Stories on vaccine choice, HCQ, and masks.
A hard-hitting interview with Canadian constitutional lawyer Rocco Galati and interviewer Laura-Lynne on challenging the Canadian government over vaccine choice.
Masking and social distancing will produce a subservient generation with little social interaction, Rocco fears. He considers the pandemic an attempted “takeover by the billionaire elites.” Thanks to Audrey and Doris.
Hit graphic to go to video. Then start at 48” 30′ mark.
Hit graphic to go to video. Then start at 48” 30′ mark.
Extra Resources thanks to Doris:
https://vaccinechoicecanada.
https://vaccinechoicecanada.
https://vaccinechoicecanada.
https://vaccinechoicecanada.
Thanks to Suzi on Patreon
Hydroxychloroquine Works in High-Risk Patients, and Saying Otherwise is Dangerous
Harvey Risch, Washington Examiner, August 12, 2020
(https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/hydroxychloroquine-works-in-high-risk-patients-and-saying-otherwise-is-dangerous)
As of Wednesday, some 165,000 people in the United States have died from COVID-19. I have made the case in the American Journal of Epidemiology and in Newsweek that people who have a medical need to be treated can be treated early and successfully with hydroxychloroquine, zinc, and antibiotics such as azithromycin or doxycycline. I have also argued that these drugs are safe and have made that case privately to the Food and Drug Administration.
The pushback has been furious. Dr. Anthony Fauci has implied that I am incompetent, notwithstanding my hundreds of highly regarded, methodologically relevant publications in peer-reviewed scientific literature. A group of my Yale colleagues has publicly intimated that I am a zealot who is perpetrating a dangerous hoax and conspiracy theory. I have been attacked in news articles by journalists who, ignorant of the full picture, have spun hit pieces from cherry-picked sources.
These personal attacks are a dangerous distraction from the real issue of hydroxychloroquine’s effectiveness, which is solidly grounded in both substantial evidence and appropriate medical decision-making logic. Much of the evidence is presented in my articles.
To date, there are no studies whatsoever, published or in pre-print, that provide scientific evidence against the treatment approach for high-risk outpatients that I have described. None. Assertions to the contrary, whether by Fauci, the FDA, or anyone else, are without foundation. They constitute misleading and toxic disinformation.
What do you need to know to evaluate these smears against hydroxychloroquine? The first thing to understand is that COVID-19 has two main stages. At the first stage, it is a flu-like illness. That illness will not kill you. If you are a high-risk patient and begin treatment immediately, you will almost certainly be done with it in a few days. When not treated, high-risk patients may progress. The virus then causes severe pneumonia and attacks many organs, including the heart. In this second stage, hydroxychloroquine is not effective.
So, if you are told that hydroxychloroquine doesn’t work, ask this question: In which patients? Does it not work in those who have just started to have symptoms, or those sick enough to require hospitalization?
The second thing to know is that most low-risk patients survive without treatment. Low risk means you are under age 60 and have no chronic conditions such as diabetes, obesity, and hypertension, have no past treatment for cancer, are not immunocompromised, etc. High risk means you are over 60 or you have one or more of those chronic conditions. High-risk patients need immediate treatment when they first show symptoms. One should not wait for the COVID-19 test result, which can take days and can be wrong. Again, when Fauci and others say that randomized controlled trials show no benefit for hydroxychloroquine, you must ask: In which group of patients?
Every randomized controlled trial to date that has looked at early outpatient treatment has involved low-risk patients, patients who are not generally treated. In these studies, so few untreated control patients have required hospitalization that significant differences were not found. There has been only one exception: In a study done in Spain with low-risk patients, a small number of high-risk nursing home patients were included. For those patients, the medications cut the risk of a bad outcome in half.
I reiterate: If doctors, including any of my Yale colleagues, tell you that scientific data show that hydroxychloroquine does not work in outpatients, they are revealing that they can’t tell the difference between low-risk patients who are not generally treated and high-risk patients who need to be treated as quickly as possible. Doctors who do not understand this difference should not be treating COVID-19 patients.
What about medication safety? On July 1, the FDA posted a “black-letter warning” cautioning against using hydroxychloroquine “outside of the hospital setting,” meaning in outpatients. But on its website just below this warning, the FDA stated that the warning was based on data from hospitalized patients. To generalize and compare severely ill patients with COVID-induced pneumonia and possibly heart problems to outpatients is entirely improper.
In fact, the FDA has no information about adverse events in early outpatient use of hydroxychloroquine. The only available systematic information about adverse events among outpatients is discussed in my article in the American Journal of Epidemiology, where I show that hydroxychloroquine has been extremely safe in more than a million users.
It is a serious and unconscionable mistake that the FDA has used inpatient data to block emergency use petitions for outpatient use. Further, already back in March, the FDA approved the emergency use of hydroxychloroquine for hospitalized patients, for whom it is demonstrably less effective than for outpatients. If hydroxychloroquine satisfied the FDA criteria for emergency inpatient use in March, it should more than satisfy those criteria now for outpatient use, where the evidence is much stronger.
I can only speculate about the cause of the FDA’s recalcitrance. Hydroxychloroquine is an inexpensive, generic medication. Unlike certain profit-generating, patented medications, which have been promiscuously touted on the slimmest of evidence, hydroxychloroquine has no natural financial constituency. No one will get rich from it.
Further, it seems quite possible that the FDA, a third of whose funding comes from drug companies, is under intense pressure from those companies to be extremely conservative in its handling of hydroxychloroquine. If hydroxychloroquine is used widely and comes to be recognized as highly effective, the markets for expensive and patented COVID-19 medications, including intravenous drugs that can only be used in the hospital, will shrink substantially.
Whatever the reason for the FDA’s stonewalling on hydroxychloroquine, this much is certain: Americans are dying unnecessarily, the economy is in disarray, and the threads that bind our society together have frayed. I am speaking out, but where is everyone else? Where are our elected officials, including those who are themselves physicians? Some, including Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona, have been discussing evidence of the drug’s effectiveness, but where are the rest?
This issue should not be a partisan one. If our elected officials are not willing to pry open the FDA, we must elect new officials. Why are we silent? The time to speak is now.
Harvey Risch, M.D., Ph.D., is a professor of epidemiology at Yale School of Public Health.
Europe’s Top Health Officials Say Masks Aren’t Helpful in Beating COVID-19
The top medical experts in the world can’t decide if masks are helpful in reducing the spread of COVID-19 or just make things worse.
John Miltimore, Foundation for Economic Education, August 6, 2020
(https://fee.org/articles/europes-top-health-officials-say-masks-arent-helpful-in-beating-covid-19/)
Denmark boasts one of the lowest COVID-19 death rates in the world. As of August 4, the Danes have suffered 616 COVID-19 deaths, according to figures from Johns Hopkins University.
That’s less than one-third of the number of Danes who die from pneumonia or influenza in a given year.
Despite this success, Danish leaders recently found themselves on the defensive. The reason is that Danes aren’t wearing face masks, and local authorities for the most part aren’t even recommending them.
This prompted Berlingske, the country’s oldest newspaper, to complain that Danes had positioned themselves “to the right of Trump.”
“The whole world is wearing face masks, even Donald Trump,” Berlingske pointed out.
This apparently did not sit well with Danish health officials. They responded by noting there is little conclusive evidence that face masks are an effective way to limit the spread of respiratory viruses.
“All these countries recommending face masks haven’t made their decisions based on new studies,” said Henning Bundgaard, chief physician at Denmark’s Rigshospitale, according to Bloomberg News. (Denmark has since updated its guidelines to encourage, but not require, the use of masks on public transit where social distancing may not be possible.)
Denmark is not alone.
Despite a global stampede of mask-wearing, data show that 80-90 percent of people in Finland and Holland say they “never” wear masks when they go out, a sharp contrast to the 80-90 percent of people in Spain and Italy who say they “always” wear masks when they go out.
Dutch public health officials recently explained why they’re not recommending masks.
“From a medical point of view, there is no evidence of a medical effect of wearing face masks, so we decided not to impose a national obligation,” said Medical Care Minister Tamara van Ark.
Others, echoing statements similar to the US Surgeon General from early March, said masks could make individuals sicker and exacerbate the spread of the virus.
“Face masks in public places are not necessary, based on all the current evidence,” said Coen Berends, spokesman for the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment. “There is no benefit and there may even be negative impact.”
In Sweden, where COVID-19 deaths have slowed to a crawl, public health officials say they see “no point” in requiring individuals to wear masks.
“With numbers diminishing very quickly in Sweden, we see no point in wearing a face mask in Sweden, not even on public transport,” said Anders Tegnell, Sweden’s top infectious disease expert.
What’s Going on With Masks?
The top immunologists and epidemiologists in the world can’t decide if masks are helpful in reducing the spread of COVID-19. Indeed, we’ve seen organizations like the World Health Organization and the CDC go back and forth in their recommendations.
CDC does not currently recommend the use of facemasks to help prevent novel #coronavirus. Take everyday preventive actions, like staying home when you are sick and washing hands with soap and water, to help slow the spread of respiratory illness. #COVID19 https://t.co/uArGZTJhXj pic.twitter.com/yzWTSgt2IV
— CDC (@CDCgov) February 27, 2020
For the average person, it’s confusing and frustrating. It’s also a bit frightening, considering that we’ve seen people denounced in public for not wearing a mask while picking up a bag of groceries.
Opening day at Trader Joe’s in North Hollywood, Ca.
Karen is mad she was mask shamed… pic.twitter.com/pF3Zgj3w2E
— Rex Chapman🏇🏼 (@RexChapman) June 27, 2020
The truth is masks have become the new wedge issue, the latest phase of the culture war. Mask opponents tend to see mask wearers as “fraidy cats” or virtue-signalling “sheeple” who willfully ignore basic science. Mask supporters, on the other hand, often see people who refuse to wear masks as selfish Trumpkins … who willfully ignore basic science.
There’s not a lot of middle ground to be found and there’s no easy way to sit this one out. We all have to go outside, so at some point we all are required to don the mask or not.
It’s clear from the data that despite the impression of Americans as selfish rebel cowboys who won’t wear a mask to protect others, Americans are wearing masks far more than many people in European countries.
Polls show Americans are wearing masks at record levels, though a political divide remains: 98 percent of Democrats report wearing masks in public compared to 66 percent of Republicans and 85 percent of Independents. (These numbers, no doubt, are to some extent the product of mask requirements in cities and states.)
Whether one is pro-mask or anti-mask, the fact of the matter is that face coverings have become politicized to an unhealthy degree, which stands to only further pollute the science.
Last month, for example, researchers at Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy responded to demands they remove an article that found mask requirements were “not based on sound data.”
The school, to its credit, did not remove the article, but instead opted to address the objections critics of their research had raised.
First, Do No Harm
The ethics of medicine go back millennia.
The Hippocratic Oath famously calls on medical practitioners to “first, do no harm.” (Those words didn’t actually appear in the original oath; they developed as a form of shorthand.)
There is a similar principle in the realm of public health: the Principle of Effectiveness.
Public health officials say the idea makes it clear that public health organizations have a responsibility to not harm the people they are assigned to protect.
“If a community is at risk, the government may have a duty to recommend interventions, as long as those interventions will cause no harm, or are the least harmful option,” wrote Claire J. Horwell Professor of Geohealth at Durham University and Fiona McDonald, Co-Director of the Australian Centre for Health Law Research at Queensland University of Technology. “If an agency follows the principle of effectiveness, it will only recommend an intervention that they know to be effective.”
The problem with mask mandates is that public health officials are not merely recommending a precaution that may or may not be effective.
They are using force to make people submit to a state order that could ultimately make individuals or entire populations sicker, according to world-leading public health officials.
That is not just a violation of the Effectiveness Principle. It’s a violation of a basic personal freedom.
Mask advocates might mean well, but they overlook a basic reality: humans spontaneously alter behavior during pandemics. Scientific evidence shows that American workplaces and consumers changed the patterns of their travel before lockdown orders were issued.
As I’ve previously noted, this should come as no surprise: Humans are intelligent, instinctive, and self-preserving mammals who generally seek to avoid high-risk behavior. The natural law of spontaneous order shows that people naturally take actions of self-protection by constantly analyzing risk.
Instead of ordering people to “mask-up” under penalty of fines or jail time, scientists and public health officials should get back to playing their most important role: developing sound research on which people can freely make informed decisions.
Thanks to Audrey.
Canadian union wins arbitration award against wearing surgical masks.
ona_kaplanarbitrationdecision_vaccinateormask_stmichaelsoha_20180906