For decades, the medical profession has operated a closed-shop type of operation, actively resisting any alternative approaches that the higher echelons would not approve. It shows that the cancel culture is not new when it comes to the medical establishment.
My first experience when I was both a chiropractic student and a new practitioner was when I heard, "Oh, so you're going to be one of those quacks!" That was a great introduction to a new profession. However, I knew that my years of training had made me more of an expert in the human spine's functioning than your average medical doctor.
Of course, these continuous medical attacks did not dissuade me from my chosen profession. Over the years, the barriers slowly broke down, and doctors felt that if "you can't fight them, join them". So they started teaching courses through the auspices of physical therapists. While it wasn't chiropractic, it was an attempt to imitate what we were doing, so it was a form of flattery.
However, there is a new phenomenon in which medicine is starting to eat its own, collaborating with the traditional media and the online giants: Google, Youtube, Twitter and Facebook. The cooperation has become very apparent with the eruption of Covid-19 on the world stage.
It's quite troubling when doctors who see patients and assess success and results can be stripped of their rights to look after people the best way they know. It causes a deterioration in the patient-doctor relationship.
By now, most have heard of the drug Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ). It was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 1955 as a useful antimalaria drug. Since then, it has also been used effectively in treating people with System Lupus and Rheumatoid Arthritis to alleviate sometimes debilitating joint pains. So this drug has been available for many decades as a reasonably safe, effective and inexpensive product.
Unfortunately, in the age of Covid-19, HCQ has become a political football, perhaps because ex-President Donald Trump dared to mention that it could be useful. He based this on information that he had received from doctors.
It has been known to the scientific community that HCQ is a potent inhibitor of the Corona Class of Viral Infections. The research was there in the Journal of Virology in August 2005. Worldwide, it's known without a doubt that HCQ dramatically reduces the death rate from Covid, mainly if used in the early phase of the infection.
In many countries, HCQ is an over-the-counter medication. These are countries where malaria is endemic. An example is the case of India with a population of 1.39 billion people, just behind China. India's population density is ten times that of the USA. So you would think that they would have a much higher rate of Covid-19 deaths. The reverse is true.
HCQ is widely used in India, and Prime Minister Modi felt that it would be valuable as a preventative for Covid, so he ordered the production of an extra 100 million doses. So what is the result of all this? America has fourteen times the Covid-19 death rate of India. A second world country did much better than a first world country.
Country Death Rate Vs. Usage of Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ)
What is troubling about the situation is that doctors' ability to prescribe HCQ is restricted in most of the Western world, including Australia. Many drugs have the classification as being off-label, meaning that doctors can prescribe them for alternate conditions. It is up to the discretion of individual doctors to use these medications based on science, clinical experience and on other occasions, trial and error.
Sadly, the authorities have stripped doctors of their autonomy when it comes to Covid-19. The medical establishment has cancelled doctors who have dared to buck the trend.
Take the case of an outspoken emergency room physician, Dr Simon Gold. She and her colleagues started treating Covid-19 patients with a combination of HCQ, zinc and a commonly used antibiotic. The basis for this was successful studies overseas. Dr Gold lost her hospital position, and Youtube, Facebook, and other media sites deleted her videos for her efforts. All she wants is to help her patients get well.
Then there is the case of Dr Pierre Kory M.D., a pulmonary and critical care specialist from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, who testified before a Senate Committee on the use of Ivermectin to treat Covid-19.
Ivermectin is an antiparasitic drug. If your child ever had ringworm, Ivermectin may have been used to treat it. Dr Kory cited studies worldwide, showing its effectiveness in preventing mild symptoms from becoming severe. Also, it is valuable as a preventative.
Dr Kory pleaded with Senate members: “I can’t keep watching patients die needlessly!” “If you take it, you will not get sick.” For his efforts, YouTube decided to ban the video of his testimony, undoubtedly on advice from the medical establishment. Youtube in effect was practicing medicine without a license by cancelling valuable information.
Imagine if you were a doctor with decades of experience, treated as if you were an inconsequential idiot. That is how the medical establishment is treating doctors in the Age of Covid. Many in the establishment have never seen clinical patients. They are, for the most part, pen-pushers and theorists.
Undoubtedly, cancelling HCQ, Ivermectin and doctors who prescribe them has resulted in the deaths of many thousands who otherwise would have lived. Who says so? Dr Harvey Risch noted epidemiologist from Yale University says so.
The legacy of this medical cancel culture is not just something innocuous like being banned from Twitter. It is killing people, and even health care is not safe from this insidious, cancel culture curse.
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