Archive for the ‘research’ Category

Efficacy of Hydroxychloroquine in Patients With COVID-19 Results of a Randomized Clinical Trial

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.22.20040758v2?

Efficacy of hydroxychloroquine in patients with COVID-19: results of a randomized clinical trial

Zhaowei Chen, Jijia Hu, Zongwei Zhang, Shan Jiang, Shoumeng Han, Dandan Yan, Ruhong Zhuang, Ben Hu, Zhan Zhang

Abstract

Aims: Studies have indicated that chloroquine (CQ) shows antagonism against COVID-19 in vitro. However, evidence regarding its effects in patients is limited. This study aims to evaluate the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) in the treatment of patients with COVID-19.

Main methods: From February 4 to February 28, 2020, 62 patients suffering from COVID-19 were diagnosed and admitted to Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University. All participants were randomized in a parallel-group trial, 31 patients were assigned to receive an additional 5-day HCQ (400 mg/d) treatment, Time to clinical recovery (TTCR), clinical characteristics, and radiological results were assessed at baseline and 5 days after treatment to evaluate the effect of HCQ.

Key findings: For the 62 COVID-19 patients, 46.8% (29 of 62) were male and 53.2% (33 of 62) were female, the mean age was 44.7 (15.3) years. No difference in the age and sex distribution between the control group and the HCQ group. But for TTCR, the

  • body temperature recovery time and the cough remission time were significantly shortened in the HCQ treatment group
  • a larger proportion of patients with improved pneumonia in the HCQ treatment group (80.6%, 25 of 32) compared with the control group (54.8%, 17 of 32)
  • Notably, all 4 patients progressed to severe illness that occurred in the control group
  • 2 patients with mild adverse reactions in the HCQ treatment group

Significance: Among patients with COVID-19, the use of HCQ could significantly shorten TTCR and promote the absorption of pneumonia.

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For more:  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2020/03/25/what-exactly-is-hydroxychloroquine-the-drug-that-is-being-tested-as-the-first-potential-coronavirus-treatment/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2020/03/27/the-truth-about-hydroxychloroquine-plaquenil-in-the-treatment-of-covid-19/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2020/03/31/hydroxychloroquine-azithromycin-in-80-covid-19-patients/

 

 

Second-Degree AV Block Caused By Lyme

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32186826

2020 Jan 24;164. pii: D4214.

Second-degree atrioventricular block caused by Lyme disease

[Article in Dutch]

Abstract

BACKGROUND:

Tick-borne diseases, including Lyme disease, are becoming increasingly common in Europe. Lyme disease has a wide variety of clinical manifestations, as a result of which physicians of diverse disciplines are coming into contact with such patients.

CASE DESCRIPTION:

A 58-year-old man was seen at the emergency room with a symptomatic Wenckebach-type second-degree atrioventricular (AV) block and periods of 2:1 AV block. Four weeks previously the patient had noticed a red skin lesion on his left lower leg. Under the working diagnosis of early disseminated Lyme disease with cardiac involvement, treatment with ceftriaxone was started. This diagnosis was supported by a positive Borrelia PCR and culture of a skin biopsy and positive Borreliaserology. The AV conduction disorders resolved completely after 2 weeks of treatment with antibiotics and it was not necessary to implant a pacemaker.

CONCLUSION:

A Borrelia infection is a reversible but rare cause of AV conduction disorders. In the event of sudden onset of symptoms or a severe or progressive AV conduction disorder, Lyme carditis should be considered, especially if the medical history or physical examination provides clues for Lyme disease.

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**Comment**

Due to the fact Lyme testing is so abysmal, stating that AV conduction disorders caused by Lyme is “rare,” is premature.  It may be true that reports in the literature are rare but nobody has a clue on prevalence due to underreporting & misdiagnosis. 

This patient needs extensive follow-up.  Two weeks of antibiotics is rarely sufficient.

For more:  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2019/03/10/when-lyme-hurts-your-heart-warning-signs-solutions/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2018/06/03/heart-problems-tick-borne-disease/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2018/02/22/new-lyme-cme-course-available-lyme-carditis-more-than-blocked-beats/  Course for doctors to become educated.

Coronavirus: Pathogen Could Have Been Spreading in Humans For Years, Study Says

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3077442/coronavirus-pathogen-could-have-been-spreading-humans-decades

Coronavirus: pathogen could have been spreading in humans for years, study says

Stephen Chen in Beijing

  • Virus may have jumped from animal to humans long before the first detection in Wuhan, according to research by an international team of scientists
  • Findings significantly reduce the possibility of the virus having a laboratory origin, director of the US National Institute of Health says (See link for article)

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**Comment**

Important quote:

The study, found here:  https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9 is also a topic of Lyme advocate Carl Tuttle’s recent post titled, “The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2”:  https://www.change.org/p/the-us-senate-calling-for-a-congressional-investigation-of-the-cdc-idsa-and-aldf/u/

Tuttle’s focus is on an article debunking the Nature article claiming COVID-19 definitely wasn’t from a lab.  Article found here:  https://harvardtothebighouse.com/2020/01/31/logistical-and-technical-analysis-of-the-origins-of-the-wuhan-coronavirus-2019-ncov/  (You can also sign a petition in the link asking for a moratorium on all dual-use gain-of-function research.)

The author debunking the Nature article asserts COVID-19 either –

  • “spontaneously mutated and jumped to humans at a wet market or deep in some random bat cave which just so happened to be 20 miles from China’s only BSL-4 virology lab, a virus with an unusually slippery never-before-seen genome that’s evading zoological classification….”

OR

  • “Chinese scientists failed to follow correct sanitation protocols…, something that had been anticipated since the opening of the BSL-4 lab and has happened at least four times previously, and accidentally released this bio-engineered Wuhan Strain – likely created by scientists researching immunotherapy regimes against bat coronaviruses, who’ve already demonstrated the ability to perform every step necessary to bio-engineer the Wuhan Strain COVID-19 – into their population, and now the world....this virus appears to have been bio-engineered at the spike-protein genes which was already done at UNC to make an extraordinarily virulent coronavirus. Chinese efforts to prevent the full story about what’s going on from getting out are because they want the scales to be even since they’re now facing a severe pandemic and depopulation event. No facts point against this conclusion.  

Supporting the second case are Chinese researchers:  https://blogs.mercola.com/sites/vitalvotes/archive/2020/04/01/chinese-scientists-think-coronavirus-leaked-from-wuhan-lab.aspx

“In summary, somebody was entangled with the evolution of 2019-nCoV coronavirus. In addition to origins of natural recombination and intermediate host, the killer coronavirus probably originated from a laboratory in Wuhan. Safety level may need to be reinforced in high risk biohazardous laboratories. Regulations may be taken to relocate these laboratories far away from city center and other densely populated places.

Great video with Dr. Mikovitz explaining Coronavirus:  (She explains numerous issues raised in this article) https://videoplayer.telvue.com/player/0yMvL7SaaePCh8raohYoxsp1MzZ6gHeT/series/2470/media/546082?

Circling back to the Nature article, one of the authors, Ian Lipkin, is known as “The Virus Hunter.”  He’s currently involved in a sex discrimination lawsuit alleging concerning issues that should cause us to question his credibility:  https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/05/lawsuit-columbia-university-roils-prominent-chronic-fatigue-syndrome-research-lab (takes credit for others’ work, diverts and misuses funds which delays publication of others’ work, undermines relationships with a colleague’s collaborators and donors, wrongly adds himself as principle investigator to grants, and sex discrimination):  

Also, Lipkin, a staunch critic of Dr. Andrew Wakefield wrote this paper titled, “Anti-Vaccination Lunacy Won’t Stop”:  https://www.mailman.columbia.edu/sites/default/files/pdf/wsj-040416.pdf

Any researcher biased enough to call those who dare to question vaccine safety lunatics has tipped his hand that he is not at all open to new scientific findings

Here, you can read an astute criticism of Lipkin’s CDC-AAP sponsored report, “Lack of Association between Measles Virus Vaccine and Autism with Enteropathy: A Case-Control Study,” and that it actually in the end validated Andrew Wakefield’s findings:  https://www.vaccinationnews.org/content/cdc-sponsored-mmr-study-supports-wakefields-findings

Please also remember that it was none other than NIH’s AIDS czar, Anthony Fauci, who asked his friend Ian Lipkin to settle the claim by microbiologist Judy Mikovitz on whether XMRV is behind chronic fatigue syndrome.  Lipkin blamed a man-made contaminant, despite Lo and Alter’s paper showing 6.8 percent of healthy controls were positive for MLV-related infection:  https://www.pnas.org/content/107/36/15874.short.

For the backgroundhttps://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/10/15/vaccines-and-retroviruses-a-whistleblower-reveals-what-the-government-is-hiding/

Similarly to how research for Alzheimer’s was hijacked for decades by the amyloid beta issue, ME/CHS research studying viruses was hijacked by Lipkin, despite this 2019 article stating that although XMRV has not been proven yet to cause CFS, it has not been ruled out, and that results of research shows that XMRV is a candidate for causing human disease:  https://www.cleveland.com/healthfit/2009/11/top_scientists_to_meet_at_clev.html 

Lipkin is directly involved with research involving cancer, Autism, and vaccines – hot topics tightly controlled by powers that have vested interests.
Hopefully it is clear from the numerous posts on this website that those who depart from the controlled narrative are skewered alive.

But, Lipkin never departs from the accepted narrative.

Tuttle has a valid point not trusting authorities on COVID-19 that have also been involved in a

“thirty-year deception on the American public that Lyme is a simple nuisance disease through its network of paid academics (now defendants in a racketeering lawsuit) [2] how much trust should we lend to your work Dr. Lipkin?”

If you haven’t signed Tuttle’s petition, please do so:  https://www.change.org/p/the-us-senate-calling-for-a-congressional-investigation-of-the-cdc-idsa-and-aldf/

There is continued resistance by government agencies to acknowledge and provide information pertaining to chronic Lyme disease on their websites and in their programs despite Lyme disease being around 45 years. They also control all testing and suppress any other lab doing Lyme/MSIDS testing.

Ocular Complications of Cat Scratch Disease

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32122915/

2020 Mar 2. pii: bjophthalmol-2019-315239. doi: 10.1136/bjophthalmol-2019-315239. [Epub ahead of print]

Ocular complications of cat scratch disease.

Abstract

Cat scratch disease (CSD) in humans is caused by infection with Bartonella henselae or other Bartonella spp. The name of the disease reflects the fact that patients frequently have a history of contact (often involving bites or scratches) with infected cats. Patients with CSD typically develop lesions at the site where the skin is broken together with regional lymphadenopathy but may go on to exhibit systemic symptoms and with deep-seated infections at a range of sites including the eye. Patients with CSD may present with a range of inflammatory eye conditions, including Parinaud’s oculoglandular syndrome, neuroretinitis, multifocal retinitis, uveitis and retinal artery occlusion. Bartonella spp. are fastidious bacteria that are difficult to culture from clinical specimens so microbiological diagnosis is frequently made on the basis of positive serology for anti-Bartonella antibodies or detection of bacterial DNA by PCR. Due to the lack of clinical trials, the evidence base for optimal management of patients with CSD-associated eye infections (including the role of antibiotics) is weak, being derived from single reports or small, uncontrolled case series.

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**Comment**

This study states what the rest of us all know – there is a lack of research on Bartonella yet it is everywhere:  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2020/02/19/bartonella-infection-everywhere-but-we-dont-know-about-it/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2019/04/24/human-bartonellosis-an-underappreciated-public-health-problem/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/category/bartonella-treatment/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2019/01/02/bartonella-in-entire-canadian-family/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2019/04/08/case-series-bartonella-ocular-manifestations/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2018/09/06/ocular-manifestations-of-bartonellosis/

And please know you don’t have to be exposed to cats to get it:  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2018/07/10/bartonella-henselae-neuroretinitis-in-patients-without-cat-scratch/

You also don’t have to be immunocompromised to get it:  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2019/12/18/multifocal-hepatic-abscess-in-immunocompetent-patient-due-to-bartonella-henselae-case-report-with-review-of-literature/

Babesia Infections Explode In Hudson Valley, NY

https://danielcameronmd.com/babesia-infections-explode-in-hudson-valley-region/

BABESIA INFECTIONS EXPLODE IN HUDSON VALLEY, NY

man sick with babesia infection

Babesia, a parasitic infection usually transmitted through a tick bite, was once thought to be a coastal tick-borne disease limited to Suffolk County on Long Island. Some doctors had been reluctant to acknowledge that Babesia could be found in other locations. But in 2001, Babesia infections were reported in lower Hudson Valley, New York, a region north of Manhattan and has since continued to spread with an increase in the number of cases far beyond the borders of Long Island.

In their article “Increasing incidence and changing epidemiology of babesiosis in the Hudson Valley region of New York State: 2009-2016,” ¹ Joseph and colleagues question how cases of Babesia infections are spreading given that the animal reservoirs mice, shrews, and voles typically do not travel large distances.
Cases of Babesia have been reported in two counties located east of the Hudson River: Dutchess County and Westchester County, the authors write. (Westchester County alone has a population of nearly 1 million residents.)

Read More: Babesia remains a clinical diagnosis for some patients.

But since 2009, there has been an explosion of Babesia infections in the Upper Hudson Valley, New York region. This area consists of Albany County, Columbia County, Greene County, and Rensselaer County.

Over an 8-year period (between 2009-2016), there was a 16.8-fold increase in the incidence of Babesia cases in the Upper Hudson Valley region.

The number of Babesia cases explodes in the upper Hudson Valley, NY region. CLICK TO TWEET

The number of cases also increased in the Lower Hudson Valley region, which consists of Dutchess County, Putnam County, Westchester County, Orange County, Rockland County, Sullivan County, and Ulster County.

The actual number of Babesia cases is likely higher:

  1. It was not until 2011, that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) made Babesia a reportable disease. Between 2011 and 2016, New York State had a reported 2,750 cases of Babesia, the highest number in any state in the U.S.
  2. Babesia can be difficult to identify since the parasites in the red blood cells can quickly clear.
  3. Lastly, Babesia cases may not be recorded if the physician does not report the case to the CDC.

“In conclusion, babesiosis is a rapidly emerging infection in the Hudson Valley region of New York State, the geographic region now accounting for more cases than any other single geographic area in the state,” the authors write.

Therefore, “clinicians caring for patients with symptoms compatible with babesiosis, who live in or have traveled to the Hudson Valley region of New York State, should consider the possibility of babesiosis.”


Editor’s Note: I have practiced medicine in the Hudson Valley, New York region for more than 33 years. I have treated patients with Babesia infections for the past three decades. Many of the first patients first described with Babesia were caught early when Babesia microti was seen in the red blood cells. I typically diagnose cases of Babesia with a positive antibody test or using clinical judgment.

In addition, the authors addressed Babesia microti in their paper. I have seen evidence that Babesia duncani appears to be a problem in the area. Babesia duncani was first identified on the West Coast. We need more research on this tick-borne disease.

Lastly, the presence of Babesia has important treatment considerations. Neither doxycycline nor amoxicillin are effective in treating Babesia. Patients with Lyme disease, co-infected with Babesia, would need a combination of antimicrobials to include an anti-parasitic medication (i.e., azithromycin combined with Atovaquone).