By Norman Doidge, a contributing writer for Tablet, is a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, and author of The Brain That Changes Itself and The Brain’s Way of Healing.
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**Comment**
Please read article in full within link above. Below are excerpts:
Early in the coronavirus pandemic, a survey of the world’s frontline physicians showed hydroxychloroquine to be the drug they considered the most effective at treating COVID-19 patients…..Next we were told hydroxychloroquine was likely ineffective, and also dangerous…Not only are lay people confused; professionals are. All that seems certain is that there is something disturbing going on in our science, and that if and when the “perfect study” were to ever come along, many won’t know what to believe.
I was interested to learn how Chinese physicians initially got the idea of using HCQ. None of their COVID patients had Lupus. They pondered that perhaps these patients were taking HCQ for Lupus and it protected them from COVID.
Dodge goes through study after study, showing the weaknesses in them all but also the fact that HCQ appears to:
- be a promising antiviral against SARS-CoV-2
- be an anti-inflammatory
- help prevent clots which leads to strokes – a symptom seen in some cases
Important quote:
So here then is a lesson: When scientific competitors, politicians, and the media, dump on a study for not showing X, make sure you know whether that study was even designed with the primary purpose of showing X to begin with.
Dodge points out numerous important issues such as true Science is incremental and will not skip steps. Those that skip steps are skipping Science. He calls out the media and public officials for being hypocritical in that they are quite happy to insist there weren’t any randomized controlled trials (RCTs) on HCQ but turn a complete blind eye to the fact there were no RCTs on ventilators, yet they were used standardly and prolifically and that 80% of those put on them DIED.
I also learned much about the weaknesses of RCTs – namely, in that they exclude patients typical of those in the population. This is a fantastic parallel to Lyme/MSIDS and why RCTs will never be the answer for us either, due to the wide variety of symptoms people experience and the fact other issues are often involved (other pathogens, environmental issues, immune system deficiencies, and much more).
Important quote:
The RCT evangelist focuses only on the RCT strengths, and forgets their weaknesses. A typical RCT describes several data points about hundreds of patients. It can be helpful in determining what treatment might work for most people in a large population.
Important to note: Dr. Fauci is one of these RCT evangelists – along with most IDSA members. Lyme literate doctors are more like Dr. Raoult, the French maverick who out of necessity goes against the flow searching for answers. Lyme doctors have long learned that “standard” thinking is not going to help their patients – we just don’t fit into a nice box with a bow on top.
Lastly, I couldn’t agree more with the following observation:
We should be giving individual clinicians on the front lines the usual latitude to take account of their individual patient’s condition, and preferences, and encourage these physicians to bring to bear everything they have learned and read (they have been trained to read studies), and continue to read, but also what they have seen with their own eyes. Unlike medical bureaucrats or others who issue decrees from remote places physicians are literally on our front lines—actually observing the patients in question, and a Hippocratic Oath to serve them—and not the Lancet or WHO or CNN.
I’ve written before on how the CDC has pigeon-holed Lyme/MSIDS into the acute phase – ignoring those with chronic symptoms. They have bullied doctors into following their unscientific and antiquated “Lyme Guidelines” which consists of essentially 21 days of doxycycline when many patients are infected with far more than just Lyme – as well as the fact nearly every single research study done to date on their “standard treatment” has failed. This has gone on, unabated for over 40 years: https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2020/04/26/cdc-playbook-learning-from-lyme/
Lastly, regarding HCQ, Dodge points out another glaring hypocrisy:
- HCQ is given to a few, sick patients with nothing to lose and everything to gain. The drug enters and exits the body relatively quickly – as has been shown for decades of use.
- Experimental COVID vaccines, endorsed by public health officials, being considered to be mandatory for ALL – even those who are ill, are being rushed, bypassing the normal 5-19 year observation period, thereby ignoring normal safety tests and regulations. Manufacturers know this which is why they insist upon and have been granted indemnification by public health officials. Isn’t that convenient? Regarding this experimental vaccine, I recently posted a video about a GSK whistleblower who states it can cause infertility: https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2020/08/24/gsk-whistleblower-covid-vaccine-caused-sterility-in-97-of-women/ This is HUGE and demands investigating.
But suddenly HCQ is extremely dangerous after being used over-the counter for years by by travelers and by billions of patients with long-term chronic conditions like Lupus and other autoimmune conditions. It’s on the World Health Organization’s Model List of Essential Medicines, the safest and most effective drugs needed in a health system, all of a sudden is held in a dim, shadowy light while Remdesivir, a far more expensive drug which failed for Ebola and is questionable for COVID-19, is always held in a positive light. Please remember that half of the members on the COVID-19 treatment panel have financial interests in Gilead Sciences: https://www.covid19treatmentguidelines.nih.gov/panel-financial-disclosure/
The smell of a rat is overpowering, and I smell it clearly.
Dodge prophetically warns us that unless these glaring double-standards are addressed -the HCQ debacle, potentially allowing the unnecessary deaths of tens of thousands, will be only one of many in a chain of disasters.
Spot on.
Matthew Lewis/R&A
