President Trump announced during a press conference that the combination of the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine and antibiotic Azithromycin is a potential treatment for COVID-19. This is based on both anecdotal evidence of treatment and research from 2005 that showed hydroxychloroquine had an effect on SARS which is also in the family of coronaviruses.
Trump’s specific words were that this combination is a “game-changer.”
With Trump advocating for a hydroxychloroquine-Azithromycin cocktail, it will broaden the latitude doctors have with off-label prescription which generates more data.
Personally, I’ve always supported a “right to try.” A patient who is dying should have the right to voluntarily take unapproved or off-label drugs if there is a chance that they will work, even if they come with substantial risk, because if that patient is already dying, what else do they have to lose? I support Trump’s liberal “right to try” approach, especially in the midst of this crisis.
The media and others with TDS immediately sought to destroy both Trump and his supposedly touted cure.
Yesterday a husband and wife in Arizona became a godsend to the media and medical community afflicted with TDS.
From CNN:
An Arizona man is dead and his wife is under critical care after the two took chloroquine phosphate in an apparent attempt to self-medicate for the novel coronavirus, according to hospital system Banner Health.https://t.co/yZOgVumFeu pic.twitter.com/UGRxBRTYH6
— CNN This Morning with Kasie Hunt (@CNNThisMorning) March 24, 2020
From NPR:
An Arizona man is died of a heart attack and his wife was hospitalized after the couple ingested a type of chloroquine, a chemical that has been hailed recently by President Trump as a possible "game changer" in the fight against novel coronavirus. https://t.co/ItBLKqac8B
— NPR (@NPR) March 24, 2020
From Slate:
Arizona Man Dies From Chloroquine Overdose After Listening to Trump Coronavirus Press Conference
From The Hill:
Man dies after taking chloroquine phosphate in effort to prevent coronavirus
From Mother Jones:
Please Take Medical Advice From Your Doctor, Not the President
From Buzzfeed:
From Forbes:
Man Dead From Taking Chloroquine Product After Trump Touts Drug For Coronavirus
From Business Insider:
From a medical doctor and TV personality who describes herself as: “MD, PhD. Expert on #Ebola, #coronavirus, pandemics.”
?BREAKING: A man DIED & his wife is in ICU after they ingested #chloroquine, one of the anti-malarials that @realDonaldTrump touted.
Chloroquine/#hydroxychloroquine have NOT been proven effective against #coronavirus & can cause FATAL heart arrhythmias.https://t.co/kagJQpkzNz
— Dena Grayson, MD, PhD (@DrDenaGrayson) March 23, 2020
To listen to the media and this supposed expert, Trump poisoned this couple with a prescription drug because he’s an idiot.
Amazingly, the best coverage in the United States came from the New York Times.
An Arizona man died and his wife was hospitalized after officials said they ingested a fish tank additive that contained the same active ingredient as an anti-malaria drug, which President Trump has referred to as a coronavirus “game changer" https://t.co/WPZ8fazDYG
— The New York Times (@nytimes) March 24, 2020
This is almost the truth.
If you really want an accurate headline, you have to turn to the British press.
From the Daily Mail:
Holy shit, that is a very different story.
Banner Health, a non-profit hospital system based in Arizona, issued a statement urging the public against the use of inappropriate medications and household products to prevent or treat COVID-19 on Monday.
To emphasize the importance of the warning, officials disclosed a few details of what happened with an unnamed couple that ignored the advice and took their medical care into their own hands.
Note the important part in bold.
It’s believed that they confused the chemical – an additive often used at aquariums to clean fish tanks – with hydroxychloroquine, an antimalaria drug that’s shown promising results in treating COVID-19 patients.
So it’s not even the same ingredient.
The anti-malaria drug Hydroxychloroquine is Hydroxychloroquine sulfate, CAS number 118-42-3.
The chemical they ingested is Chloroquine phosphate, CAS number 50-63-5.
This is how bad TDS is. It makes an MD PhD to touts herself as a medical expert for the media make stupid chemistry mistakes.
Same active ingredient…
— Dena Grayson, MD, PhD (@DrDenaGrayson) March 23, 2020
No, it’s not.
NBC, despite its headline Man dies after ingesting chloroquine in an attempt to prevent coronavirus provided more details down in the article.
The name “chloroquine” resonated with the man’s wife, who asked that her name not be used to protect the family’s privacy. She’d used it previously to treat her koi fish.
“I saw it sitting on the back shelf and thought, ‘Hey, isn’t that the stuff they’re talking about on TV?'”
The couple — both in their 60s and potentially at higher risk for complications of the virus — decided to mix a small amount of the substance with a liquid and drink it as a way to prevent the coronavirus.
This woman finds an old bottle of stuff used to kill parasites in fish tanks, had a vague idea that it sounded like what Trump said on TV, and mixed an uncontrolled quantity in a glass, and she and her husband drank it with disastrous results.
That’s not Trump’s fault.
These people are fucking morons.
This is literally no different than hearing that hand sanitizer needs to be at least 60% alcohol to kill a virus then chugging Bacardi 151 to cure a sore throat.
But telling the truth is not important when you have a Bad Orange Man to take down.
We need good reporting and all we get is garbage.
There are lots of quacks that put “Dr” in front of their name. This “Dr Grayson”, what if anything is she a doctor of? Politically Correct Basket Weaving?
Actually, she could be a medical doctor. The medical field is vast, surgeons are not automatically the best person to diagnose an infection, a general practitioner may not be your best choice for a joint problem, etc…
The problem here is that Dr. Grayson seems to think that her degree/practice makes her some kind of expert on pharmaceuticals. There is a reason why the Dr.’s have the physicians desk reference.
Final note. Even if the active ingredient was the same, there are so many other variables that come into play here. Ignoring them is what killed that man, and poisoned his wife.
If she’s an MD, someone from the same state needs to file a complaint with the state medical board. She’s lying about medical information by claiming it’s the “same active ingredient”.
This just in: Man dies after ingesting liquid bleach, because Trump mentioned that Clorox(tm) wipes can kill the WuFlu virus. (Sarcasm off).
All part of the plan to use this crisis to do as much damage to Trump, and conservatives in general, as possible.
I read a report of a poll, by, surprisingly, ABC, which asserted Trump’s positive numbers are, IIRC, around 53%, up from around 43% a couple of weeks ago.
One can hope that Americans, by and large, have figured out the Orange Man Bad rants by NPCs.
Thats the thing these lying asshats cant seem to finger out. All their negativity on Trumpy is NOT working. Its just pissin people off. Keep it up morons. You are helpin raise the gene pool hahahahaha. Sympathy is between shit an syphillis in the dictionary Curby is fresh out
Kind of off point, but the thought just now struck me:
I’m in the middle of Michigan, something like 20-30 miles from a city of around 100,000 people. In my small town, things appear pretty tranquil. Near ghost town levels of street traffic. TDW and I did a brief errand run yesterday, and there was very light traffic out. Our LGS was kinda thin on the handguns (not out, simply thin), and very thin on ammo in common calibers. (down to last couple of boxes of 12 ga slugs).
As for me, I got laid off from my job as an urgent care PA: boss sent me an e mail Saturday night. Came too soon for me (or, to be honest, my planning sucked in that regard), but I have alternatives.
That leads me to my next point. In January (might have been late December, but I’m not sure), I started to get folks in with a very, very credible “I got the flu!” story, but were Influenza A as well as B negative. At that time, I shrugged it off, laid out my standard “You got a URI, manage your symptoms, go forth and sin no more” instructions.
But, now, I wonder….
Sorry about the layoff. It sucks, I know. But I would assume with the supposed “overrun” of hospitals, if you are willing to commute to a nearby big city you could get hired in a day.
Thanks, J.Kb, for the thought. I certainly recognize that you “know the suck”.
Heck, yeah, I’m willing to commute! I have worked as a locums, in the past, and have indeed taken an assignment in VT (in 2016). I’ve spoken to my recruiters, stirring the pot, so to speak. Lessee if anything brews up!
Since I still have my RN license, it may be time for my old butt to blow the dust off’n that sucker, and see if I can squeeze back into some scrubs!