Remember When Yale Supported Science? May, 2020 - Hydroxychloroquine Deserved a Better Shot, and One Doctor Knew It
Professor Harvey Risch, M.D., Ph.D. is one of the leading minds in the fight for early treatment of COVID-19
On May 29, 2020, before Fauci misinterpreted the Henry Ford study, and before fraudulent studies were published to tank Hydroxychloroquine, Yale University published this article showcasing the potential adjunctive efficacy of hydroxychloroquine. This article is reprinted to highlight Dr. Risch’s foresight. We need to listen to the Dr. Risch’s of the world on INTEGRATIVE INFECTIOUS DISEASE RESPONSE. Hydroxychloroquine also may help delay progression in the least treatable form of MS.
“Professor Harvey Risch, M.D., Ph.D., is a researcher at the Yale School of Public Health with a specialty in cancer etiology, prevention, and early diagnosis, and epidemiologic methods.
He recently studied the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine (used in conjunction with two other drugs) to treat people infected with COVID-19 and concluded that the approach should be “widely available” in the fight against the current pandemic.
The results of his research are published in the American Journal of Epidemiology.
Describe your findings.
HR: COVID-19 is really two different diseases. In the first few days, it is like a very bad cold. In some people, it then morphs into pneumonia which can be life-threatening. What I found is that treatments for the cold don’t work well for the pneumonia, and vice versa. Most of the published studies have looked at treatments for the cold but used for the pneumonia. I just looked at how well the treatments for the cold worked for the cold. There are five studies done this way, four of hydroxychloroquine plus azithromycin and one with hydroxychloroquine plus doxycycline, and they all show that treating the cold part of COVID-19—the early part—works very well.
Do you think that these drug combinations should be used for all people with COVID-19, or only certain patients?
HR: Most people less than 60 years old who are of healthy weight and who don’t have other conditions like heart disease or diabetes can get by without medications. But if anyone starts to have shortness of breath while doing normal activities like walking around at home, they should get medical care immediately.
But the use of hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19 remains highly controversial. Why is there so much disagreement if it is effective?
HR: I think that there has been confusion about treating the cold versus treating the pneumonia. These medications don’t seem to work so well for treating the pneumonia. As early as possible is crucial, within the first five to six days of symptoms.
Are these drugs safe?
HR: The combination of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin has been used for decades in hundreds of thousands of people with rheumatoid arthritis. There is a concern that these medications do change the heart pacing a little and could cause cardiac arrhythmias. However, these arrhythmias are still very rare in people using these medications. People who already have heart arrhythmias or are predisposed to them or have family histories of them should discuss this with their healthcare providers and see if using hydroxychloroquine plus doxycycline or some other medications would be a better choice.
Does hydroxychloroquine have the potential to be a “game-changer” in the fight against this pandemic?
HR: Hydroxychloroquine alone is not the whole story. It needs to be combined with azithromycin or doxycycline and probably with zinc to make it most effective. The game changer is to aggressively treat people as soon as possible, before they are hospitalized, to keep them from becoming hospitalized in the first place. Hydroxychloroquine plus the other medications is what we know about now. In a few months we may have data on other medications that also work. We just have to start with something now.
How widely is the drug currently being used to treat people infected with COVID-19? What do you recommend?
HR: Various places around the world have started using these drugs. An international survey of doctors who treat COVID-19 patients recently showed 72 percent of doctors in Spain say that they have been using them. I think that doctors need to be able to use their own clinical judgement about their patients and have objective information about drugs that can work for the early part of the infection, the cold part.
Why did you study this?
HR: This pandemic is undoubtedly the biggest public health crisis of our time. I started seeing reports of treatment benefit in France and New York and couldn’t understand where the controversy was coming from. So, I did an exhaustive search of studies and data on medication use in COVID-19 outpatients and the paper I wrote just describes everything that I found. Every study has details and the details are important.
Submitted by Denise Meyer on July 24, 2020”
We need to shift the paradigm back to integrative, multi-modality and fight FOR 360-degree total health awareness. See the latest study compilation at c19study.com.
Yale? Science? Integrity? Honesty? Ha! There's an entire team of "infectious disease" so-called "experts" connected to Yale who have been publishing the results of their "science" for decades which denies the existence of chronic Lyme disease. No adequate testing. No treatment. Patients are making up their symptoms. The list of paid-off scientists connected to Yale is well-known in the Lyme community. Allen C. Steere, M.D., Gary P. Wormser, M.D., Barbara J.B. Johnson, Eugene D. Shapiro, M.D. The "covid scenario" is of no surprise to Lymies who have been living with the effects of this tick-borne bioweapon for decades.
This Epoch Times article from April 30, 2020 is the first to call for widespread vitamin D supplementation to deal with covid.
REVENTING A POSSIBLE SECOND DEADLIER WAVE OF COVID-19 IN FALL - EPOCH TIMES
Preventing a Possible Second Deadlier Wave of COVID-19 in Fall
Maintaining adequate vitamin D to fuel an effective immune response can be as simple as getting some sunshine
Epoch Times
April 27, 2020 Updated: April 27, 2020
Viral infections occur in a predictable seasonal pattern increasing in prevalence during the colder months of the year. In fact, a low-grade viral infection is commonly referred to as a “cold” because of when it occurs.
What environmental factor varies with the seasons and affects our biology to such an extent that it influences our susceptibility to viral infection? The answer is sunshine, or more accurately, the predictable seasonal peaks and troughs of skin-produced, solar-generated vitamin D.
Well known for its role in building and maintaining strong bones, vitamin D is also essential to the proper functioning of the immune system. Our immune system is tasked with identifying and eliminating cells invading the body that can make us sick. Without adequate levels of vitamin D, the immune system can’t differentiate disease-causing cells from healthy cells. The result is a dysfunctional immune system; invading cells that cause sickness go undetected and healthy cells can be mistakenly attacked.
MOST AMERICANS ARE VITAMIN D DEFICIENT
The amount of vitamin D the government recommends to maintain bone health is 800 IU per day. This amount will help ensure that your bones won’t crumble but it is vastly less than what our bodies need on a daily basis, and many orders of magnitude below what the immune system needs to function optimally.
The average adult uses about 4000 IU of vitamin D per day, if 800 IU is the recommended amount to take in, where does the extra 3200 IU needed come from?
A normal diet contributes next to nothing. The answer is the sun during summer months and stored excess summer-made, fat-stored vitamin D during the colder months. There is virtually no solar-generated vitamin D in skin from the sun in the vast majority of the United States (>37 degrees latitude) from November to March due to the oblique angle of the earth relative to the sun resulting in the ozone layer absorbing more ultraviolet-B (UVB) photons. Due to the use of sunscreens and an indoor lifestyle, most Americans don’t generate much vitamin D from their skin during the summer months either, so they are severely depleted by the time winter rolls around.
CHRONIC INFLAMMATION, AUTOIMMUNE DISEASE, AND VITAMIN D
Without adequate vitamin D, a dysfunctional immune system attacks healthy tissue causing chronic inflammation. Diseases linked to chronic inflammation are familiar and prevalent, and as a group are called autoimmune diseases: arthritis, atherosclerosis, Type 1 diabetes, multiple sclerosis, psoriasis, Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis among others.
Other factors can contribute to the onset of these diseases beyond vitamin D deficiency.
But people deficient in vitamin D are also more likely to develop cardiovascular disease and cancers of epithelial origin (breast, prostate, colon, lung, for example). Many studies have confirmed that living in a northern climate—and its lack of vitamin D—is a risk factor for developing these maladies. Being chronically vitamin D deficient causes immune dysfunction resulting in chronic inflammation, and is a recipe for poor health going forward.
COVID-19, PRE-EXISTING DISEASE, RACE, AND VITAMIN D
The current wave of COVID-19 hits those with the diseases listed above, plus the elderly and African Americans, the hardest. The elderly are typically severely vitamin D deficient because older skin is much less efficient at producing sunlight-generated vitamin D compared to younger skin.
Likewise, darker skin (due to increased UVB absorbing melanin content) produces less vitamin D as well, leading to greater vitamin D deficiency among African Americans. Since vitamin D deficiency is related to the incidence of these diseases, it is no wonder that older people and African Americans with any of these conditions didn’t do well when infected with COVID-19.
To make matters even worse for these groups of people, they are also more likely to be taking therapeutic drugs that specifically suppress a component of their immune response in an effort to treat the symptoms of their specific disease. An elderly African American man taking an immunosuppressant biologic drug to treat a condition like psoriasis has less chance to defend himself against COVID-19.
Treatment of many autoimmune diseases involves further disruption of the immune system through the use of drugs that suppress segments of the immune response. Then, along comes COVID-19 to exploit this immune system flaw.
The immune storm that does the killing with COVID-19 reflects an immune system gone haywire. Proinflammatory cytokines—substances like interferons and interleukins secreted by immune cells—are released inappropriately and destructively causing fluid in the lungs to build up, essentially drowning the victim. COVID-19 hijacks the immune system, and if that immune system is impaired or dysfunctional due to chronic vitamin D deficiency, the outcome isn’t good.
PREVENTING OR REDUCING IMPACT OF NEXT WAVE OF COVID-19
Using the Spanish flu pandemic as a model, in 1918, the second wave of the flu was five times deadlier than the first wave. In real numbers, according to CDC figures, the peak death rate in late June 1918 was around 5 per 1000 persons. In early November 1918, it was 25 per 1000.
That’s the bad news. The good news is that there is something we can all do to help protect ourselves from the coming scourge. It’s easy, it’s cheap, and it’s safe. Around 5,000 to 8,000 IU vitamin D3 daily will get most people’s blood levels into the range to optimize immune system function. While it is no guarantee that if you fix the underlying vitamin D deficiency your body will defeat the virus, it could be a factor. And it is easy to get your daily dose. Skin generates 10,000 IU of vitamin D when exposed to summer sunlight for 15 minutes.
Our bodies are designed to be vitamin D rich. Our inability to appreciate the importance of the sun and its vitamin D in biological function is undermining our immunity.
What to do? Consult with your doctor. Get your vitamin D levels tested, 50–100 ng/ml is optimal. If you are vitamin D deficient, and getting sunlight is a problem, supplement with vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol) the most bioavailable form of vitamin D. Start to build up your blood levels of vitamin D now, and keep them there from now on.