On the show “Life, Liberty & Levin,” host Mark Levin talked to Dr. Harvey A. Risch, a professor of Epidemiology in the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at the Yale School of Public Health and Yale School of Medicine, about hydroxychloroquine, a drug that can be used to prevent and treat coronavirus (COVID-19).
The pair also discussed why the government and mainstream media are trying to hinder developments concerning the use of the drug to fight the pandemic.
What is hydroxychloroquine?
Several months ago, people have never heard of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ). Now, HCQ is the most controversial drug on the planet. Mainstream media claims it’s worse than heroin, opioids, or other drugs.
On August 4, Steve Hatfill, a veteran neurologist said that there are “53 studies that show positive results of hydroxychloroquine in COVID infections. There are 14 global studies that show neutral or negative results— and 10 of them were of patients in very late stages of COVID-19, where no antiviral drug can be expected to have much effect. Of the remaining four studies, two came from the same University of Minnesota author. The other two are from the faulty Brazil paper, which should be retracted and the fake Lancet paper, which was.”
Levin exclaimed that the report was unusual, and he discussed another article from Risch, the author of more than 300 peer-reviewed publications. In the article, which was published on July 23, Risch revealed that he is “usually accustomed to advocating for positions within the mainstream of medicine.”
The professor was shocked that, during the coronavirus pandemic, he is “fighting for a treatment that the data fully supports but which, for reasons having nothing to do with a correct understanding of the science, has been pushed to the sidelines. As a result, tens of thousands of patients with COVID-19 are dying unnecessarily. Fortunately, the situation can be reversed easily and quickly.”
When asked about his stance on the studies he reviewed and the use of HCQ for COVID-19, Risch reiterated that “the evidence is overwhelming.”
However, Risch mentioned a “massive disinformation campaign” about HCQ from the government to mainstream media that either suppresses the truth or covers it up with a false message.
While Risch has yet to determine why HCQ is being discredited as a potential cure for COVID-19, he said that as an expert on the science behind it, the “one-sided science that supports this result” is stronger than anything he has studied in his career, particularly for high-risk patients that are treated early as outpatients.
Levin noted that most of the studies cited by government scientists and the media don’t treat patients early after being diagnosed with coronavirus. Risch agreed, saying that either these studies cite hospitalized patients or they cite the studies from Minnesota wherein low-risk patients, who are younger than 60 and don’t have chronic conditions are treated with HCQ. These low-risk patients can often recover on their own even without any treatment.
Risch emphasized that HCQ is best used on elderly high-risk patients with chronic conditions like diabetes since they have a greater chance of being hospitalized and dying from COVID-19. Studies on high-risk patients have shown that HCQ offers benefits for high-risk groups compared to low-risk groups.
Fauci, the FDA and HCQ
Levin also brought up Dr. Anthony Fauci, who has been in the government for 52 years and has served as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) since 1984, has also dismissed the benefits of HCQ.
When asked if Fauci has talked to Risch about HCQ, the latter said that Fauci has never contacted him. Back when the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was considering a petition for early use authorization of HCQ in outpatients submitted by Henry Ford Hospital doctors, Risch filed a brief to the FDA to demonstrate both the evidence that supports usage and the complete lack of harm and systematic data that the FDA claims on their website about HCQ.
Fauci then thanked Risch by email, which was the only contact the two have ever had.
None of the heads of various government entities consulted Risch. Levin also brought up the fact that whenever Risch goes on different programs, such as CNN, to discuss HCQ treatments for COVID-19, hosts often interrupt the professor whenever he tries to discuss the benefits of HCQ.
Levin also mentioned up a May 5 headline from The Washington Post: “Drug promoted by Trump as coronavirus ‘game-changer’ increasingly linked to deaths.” (Related: How a false hydroxychloroquine narrative was created.)
Risch clarified that the article on the alleged dangers of hydroxychloroquine did not say which patients the drug was used on. If HCQ was used on “very sick hospitalized patients as a last-ditch effort” since no other treatments worked, he agreed that there may be a link.
But if HCQ was used on healthy outpatients, like the 10 billion patients who have already received the drug, then there is no relationship at all. Risch concluded that it’s important to clarify who you’re talking about when making statements like the headline on The Washington Post article.
While Levin admitted that he’s not an expert like Risch, it was shocking to hear that there was an “effort to fight” an affordable drug, which has been safely used for half a century, in the middle of a global pandemic. More disheartening still is the lengths mainstream media will go through to discredit those who suggest that HCQ can be used to treat COVID-19 in its early stages.
Risch agreed with Levin, saying that it’s the wrong time to let politics overrule science. He posited that he is often interrupted on various programs because the hosts know that the treatments works, yet they are afraid that HCQ will be tested and proven to be safe for use.
Risch also encouraged American citizens to get in touch with their congressmen and senators. “A bureaucracy in bed with other forces causing them to make decisions not based in science, that are killing Americans, is not acceptable,” warned Risch.
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