If Marty Makary, M.D., is correct in saying the decline in cases dating from early January cannot be attributed to vaccines, this raises an intriguing question: Would widespread use of other treatments, such as hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin, in the early stages of the virus have saved more lives while vaccines were still under development?
“The most critical and pernicious blunder from all stakeholders involved in the pandemic response is a blind-spot on COVID-19 treatment,” said Peter A. McCullough, MD, MPH, vice chief of internal medicine and cardiovascular disease at Baylor University Medical Center. “Millions have been ill and more than 500,000 have died without task forces, panels, public presentations, and international collaboration on treatment regimens to manage patients at home in order to reduce spread, hospitalization, and death.
“COVID-19 is the only medical problem that comes into public view every day with no mention of early treatment,” McCullough said. “Patients are handed their positive SARS-Cov-2 result and given no advice on treatment, no hotline for available research protocols, no prescriptions, and no medical follow-up to adjust regimens.
“It is a colossal blunder by Dr. Fauci and all who have been involved in the NIH/CDC/FDA/White House Task Force to ignore the high-risk patient and his/her journey with COVID-19 and to understand that such a serious medical problem requires constant agency, attention, and engagement with the medical community to reduce the risk of hospitalization and death,” McCullough told Health Care News. “Because of obvious shortcomings, the U.S. has had record morbidity and mortality, the vast majority of which was completely avoidable. This American tragedy will undoubtedly become the focus of investigative historians who will reel through days and weeks and months of press briefings, media interviews, and public statements without a single mention of how doctors should and could treat patients.”
Ignoring Solutions
Joel S. Hirschhorn, author of the new book “Pandemic Blunder” (see review, page 13) and a former university professor and government official, laments the opportunities and lives lost through the government’s refusal to use readily available medical means to confront the pandemic.
“Fauci and the government perversely interpret a lot of good news on the COVID-19 pandemic,” Hirschhorn tells Health Care News. “One is their sick commitment to the continued use of contagion controls including masking and limits imposed on small businesses. The other is their refusal to acknowledge and use mounting medical evidence that a variety of preventive early home treatments knock out the virus and keep people out of the hospital. The latter is an alternative to taking a vaccine, which many people still do not feel comfortable doing.”
Bonner R. Cohen, Ph.D., (bcohen@nationalcenter.org) is a senior fellow at the National Center for Public Policy Research.