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Opinion

The Key to Defeating COVID-19 Already Exists. We Need to Start Using It – Dr. Harvey Rish, Newsweek

As professor of epidemiology at Yale School of Public Health, I have authored over 300 peer-reviewed publications and currently hold senior positions on the editorial boards of several leading journals. I am usually accustomed to advocating for positions within the mainstream of medicine, so have been flummoxed to find that, in the midst of a crisis, I am fighting for a treatment that the data fully support but which, for reasons having nothing to do with a correct understanding of the science, has been pushed to the sidelines. As a result, tens of thousands of patients with COVID-19 are dying unnecessarily. Fortunately, the situation can be reversed easily and quickly.

I am referring, of course, to the medication hydroxychloroquine. When this inexpensive oral medication is given very early in the course of illness, before the virus has had time to multiply beyond control, it has shown to be highly effective, especially when given in combination with the antibiotics azithromycin or doxycycline and the nutritional supplement zinc.

  •  As a result, tens of thousands of patients with COVID-19 are dying unnecessarily.
  • An inexpensive and be highly effective treatment, especially when given early: Hydroxychloroquine in combination with the antibiotics azithromycin or doxycycline and zinc.
  • The article, “Early Outpatient Treatment of Symptomatic, High-Risk COVID-19 Patients that Should be Ramped-Up Immediately as Key to the Pandemic Crisis” was published in the American Journal of Epidemiology (AJE). It analyzed five studies, demonstrating clear benefits and safety of this treatment.
  • Other studies include:
    • an additional 400 high-risk patients treated by Dr. Vladimir Zelenko, with zero deaths;
    • four studies totaling almost 500 high-risk patients treated in nursing homes and clinics across the U.S., with no deaths;
    • a controlled trial of more than 700 high-risk patients in Brazil, with significantly reduced risk of hospitalization and two deaths among 334 patients treated with hydroxychloroquine;
    • and another study of 398 matched patients in France, also with significantly reduced hospitalization risk.
  • “Natural experiments:” northern Brazil state of Pará used hydroxychloroquine to reduce deaths.
  • Hydroxychloroquine has shown major success when used early in high-risk people but, as one would expect for an antiviral, much less success when used late in the disease course.
  • Delays in waiting before starting the medications can reduce their efficacy.
  • FDA concerns about the drug did not announce is that these adverse events were generated from tens of millions of patient uses of hydroxychloroquine for long periods of time, often for the chronic treatment of lupus or rheumatoid arthritis.
  • The harms are minuscule compared to the mortality occurring right now in inadequately treated high-risk COVID-19 patients.

https://www.newsweek.com/key-defeating-covid-19-already-exists-we-need-start-using-it-opinion-1519535

https://web.archive.org/web/20200723155027/https://www.newsweek.com/key-defeating-covid-19-already-exists-we-need-start-using-it-opinion-1519535

Categories
News

Hydroxychloroquine could save up to 100,000 lives if used for COVID-19: Yale epidemiology professor – Fox News

Dr. Harvey Risch, an epidemiology professor at Yale School of Public Health, said on Tuesday that he thinks hydroxychloroquine could save 75,000 to 100,000 lives if the drug is widely used to treat coronavirus.

“There are many doctors that I’ve gotten hostile remarks about saying that all the evidence is bad for it and, in fact, that is not true at all,” Risch told “Ingraham Angle,” adding that he believes the drug can be used as a “prophylactic” for front-line workers, as other countries like India have done.

Risch lamented that a “propaganda war” is being waged against the use of the drug for political purposes, not based on “medical facts.”

Researchers at the Henry Ford Health System in Southeast Michigan have found that early administration of hydroxychloroquine makes hospitalized patients substantially less likely to die.

https://www.foxnews.com/media/hydroxychloroquine-could-save-lives-ingraham-yale-professor