21 Mar 2020
The President of the United States (POTUS), his task force, and quite a few doctors/scientists already declared that Chloroquine may save the day. It was mentioned that FDA already gave a green light to its use. The fallacy starts here: any approved drug, such as Chloroquine, can be used off-label by any doctor on his own discretion.
In response to a reporter question this morning “if questions about use of that anti-malaria drug were resolved?”, the POTUS replied: “I do not know, if questions were resolved, but I know that its being distributed, I know that NY is getting 10,000 units … It can be that drug plus Z-pack … we are going to find out … I feel, as the expression goes, what do we have to lose? … because I feel very good about this but Tony (Anthony Fauci MD - the Director of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a part of NIH) would feel that he wants some samples to be done about this … many doctors would agree with that … we do not have much time … we are going to be delivering a lot of samples to NY and other places and we are going to find out, if this is going to work … I feel very confident, I seen many things which surprised me … there are other things we are looking into … vaccine is incredible but this is more immediate, to me it will be the best thing could happen, this can be a gift from Haven, this can be a gift from God, if this works, so we are going to pray to God that it does work, it will be a fantastic thing”. Please note: this is Dr. Why transcript, it may not be word to word, but it is close!
Got the point?
If not, here are a few bullet points about Chloroquine:
Chloroquine is anti-malaria drug, which was discovered in 1934
It is on The WHO list of essential medicines
The wholesale cost in the developing world is about $0.04. Naturally, in the USA it is $5.40-$23.85 per dose, which is 135 to 596 times more expensive!
It is taken once per week for malaria prophylaxis and 4 doses are needed to treat malaria
It does have side effects, including irreversible blindness due to retinopathy, but also cardiovascular, neurologic, hematologic, and others
It is also used for amebiasis - another parasitic disease and Lupus (off label)
Mechanism of action: inhibition of enzyme allowing for making DNA and RNA (genetic codes), interfering with metabolism of parasites resulting in inhibition of parasites growth
It DOES NOT work for all types of parasites causing malaria: only for 4 out of 6 types
What is Malaria:
Malaria is a parasitic disease transmitted by mosquitos
There are 6 types of parasites causing malaria
Parasites are one-cell organisms
The main way to prevent malaria is protection from mosquito bites
There is NO approved vaccine for malaria
The efficacy of malaria vaccines in clinical trials was between 16% and maximum of 44%
In October 2015, the Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization (SAGE) and the Malaria Policy Advisory Committee (MPAC) decided NOT to recommend widespread employment of the vaccine but rather advised pilot implementation studies to guide decisions regarding subsequent deployment
Can Chloroquine work in viral infections?
the PubMed.gov search for “chloroquine and viral infections” produced 532 matches https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=chloroquine+and+viral+infections
The oldest article Severe infectious mononucleosis treated with chloroquine phosphate was published in 1960. Mononucleosis is caused by Epstein-Barr virus (EBV)
It was also tried for treatment (in alphabetical order)
Adenovirus
Avian retrovirus
Betanodavirus, also referred to nervous necrosis virus
Bovine viral diarhea virus
Chikungunya virus
Common wart (caused by HPV virus)
Coxsackievirus B4
Cytomegalovirus
Dengue virus
Ebola virus (the first report was published in 1976!)
Encephalomyocarditis virus
Filoviridae viruses
Grass carp reovirus
Hand, foot, and mouth disease (most commonly caused by Enterovirus A)
Hendra virus
Hepatitis B and C
Herpesviruses (including Herpes Zoster - shingles, herpes simplex virus 1, herpesvirus-6, Kaposi’s sarcoma-associated herpervirus)
HIV and other retro-viruses
Human coronavirus OC43
Human parvovirus B19
Infectious salmon anemia virus
Influenza viruses
Kidney necrosis virus
Lassa fever (caused by Lassa virus)
Measles
Murine cytomegalovirus
Murine norovirus 1
Nelson Bay orthoreovirus
Nipah virus
Orf virus
Parvovirus Kilham rat virus
Peste des petits ruminants virus
Porcine circovirus 2
Porcine hemagglutinating encephalomyelitis virus
Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus
Pseudorabies virus
Rabies
Respiratory syncytial virus
Rhinovirus
Ross River virus
SARS coronavirus
Sendai virus
Simian virus 40 (SV40)
Simian immunodeficiency virus
Semliki Forest virus
Sindbis virus
Soft-shelled turtle iridovirus
Spleen necrosis virus
Vaccinia virus
Vesicular stomatitis virus
Yellow Fever
Zika virus
Got the point?
If not, remember - the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result (credited to Albert Einstein).
Rephrasing: if you try the same drug for different viruses (I counted 53 viruses above - my head is spinning - I did not know that half of these even existed!) and get the same result - an object failure - it is probably a good time to move on…. Stop fooling the public and waste resources!
If you do decide to waste public funds on this drug and associated research, please do NOT pay US prices, buy it in Africa at $0.04 per dose. I am sure you can make a good deal!
It is called wishful thinking otherwise. The only excuse POTUS has is that he might not have been given the information above by geniuses surrounding him, including “Tony” - the expert! In fact, this is the most likely scenario.