have”
In other words, you don’t know and no one knows.
Today, I spoke with a doctor who is on the front lines. Hydroxycholoroquine was used because it proved effective is some patients. The drug had to be used according (and read this carefully) to the needs and comorbidity issues the patient had PRIOR to the contraction of the Chi-Com virus. Other drugs (like Remdesivir are being used.
What you can’t seem to get through your thick skull is that each patient is different, just as everyone has a different DNA, everyone has different pharmaceutical needs. If we were clones, only one drug would be needed to fit your “one size fits all” requirements.
I think it is hilarious that you are hanging your hat on one study that IS NOT peer reviewed. And of course, you have no answers to my questions in post #9. But that is no surprise. Being the punk you are, you never answer questions you only know how to post your left wing talking points.
What would you do without YouTube to help you promote your propaganda agenda, Comrade Greggie?
Good news, or a prelude to The Planet of the Apes? You be the judge:
April 23, 3030 – COVID-19 vaccine protects monkeys from new coronavirus, Chinese biotech reports
Once again, Comrade Greggie pimps for Communist China.
Hopefully if the vaccine proves effective, the State Department won’t forbid its use by American citizens owing to its evil Chinese origin. But these days you never know. Maybe we could just claim it was created using stolen Western technology or something.
@Greg:
The American pharmaceutical companies are in a race to create a vaccine. You don’t know who will wind up doing it, but we all know that China provided defective PPEs to many nations so there should be no trust in any vaccine that China claims is the end all to beat all.
Once again, you serve as China’s whore.
@retire05:
I have made this point dozens of times and it’s not just Greg… NO liberal is capable of understanding facts. DOCTORS prescribe the drugs, NOT Trump. No doctor is going to administer a drug just because Trump says so. The fact that it is being used and is in high demand is due to just one simple fact: it WORKS.
No, it’s not a cure.
No, it’s not a miracle drug.
No, it’s not a vaccine.
It simply works, under the right conditions, most of the time. At a time when it is all we have, it’s a life saver.
But, liberals don’t worry about facts or details. First, Trump says something. Then, the media twists what he says and turns it into something stupid or threatening. Then liberals, who won’t watch the briefings or speeches themselves, because they are afraid what the TRUTH might do to their prejudices, listen to the lies coming out of the liberal media and work themselves up into a hate-fueled frenzy. Greg, AJ, George are in no way unique. Liberals prefer lies to facts.
Today, Trump provided a presentation on the effects of UV on the virus. It shows promise. Tests must be done, experiments conducted, how to proceed determined. But what do the liars in the liberal media do? They accuse Trump of calling it a cure. He even spanked one of the liars right there during the briefing and explicitly explained it is merely a prospect but that’s not clear enough for liberals who prefer lies to truth and hope.
@Greg:
Sure, why not? When have the Chinese steered us wrong? Why are you promoting this as a cure? Isn’t that kind of premature? What if it harms people? You should be ashamed for pushing this drug as a miracle cure.
April 23, 2020 – HHS chief Alex Azar chose a former labradoodle breeder with minimal public health experience to lead the department’s coronavirus response
You just can’t make this stuff up. Direct your COVID-19 questions here.
@Greg:
Wouldn’t you RATHER be the first stable genius on your block to try Orange-Daddy’s newest brain-fart-du-jour? You know, mainline some Clorox and shove a black-light up your bum? He’s gonna have his experts look into those idiot-gem-ideas, and you don’t want to wait for Walmart to be bought out before you stock up!
Someone should remind Orange-Daddy that it’s “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt.”
@Greg:
Harrison is a graduate of Texas A & M, a university that you don’t have the grey matter to even mow the lawn.
and
“he worked in the Department of Health and Human Services during the Presidency of George W. Bush. He has also held positions at other federal agencies including in the Social Security Administration, in the United States Department of Defense, and in the Office of the Vice-President. After leaving government service he was employed as director of the healthcare practice for DCI Group. ”
And about your left wing Business Insider b/s from Wikipedia:
The website has, however, faced criticism for what critics consider its clickbait-style headlines. In 2013, The New Yorker criticized the website for prioritizing publishing speed over accuracy. In 2018, the website received criticism from some media outlets after deleting a controversial column about Scarlett Johansson.
But hey, we all know that if a site isn’t left wing, you would not be linking it.
And King George wants to shove a black-light up your ass. Ummmmmmmm.
@George Wells: You didn’t watch the briefing, did you?
@retire05: Can you imagine nurses having to spend a little time 1 to 3 minutes in a UV light flooded room at the beginning and end of each shift to keep the virus from entering or leaving a ward.
@kitt: I’ve been seeing quite a few people make complete asses of themselves making fun of the experimental proposal that didn’t even see the presentation. All they know is some liberal idiot talking heads made fun of it so they have to also. These are really, really ignorant people.
@kitt:
Oh, the horrors.
Maybe AOC could take up their cause since those nurses would have been “disinfected.”
@George Wells: #36
“Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt.”
Yet here you are, yapping away.
@retire05: Seems the virus doesn’t like warm temperatures, we need more global warming to beat this virus.
What counts as a ChiCon Flu death?
https://www.theherald-news.com/2020/04/21/what-counts-as-a-covid-19-death/a38v0ed/
From http://secondcitycop.blogspot.com/
“You can be hit by a train, and when the pieces of you arrive at the morgue, by golly it wasn’t Burlington Northern smearing you across the landscape that killed you – it was COVID.”
@Petercat: Im a COVID hes a COVID shes a COVID ,wouldnt you like to be a COVID 2. He was 107 and in hospice I guess that was a Covid victim too.
@Deplorable Me:
Yes, I did. And I couldn’t stop laughing! Orange-Daddy is so painfully clueless – if you can’t laugh, you have to cry.
Yeah… sure… how can we get DISINFECTANTS into someone’s body… I’ll have somebody look into that… Yes, I listened to him and watched him. That’s how I KNOW that he didn’t even know how stupid what he was saying really was. He was looking around for someone to give him a hand signal, and he must have missed the looks of horror on the faces of the doctors on the “task force.” That task force’s first priority should be to muzzle Trump before he chokes on his own foot.
I will say this, though, that to Trump’s credit, all of his inane pseudo-science and schoolyard insults probably make his woefully undereducated supporters feel comfortable that their unconsciously fearless leader hasn’t the capacity to talk over their heads. I recall how many Republicans explained they voted for Bush simply because they felt they could comfortably have a beer with the guy. The GOP hasn’t changed.
@Greg: Wait! Is greggie complaining that the head of the VA knows nothing because he is not a doctor and then greggie who also is not a doctor or a trained epidemiologist explains in depth why the studies are invalid.
@Petercat: Mr Wells never quits proving his ignorance.
@Greg: Not my words, junior.
I vote for policy, not personality. I left the cult you are in a long time ago.
Hope you’re ready to down that kool-aid you’ve been selling for years, junior.
We’ll see what you truly believe.
@George Wells: Oh, if only we could have gotten an honest news corp to cover Obama and his novelist speech writer with the same partisan bias.
Oh my my…
Too bad he was illegally limited the free press more than any President in history.
Of course he only needed to slow-jam on SNL and play golf.