Minnesota is now “the second state to reject regulations that effectively ban the controversial drug hydroxychloroquine for use by COVID-19 patients,” reports Jon Miltimore of RealClearPolitics.
“The decision, which comes two weeks after the Ohio Board of Pharmacy reversed an effective ban of its own, was rightfully praised by local health care advocates,” he continues, adding, “In recent weeks a chorus of voices in the medical community has emerged to challenge the view that hydroxychloroquine is ineffective as a COVID treatment.”
This includes Yale School of Public Health epidemiology professor Dr. Harvey A. Risch, who wrote, “When this inexpensive oral medication is given very early in the course of illness, before the virus has had time to multiply beyond control, it has shown to be highly effective, especially when given in combination with the antibiotics azithromycin or doxycycline and the nutritional supplement zinc.”
Miltimore notes other recent studies that land on the side of hydroxychloroquine’s effectiveness in treating the coronavirus, especially in its early stages, which is “key,” according to Risch. Other proponents include:
- Steven Hatfill, a veteran virologist and adjunct assistant professor at the George Washington University Medical Center, says the literature supporting hydroxychloroquine is overwhelming.
- “There are now 53 studies that show positive results of hydroxychloroquine in COVID infections,” Hatfill wrote[.]
- One of the positive studies, published by Henry Ford Health System, was a large-scale retrospective of six hospitals. Analyzing 2,541 patients, it found that those treated with hydroxychloroquine alone died at about half the rate of patients not treated with it.
On the other side of the spectrum, there are two New England Journal of Medicine studies — both double blind peer reviewed randomized control studies — that show hydroxychloroquine is useless, that it has no therapeutic affect whatsoever regardless of how soon it’s taken.
But let’s go back to the ban put in place by Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN).
The governor essentially ordered pharmacists to not fill prescriptions for hydroxychloroquine if the patient had the coronavirus:
I authorize the Minnesota Board of Pharmacy, established pursuant to Minnesota Statutes 2019, section 151.02, to enforce the following medication dispensing limitations, until termination of the peacetime emergency declared in Executive Order 20-01. A prescription drug order for chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine must contain a diagnosis appropriate for the use of these medications and be dispensed for no more than 30 days at a time.
The ban went into effect at the end of March and was only rescinded late last week.
For four months, the Democrat-run state of Minnesota refused hydroxychloroquine to coronavirus sufferers.
For four months, the Democrat-run state of Minnesota interfered in the doctor-patient relationship.
Why?
Why would elected officials believe they know what’s best for a patient, know better than that patient’s own doctor?
Let’s not forget that we’re not talking about some experimental drug here. Hydroxychloroquine has been around for decades, has been used safely by millions for decades, and is a prescription drug… Sure, like all medication there are potential side effects, the New England Journal of Medicine study found some “adverse effects” in it study (no one died, by the way), but that’s what your doctor is for — to compare the patient to the potential side effects.
Ask yourself this…
What will be the consequences if, and let me stress if, when all is said and done, we discover once and for all that hydroxychloroquine is an effective coronavirus treatment, but only after countless sufferers were needlessly made sicker or even died because elected Democrats either raged against it or outright banned it, because the corporate media screamed about how it will kill you — and all of this damage was done only because President Trump said it might do some good?
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.
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