HCQ and Politics of the Coronavirus

How would the US task force respond? On March 20, 2020, I watched as they commented on the news. The head of the NIAH had one word.

“Anecdotal.”

Without so much as a blink, I stared at the television in disbelief. I replayed the recording to make sure I had heard correctly. Yes, Dr. Fauci had used the word anecdotal to describe the results of a clinical trial, perhaps the most critical pilot study in the pandemic. As a medical professional, I was struck that something was amiss. Dismissing Raoult’s data as anecdotal was neither fair nor accurate. As I would soon discover, many of my colleagues felt the same. I would refer the reader to Appendix F for a collection of their comments.

Like Fauci, the CDC was also not impressed. They had lost their former enthusiasm. They preferred to wait, even as millions more became infected. But why wait with a medication already certified safe in FDA Phase I trials, a medication used for decades to treat lupus and malaria, and a medication that could save tens of thousands of lives? 

• As I soon would learn many of my colleagues also felt something was strangely amiss. 
• As I realized, they all suspected that the FDA had a dark agenda, an agenda they had used time and time before, in the AIDS epidemic, a prejudice against the use of repurposed drugs
• I knew that I had to extend my cancer book on repurposed drugs to include a section on repurposed drugs for the coronavirus
• I realized that Donald Trump had struck a nerve and stimulated HCQ and politics of the coronavirus.
• As in cancer, cheap drugs can never be recommended by the FDA; only the expensive and patentable ones will do.
• I realized that if I wrote this, I would be attacked, my license could be in jeopardy. Everyone who had reviewed in favor of HCQ was character assassinated. Too much money was involved.
• But at stake were the lives of hundreds of thousands.