After concerns from 100 doctors and scientists about data integrity, two elite medical journals, the influential New England Medical Journal and the Lancet have retracted controversial papers on COVID-19 treatments. This study led several governments to ban the use of the drug for coronavirus patients due to safety concerns. Hydroxychloroquine is an inexpensive generic drug that has been used safely since 1944. Its effectiveness will cause a considerable loss of potential income for pharmaceutical companies who have already spent millions of dollars lobbying to get their ‘wonder-drug’ approved for emergency use.
Researchers claimed to have conducted an observational study using the medical records of nearly 100,000 patients who took hydroxychloroquine or the closely related chloroquine. The four researchers said their analysis showed a higher mortality rate in COVID-19 patients who took the drug when compared with those who didn’t. The fraudulent study shook the scientific world, prompting World Health Organization (WHO) and French authorities to suspend clinical trials testing hydroxychloroquine against COVID-19, the new disease caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus. (source)
After publication, a 100 medical professionals raised 10 major issues with the study, culminating with the retraction a few days after The Lancet, which published the paper, said there were “serious concerns” with the data. The retractions followed stories about Surgisphere in the Guardian and the Scientist. The company only appeared to have a handful of employees and raised serious questions about the legitimacy of its data sources.
Below is an editorial below was written by Jim Wilson regarding the bogus study the need of Americans to move forward with courage and unswerving pursuit of truth, the only legitimate purpose of authentic science.
A TIME FOR COURAGE, PURPOSE, AND VISION
Great Britain’s The Lancet is one of the premiere medical journals in the world; if you read it in The Lancet you can take it to the bank. The New England Journal of Medicine is in the same top row. These journals published the largest study yet – more than 96,000 participants in 671 hospitals on six continents – on treating COVID-19 with hydroxychloroquine May 22. The study not only failed to confirm any medical benefits from use of HCQ, it “documented” increased risk of fatalities and heart arrhythmias. The journal corrected itself one week later but the study authors claim no need to change conclusions.
Anomalies in the study were first reported in The Epoch Times – without claiming misconduct in so many words – but now The Guardian has thoroughly debunked the study and its authors. Why? Researchers published fraudulent results. They faked it.
When more than one hundred physicians and scientists questioned the peer-reviewed study – that’s right, peer-reviewed – the authors at first refused to supply documentation. This prompted editorial concern in these prestigious journals. Among other things, skeptical scientists noted there was no ethics review and hospitals and countries in question were not identified. Code and statistical data were hidden, but study authors did admit patients were given much higher doses of HCQ than is considered safe by the FDA; heart issues have long been associated with unnecessarily heavy doses.
The study claimed seventy-three deaths in five participating Australian hospitals, yet there were only sixty-seven deaths throughout Australia by the date – April 21 – cited in the study.
The Guardian uncovered far more damning material and was less genteel in its conclusions. They found the company behind the study – Surgisphere – claiming an authoritative database of some twelve hundred hospitals. This tiny American company boasts a mere six employees, including a science fiction writer and a porn actress. When The Guardian inquired of the five Australian hospitals in Melbourne and two in Sydney cited in the study all replied they had never heard of such a study, or of Surgisphere.
The study and its authors are clearly bogus, but the question remains, why would a company go to such lengths to make a promising treatment for COVID-19 look bad? Why are so many other supposedly authoritative persons and organizations doing the same thing? The answer appears to be a combination of money and power.
The Lancet study rattled scientists testing hydroxychloroquine in clinical trials because the now-retracted study suggested the drug dramatically increased the death rate of COVID-19 patients.
The American Family Association reports the National Institutes of Health tested Hydroxychloroquine on the SARS Virus – a close cousin to COVID-19 – back in 2005 with the cooperation of Dr. Anthony Fauci. All parties confirmed it was both effective and completely safe when used as directed.
HCQ has been in use – safely and effectively – against Malaria, Lupus, and several other conditions since 1944.
Although double blind testing continues on the drug, reality is HCQ has been used on literally thousands of patients since the COVID-19 outbreak began. It has been administered both early and late in the disease progression. Its real results greatly surpass the predicted results for – say – remdesivir, which is just beginning testing and has not been formally approved as a treatment anywhere in the world. It far out performs vaccines – such as for flu – which demonstrate 40-60% efficacy; a vaccine for C-19 is still months away and carries frightful risks for users considering the rush to develop and produce it with an extremely short testing cycle.
Did I say money and power?
Hydroxychloroquine is a generic drug; it is plentiful, costs less than fifteen dollars for a sixty-day supply, and can be dispensed in any pharmacy – wherever the government has not forbidden it.
Remdesivir – to use our same example – can only be obtained by IV infusion in a hospital, has already revealed side effects including liver failure, but will make millions for Gilead Sciences and lots of professional glory for the docs – including Fauci – who have a hand in its development.
Gilead has already spent two and a half million dollars lobbying Congress and the White House for its so-called wonder drug. The trial that undergirded the recent declaration by the FDA approving remdesivir for emergency use was conducted by Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
In a population already wild with fear of COVID-19 there is tremendous power associated with being able to say “this and only this” is the authorized treatment.
In the case of rushed-to-production vaccines the money-power curve steepens as multiple state governors speak openly of forced vaccination for all, and the issuance of travel permitting documents for only those citizens who have the vaccination mark.
This is stuff right out of the Book of Revelation for those paying attention, and it has nothing to do with authentic science. But what ought we to do about it?
That too is not as complicated as we are led to believe. We can ask Almighty God – in the Person of His Son and the power of His Spirit – to refill Americans with courage for unswerving pursuit of truth, the only legitimate purpose of authentic science.
We can likewise re-commit our lives to the transcending vision of freedom – including free market freedom – that is the vision on which our nation was founded and in terms of which we have navigated every crisis we have ever encountered.
These three things need be acknowledged: It is time to renew courage, purpose, and vision. Political and medical manipulators and arrogant power mongers are unwelcome at a table meant for honest conversation. And we were born for such a time as this. This is all good news if we will have it so.
By James Wilson
James A. Wilson is the author of Living As Ambassadors of Relationships, The Holy Spirit and the End Times, Kingdom in Pursuit, and his first novel, Generation – available at Barnes and Nobles, Amazon, or at praynorthstate@gmail.com
feature image A pharmacy tech pours out pills of hydroxychloroquine at Rock Canyon Pharmacy in Provo, Utah, on May 20, 2020. (George Frey/AFP via Getty Images)
