A "perfect storm" has destroyed the U.S. economy, needlessly

It's likely that almost everyone's familiar with the expression "a perfect storm."  It describes a coming-together of events that produce a once-per-century disaster.

I want to tell you about one such disaster.  You're living through it.

Surprisingly, it's NOT the Chinese virus.  Well, not specifically.  Instead, a combination of insane hate of Donald Trump by Leftists/Democrats and their media allies, optimistic statements by Trump, and a corrupt so-called "expert" or two or ten, have combined to demonize THE MOST effective, inexpensive treatment for the virus.

By causing the low-cost, highly effective treatment to be rejected, this confluence of conditions has cost at least 50,000 extra U.S. deaths.

The first event in this "perfect storm".was the chinese virus.  But it wasn't significantly more dangerous than the common flu, which often kills 80,000 Americans every year, and in some years two or three times that number. 

If we accept the claim that roughly 170,000 Americans have died from the chinese virus (ignoring the likelihood that tens of thousands of deaths counted as virus weren't really due to the virus at all), and assume 340 million Americans, that's a rate of one death per 2000 people, or 5/100ths of one percent.

But the Trump-hating media quickly jumped at the chance to blame Trump--first claiming he was a raaaacist for banning flights from China to the U.S, (while Pelosi was celebrating in San Francisco's chinatown), but then just as quickly shifting to "He didn't close the flights early enough!"

Then Trump made an incautious statement.  One of his staff showed him a peer-reviewed study by a French university claiming that to have treated 26 patients with a combination of hydroxychloroquine, the antibiotic (not antiviral) azithromycin, and zinc, with great results.  Literally, patients were well again after six or seven days.  It was impressive.

At a press conference Trump said this "could be a game-changer"--and the Mainstream Media went crazy, sneering contemptuously that this simply wasn't possible.  I read the paper, and I've been teaching organic chemistry for 35 years.  Wonder how many members of the Lying Media read the paper before sneeringly ridiculing it?

Of course the Media didn't need to read the paper, because Trump-hating Democrats pounced on what they called flaws in the study:  It didn't use enough subjects to be conclusive.  The subjects weren't followed long enough after treatment.  While the study divided subjects into experimental and control groups, the subjects weren't paired correctly (matched for age, sex, weight, eye color, occupation, hometown et cetera.  (Yes, this is sarcasm.)

Hint:  Critics can nearly always make this claim about studies they want to discredit.

So the French researchers followed with a second study, this time with 100 subjects.  Same great results.  But the Lying Media ignored the new study--they had their preferred Narrative and simply wouldn't allow anything to prove it wrong.

The next step in the "perfect storm" was for the Media to find so-called experts who would claim that HCQ was "dangerous."  Untested.  Could kill you.  They published thousands of stories claiming this.

What the stories never told readers was that HCQ and been used by the U.S. military since 1940 to prevent malaria.  Hundreds of thousands of GI's had taken it, with virtually no ill effects.  The drug was so effective and SAFE that the FDA approved it in 1955, and literally a billions people have taken it since then.  It's also been approved to treat lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. 

If the many media scare stories screaming "dangerous/untested/not approved by the FDA" didn't convince enough Americans that HCQ would kill them, the Media also trotted out an alternative Narrative, which was that Americans "suffering from lupus and rheumatoid arthritis" were now suffering far more cuz they couldn't get HCQ, because somehow the supplies had been snapped up!

Remember the Media had just claimed that HCQ was too dangerous to take, but suddenly they were playing on guilt to get people not to take it so there would be enough to help out Americans suffering from the diseases the drug was ALSO prescribed for.  Interesting.  Then an Israeli company GAVE ten million tablets to the U.S, and the Media quickly shut the fuck up about that.

So what happened to all the HCQ that had been in the regular supply pipeline?  The Mainstream Media was NOT interested in looking into that question, but docs and nurses in big-city hospitals knew:  They'd snapped up every tablet they could find, and were taking it to keep from getting the virus. 

Wait...were the docs and nurses that dumb?  Didn't they realize the Media had told everyone that HCQ would NOT help, and also was dangerous and possibly fatal?

Think about that.

And we're just getting started.

The next event was Fauci, who's always been an incompetent.  Like most career appointees, he survives by being politically attuned.  Real science is an afterthought to people like him.  And like the Media, Fauci had an Agenda:  A company called Gilead, which had an antiviral drug called Remdesivir.  In early press conferences Fauci mentioned both several times in 20 minutes.  I'm watching with astonishment, because a true scientist would maybe mention it ONCE to say it could be promising, but that we'd have to wait for full-scale double-blind trials to know.

But he was clearly pushing this company and drug.  Weird.  Unprofessional.  Almost as though he had an interest in the company.

Now, I realize Trump pushed HCQ, and some may say what Fauci did is no worse.  Yeah, but Fauci is supposedly a scientist, who is expected to be more careful.

And do you suppose it could be relevant that the HCQ treatment costs on the order of fifty bucks for the whole course of treatment, while Remdesivir was coming in at at least $2000 per dose?  Nah, that probably isn't important, eh?

So let me show you how cunningly the anti-Trumpers used their media platforms to demonize HCQ.  Below is an article from Science Magazine, from March 26th of this year.  And yes, the title of the article leads with the words "This is insane!"  Cuz, see, science isn't emotional.

‘This is insane!’ Many scientists lament Trump’s embrace of risky malaria drugs for coronavirus

By Charles Piller   Mar. 26, 2020 

When President Trump recently touted the common malaria treatments hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine as potential remedies for [the chinese virus], he ignited unprecedented demand for the drugs—and set scientists’ teeth on edge.

Note he doesn't tell you how that could have ignite a huge demand, since "ordinary people" (hint: that's you and me) couldn't get the drug without a prescription, meaning you had to have either malaria or lupus or rheumatoid arthritis.  Where'd the huge demand come from?  Oh, yeah: docs and nurses.  What did they know that moved them to start taking it?

Although the World Health Organization (WHO) agrees the compounds are worth testing more fully on the pandemic coronavirus, few drug or infectious disease experts—not even the president’s own advisers [Fauci and Birx are both staunch Democrats, seriously]—share his optimism that the drugs could become “one of the biggest game changers in the history of medicine,” as he tweeted. And many are critical of the small French clinical study of just 42 patients that seems to have touched off most of the excitement.

Love the line "many are critical."  Same can be said about damn near anything. 

Darren Dahly, a co-author of one of several critiques of the initial study and a principal statistician at [a university], said it would be “egregious” to recommend treatments for millions of people based on such a small trial, regardless of its quality.

Wait...what were Dahly's qualifications again?  Virologist?  Immunologist?  No.  Statistics.  He has no expertise in medicine, but merely bitching about the small number of patients in the French trial.

“This is insane!” tweeted Gaetan Burgio, an expert on drug resistance, noting what he sees as lapses in the 6-day trial, including inconsistent testing of virus levels in the patients.

To Dahly and others, only much larger, better studies such as one WHO has just started can show whether any optimism about the compounds is warranted.  Joshua Sharfstein, a vice dean at Johns Hopkins University a former principal deputy Food and Drug Administration commissioner, says “Efforts to widely distribute unproven treatments are misguided at best and dangerous at worst.”

Again, what do the front-line docs and nurses know that these two so-called "experts" (in other fields) deny and sneer at?

Such cautions were buried under an avalanche of demand for hydroxychloroquine, also sold under the brand name Plaquenil, and chloroquine, as doctors rushed to prescribe one or the other for confirmed or possible virus infections. Among the immediate consequences:

• Shortages of the drug are endangering patients who need it for lupus or rheumatoid arthritis.  [Of course unlike the chinese virus, those are NOT immediately life-threatening.]
• India, a major producer, has banned exports, and some doctors are hoarding both drugs by writing prescriptions for themselves or family members.

Once again, what do they know that Fauci et al don't want to tell you?  And India banning exports of HCQ actually suggests Indian researchers think it's beneficial.  Of course the author of this piece doesn't pick up on that, cuz he's got an Agenda to satisfy.

• Deaths in Nigeria among people self-treating for apparent COVID-19 were attributed to chloroquine overdoses, and an Arizona man trying to avoid infection died after reportedly self-medicating with a toxic form of chloroquine used to clean fish tanks.

"Deaths in Nigeria," ya say?  Yeah, Nigerians also punch holes in oil pipelines and incinerate hundreds, so guess you "scientists" are gonna ban pipelines next, eh?  The argument isn't remotely persuasive or relevant, but the layperson thinks "OMG, people DIED from taking this!" 

Oh, and the guy in Arizona was actually poisoned by his crazy wife.  But hey, it's a DEATH from taking a relative of a drug Trump mentioned!  So SEE, that shows ya Trump's crazy!

• Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, a staunch Trump ally, ordered that nation’s military labs to ramp up production of chloroquine. Panic buying has ensued.

What's the relevance of the Brazilian prez being a "staunch Trump ally," eh?  Nothing.  But the inference to be drawn is that no one would ramp up production of either chloroquine or its more effective relative HCQ if Trump hadn't said something.  Why, it's like Brazilians either don't have access to French studies, or maybe can't read.  Nutty stuff.

“Here in Brazil even good scientists are backing this, saying we should waive rigor in difficult times,” says Natalia Pasternak Taschner, a microbiologist at the University of São Paulo, São Paulo. “We should be even more rigorous lest we give people false hope and invest [limited] time and money on unwarranted claims.”

This is just amazing:  The HCQ treatment is trivially inexpensive.  "Limited time and money" isn't Taschner's real complaint.  She's just spouting propaganda that gets Americans who don't know a single thing about the cost and effort involved in competing treatment options to nod in agreement.

Although doctors regard hydroxychloroquine as relatively safe at prescribed doses for short periods, it has been associated with life-threatening cardiac side effects and suicidal behavior. “Given the toxicity of the drug, I’m afraid my government is going to kill people,” Taschner said.

"Relatively safe...for short periods."  Again, propaganda.  People take HCQ for their whole lives.

Trump’s initial public remarks on the drug candidates... appeared to be based on anecdotal reports from China and the tiny French study....  In that trial... 26 patients were treated with hydroxychloroquine alone, or combined with the antibiotic azithromycin. The authors reported “clearance”—no virus present in samples taken by nasopharyngeal swabs—in most of them, but continued infection in most of a 16-person control group of virus patients. The patients who received both drugs cleared the fastest, the researchers reported in a peer-reviewed paper in the International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents.

Many scientists have criticized the French trial as riddled with enough methodological flaws to render its findings unreliable or misleading. Biostatisticians [said the study] didn’t randomize the groups—essential to ensuring dependable comparisons. They also noted that six of the treated patients were lost to the study, five of whom fared badly—one died, three entered intensive care, and one stopped treatment because of nausea. Yet they were dropped from the analysis, potentially skewing the outcome.

Okay, so don't take HCQ!  Wait...if the French study is so horribly flawed, why are front-line U.S. docs and nurses taking the stuff?  They must be dumb, eh?  Cuz "the experts" say it can't possibly work!  Oh, and also it'll kill you.  Oh, you bet.

Elisabeth Bik, a "scientific integrity consultant," wrote on her blog that...one of the paper’s authors is also the journal’s editor-in-chief, which Bik says might be “perceived as a huge conflict of interest.”

Yeah, we definitely wanna watch out for "conflicts of interest" by people who have total authority over which treatments are approved and which are ruled off-limits, eh?

Several major pharma companies announced production of nearly 200 million doses of the two drugs in coming weeks to fight the pandemic.

Wait...didn't this same author just warn of a terrible, horrible, cruel, death-dealing shortage?  Guess that's not gonna be a problem for more than a few weeks, eh?

Vinay Prasad, a hematologist and oncologist at Oregon Health & Science University who studies evidence-based medicine, calls the rush to use the drugs unwise. “In times of epidemic, you want to prioritize manufacturing things that have been proven to work,” many of which are in short supply, he says. “Masks, gowns, ventilators. Have at it. Before ramping up the supply of pills, it’s best to know if the pills work.”

Simple:  If you don't think it works, or think it's just too, too dangerous, don't take it.  Period.  But this isn't nearly enough for the anti-Trump media.  They have to scare everyone into not only NOT taking HCQ, but also to scare them enough to support Fauci in ruling that NO AMERICAN CAN TAKE IT, cuz...reasons.

You're being played, people.  Figure it out.  What do the front-line docs know that Fauci and Birx and Prasad don't?  Or could it be like the bullshit from Fauci early on about masks:  He first said they didn't work, but later not only said they DID work, but he demanded everyone wear one everywhere.  What caused him to reverse himself?  Oh yeah, it emerged that he wanted to ensure enough masks for front-line docs and nurses, so didn't want you to be snapping up the masks.

Do ya suppose he could have done the same to HCQ:  "Doesn't work" so "ordinary Americans" wouldn't snap it up, to leave supplies for the front-line medical personnel?  And also to push Americans to believe that Remdesivir was THE solution--at $2000 or so per dose.