RT/Moscow: The World Health Organization has paused the clinical trials of anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine in coronavirus patients. It says the drug, notably taken and endorsed by US President Donald Trump, has raised safety concerns.
The drug’s safety data is being reviewed by a monitoring board, and the trials have been put on hold, the WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters. It was being tested as part of the Solidarity international program aimed at tackling the Covid-19 pandemic.
The UN health body took the step out of an “abundance of caution,” said Mike Ryan, the head of the organization’s emergencies program.
Ghebreyesus said a monitor will now “review a comprehensive analysis and critical appraisal of all evidence available globally” regarding the effects of hydroxychloroquine. The “likely side effects” of the drug seen in patients suffering from “severe” Covid-19 cases involved “cardiac complications, including the development of cardiac arrhythmias,” Ryan said. The WHO move comes after a prestigious British medical journal, The Lancet, published a study on the side effects of the drug. The article found a higher mortality rate among the Covid-19 patients that had received it. This is in contrast with the earlier positive reviews of the drug, said to have observed just the opposite.
The WHO has previously advised against the widespread use of the drug in the treatment of Covid-19, arguing that it should be reserved solely for clinical trials. However, it has been actively promoted by Trump, who even took a two-week course of hydroxychloroquine as a preventive measure against the coronavirus. In his latest interview, published Sunday, Trump said he’d finished the course and “is still here.”
The US president’s statements – which rammed home the message that the cheap and decades-old drug “saves lives” – have sparked a flurry of warnings and skeptical media commentary. Some channels rushed to caution the drug might literally “kill” people, while others doubted Trump took it at all. The developments prompted the White House physician, Sean Conley, to say that the benefits of such treatment “outweighed” the risks – but he stopped short of directly confirming if the president took the course.
Major pharmaceutical companies have been engaged in a race to develop a vaccine against the dreaded disease, although scientists warn it is unlikely to arrive any sooner than in 12-18 months.
In mid-May, Trump announced what he called “Operation Warp Speed” – a major effort to develop a vaccine that would see the government investing in “all top vaccine candidates.” The number of those has so far been narrowed down to 14 and will be cut down further. Trump said he “would love” to see a vaccine not just developed but also manufactured and distributed by the end of the year.
In the absence of vaccine, several companies have pushed their drugs as possible remedies against Covid-19. One of them is remdesivir developed by Gilead Sciences, which has been touted as a “miracle” drug against the disease, even though the results of its use against the coronavirus have been mixed at best. Remdesivir is also estimated to cost between $390 and $4,500 per dose – hundreds of times more than drugs like hydroxychloroquine, which costs less than one dollar.
ATTENTION READERS
We See The World From All Sides and Want YOU To Be Fully InformedIn fact, intentional disinformation is a disgraceful scourge in media today. So to assuage any possible errant incorrect information posted herein, we strongly encourage you to seek corroboration from other non-VT sources before forming an educated opinion.
About VT - Policies & Disclosures - Comment Policy
On 5 June 2020, The Lancet withdrew an article it had published on May 22 [1], followed an hour later by the New England Journal of Medicine’s retraction of a similar article appeared on 1 May [2].
These two articles [3] [4] had been spotlighted by a high-profile media coverage orchestrated by the US-based Gilead Sciences laboratory. They purported to prove that certain drugs were ineffective for Covid-19, thus clearing the way for their own drugs.
Both articles were based on data collected and processed by Surgisphere, the US healthcare analytics company founded by Doctor Sapan S. Desai, who also happens to be one of the co-authors. He had already caught the public’s attention by promoting Ivermectin to inhibit Covid-19.
In a recent article, The Guardian proved that the Surgisphere data related to Australian hospitals and used in the hydroxychloroquine study was a pure fabrication. Following these revelations, the other authors of the two articles were unable to access the data collected by Surgisphere [5].
The retraction by the two scientific journals still leaves us in the dark as to what actually happened. In fact, many specialists were skeptical of these two studies at the first reading, yet deemed to be “reliable” enough to be published. It remains to be seen whether Doctor Sapan S. Desai is just a con artist who hoodwinked his colleagues, or whether the fakeries were sponsored by Gilead Science. Indeed, those studies are compatible with the interests of the laboratory; they were promoted by its press service, and were both directed by Professor Mandeep Mehra who has concealed working for Gilead Sciences.
https://www.voltairenet.org/article210151.html
WHO, like several of the US studies & some of the more corrupt French ones, insists on using end-stage patients who it has been established DO NOT BENEFIT from HCQ. it only works on mild/early cases. if this had happened once i’d say it was a mistake, but the fact that it keeps happening indicates it’s a deliberate & malicious attempt to discredit the drug. in which VT (in their proud tradition of spewing disinfo out every orifice) is participating. i hope they’re getting paid, whether it’s by Gilead (makers of remdesivir) or Moderna/Gates/AstraZeneca/some other vax-involved entity. if they aren’t, their pharma cheerleading is just ignominious.
This whole thing boils down to people’s motives and politics. Why is it I read of reports hydroxychloroquine doesn’t work, is dangerous and ineffective concerning the Coronavirus when it has been used successfully when applied with Zinc. Oh, that’s right, they always seem to omit mention of the one ingredient which has been shown to work in combination with this drug. Hydroxychloroquine is used to treat lupus erythematosus and rheumatoid arthritis. It’s also used to prevent and treat malaria.
* This from Wikipedia:
“Hydroxychloroquine was approved for medical use in the United States in 1955. It is on the World Health Organization’s List of Essential Medicines, the safest and most effective medicines needed in a health system. In 2017, it was the 128th most commonly prescribed medication in the United States, with more than five million prescriptions.”
* Side effects of Hydroxychloroquine:
https://www.healthline.com/health/hydroxychloroquine-oral-tablet#side-effects
Does this sound any worse than the side effects of the multitudes of drugs advertised on television? No, but you don’t see or hear anyone dismissing those drugs! I like the way hydroxychloroquine is given up on and dismissed as ineffective, when the closest cure is either far away or reaps little progress over treatments we already have. The way I see it, the side effects of this drug is what humans are trying to manipulate from it!
Zelenko is a quack and has rightly been driven out of the Jewish community he lived in until recently. Anyone who falls for his fraud is a moron, just like Trump.
Comments are closed.