Newsweek op-ed written by Yale professor blasts fake news media, leftist politicians for rejecting hydroxychloroquine

The left-wing media is insistent that any scientist, doctor, or medical professional who supports the use of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) as a remedy for the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) is guilty of pushing unproven quackery. But is Dr. Harvey A. Risch, M.D., Ph.D., a renowned epidemiologist from Yale University who says HCQ is effective, really a quack?

An op-ed written by Dr. Risch that amazingly appeared in Newsweek makes a solid case for the use of HCQ in the treatment of the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19). And with more than 300 peer-reviewed published studies under his belt, Dr. Risch would seem to know a thing or two about credible science.

In his piece, Dr. Risch explains that HCQ has, in fact, been scientifically shown “to be highly effective, especially when given in combination with the antibiotics azithromycin or doxycycline and the nutritional supplement zinc.” And one of the citations he references is an article he wrote that was published in the esteemed American Journal of Epidemiology.

“That article, published in the world’s leading epidemiology journal, analyzed five studies, demonstrating clear-cut and significant benefits to treated patients, plus other very large studies that showed the medication safety,” Dr. Risch writes.

The abstract for this study, entitled “Early Outpatient Treatment of Symptomatic, High-Risk COVID-19 Patients that Should be Ramped-Up Immediately as Key to the Pandemic Crisis,” is available for viewing at this link.

Dr. Risch says physicians he personally knows have “saved the lives of hundreds of patients” with HCQ

Since the publishing of Dr. Risch’s article back on May 27, there have been a total of seven more also published in reputable journals that have come to similar conclusions. This prompted Dr. Risch to publish a follow-up letter to his original article renewing his call for the immediate early use of HCQ in high-risk patients.

One of these more recent studies involved Dr. Vladimir Zelenko successfully treating upwards of 400 high-risk patients with HCQ, resulting in zero deaths. Another controlled trial involving more than 700 high-risk patients in Brazil resulted in a massive reduction in hospitalizations, and only two deaths.

Yet another study out of France produced similar results, with a majority of the patients given HCQ fully recovering and never needing to be admitted to the hospital.

Several “natural experiments,” as Dr. Risch calls them, including one in the northern Brazil state of Pará, was perhaps the biggest factor that helped to “flatten the curve” in this particular region. After purchasing and administering to the public 75,000 doses of azithromycin and 90,000 doses of HCQ, the death rate from the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) “started to plummet and is now about one-eighth what it was at the peak.”

Dr. Risch also personally knows two doctors who by administering HCQ to their patients, at considerable risk to their own careers due to the political incorrectness of doing so, helped “save the lives of hundreds of patients.” These two doctors are now “fighting state medical boards to save their licenses and reputations.”

That the use of HCQ became so politicized by the left is ironically hypocritical, seeing as how these same folks are falsely accusing the right of politicizing mask-wearing. There are many solid reasons as to why mask-wearing, and especially forced mask-wearing, is simply bad medicine. But administering HCQ to patients in need is good medicine, based on both the science and the success stories.

“We must judge this medication strictly on the science,” Dr. Risch contends. “Lives must come first.”

More related news about the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) and the leftist crusade to abolish the use of HCQ in treating it is available at Pandemic.news.

Sources for this article include:

Newsweek.com

Academic.OUP.com