US President Trump has been roundly criticised—and even condemned—for promoting the anti-malarial drug, Hydroxychloroquine, as part of a medical strategy in the fight against COVID-19. In fact, he was mocked by many in the media, such as Stephen Collinson from CNN, who stated that, “Trump peddles unsubstantiated hope in dark times.”
But it now seems like Trump just might have been right after all! Fox News has recently reported that:
Researchers at the Henry Ford Health System in Southeast Michigan have found that early administration of the drug hydroxychloroquine makes hospitalized patients substantially less likely to die.
The study, published in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases, determined that hydroxychloroquine provided a “66% hazard ratio reduction,” and hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin a 71 percent reduction, compared to neither treatment.
This comes on the back of special investigation conducted by The Guardian Australia which over a month ago found that:
“The World Health Organization and a number of national governments have changed their Covid-19 policies and treatments on the basis of flawed data from a little-known US healthcare analytics company, also calling into question the integrity of key studies published in some of the world’s most prestigious medical journals.”
The report went on to state:
“A Guardian investigation can reveal the US-based company Surgisphere, whose handful of employees appear to include a science fiction writer and an adult-content model, has provided data for multiple studies on Covid-19 co-authored by its chief executive, but has so far failed to adequately explain its data or methodology.”
As a result of the Guardian Australia’s investigation, the academically flawed study by Surgisphere has now been formerly retracted. Even Dr Norman Swan, a medical expert for the ABC, has stated on the Coronacast podcast that, “This tiny company does not seem to have the capacity or the personnel to be able to do this.” What’s more, Dr. Swan went on to say:
“If you actually look at what they’re claiming that they’ve done, is that they’ve integrated a huge amount of de-identifying data from patients, which is very hard to do.
A lot of the hospitals that they could have done it from don’t have the capacity to do it.
Hospitals contacted by The Guardian and other organisations have said that they didn’t know anything about Surgisphere and hadn’t handed over their data to them. It just looks very fishy, indeed.
O, dear. You really can’t make this stuff up! How can such prestigious and influential publications such as The Lancet and New England Journal of Medicine allow something like this to occur? If the consequences were not so serious it would be funny. But as Dr David Samadi rightly concluded on Twitter:
“I want to ensure that everyone understands the gravity of the situation here. Hydroxychloroquine worked this whole time. The media said it would literally kill you if you took it simply because POTUS promoted it as a cure. Thousands of people likely DIED because of this.”
