Topline: President Trump said in a Thursday press briefing that chloroquine, a drug used to treat malaria and severe arthritis, was approved by the Food and Drug Administration to test as a COVID-19 coronavirus treatment, as the number of cases nationwide continues to increase.
The drug will be used in a clinical trial, according to FDA commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn, who spoke during the press briefing.
Trump also said that other anti-viral medications will be fast-tracked for FDA approval.
“We will collect that data and make the absolute right decisions based upon those data about the safety and efficacy of the treatments,” said Hahn.
Trump also claimed that the White House has “slashed red tape” to speed up approval for vaccines and other treatments.
Trump added that the FDA approved “compassionate use” for a number of patients, which allows very ill patients to use drugs not yet approved by the agency for widespread use.
The anti-malaria drug is available and cheap. Democrats and their Trump-hating fearmongering media are not going to be happy.
Story continues below advertisement
Delingpole: Studies Claim Malaria Drug Chloroquine Effective Against Coronavirus
Sure this Coronavirus pandemic is a misery but I’m much more optimistic than most at the moment. Here’s one of the reasons: there’s an effective treatment already and it’s available and cheap, according to studies.
Chloroquine phosphate, an old-fashioned anti-malarial drug, has shown strong results against COVID-19 infections in South Korea and China.
As Anthony Watts notes here there have been at least three studies demonstrating its efficacy against the Coronavirus.
Here is one, by James M Todaro and Gregory J Rigano, in association with Stanford University School of Medicine and National Academy of Sciences Researchers.
According to the summary:
Recent guidelines from South Korea and China report that chloroquine is an effective antiviral therapeutic treatment against Coronavirus Disease 2019. Use of chloroquine (tablets) is showing favorable outcomes in humans infected with Coronavirus including faster time to recovery and shorter hospital stay. US CDC research shows that chloroquine also has strong potential as a prophylactic (preventative) measure against coronavirus in the lab, while we wait for a vaccine to be developed. Chloroquine is an inexpensive, globally available drug that has been in widespread human use since 1945 against malaria, autoimmune and various other conditions.
It concludes:
Chloroquine can both prevent and treat malaria. Chloroquine can both prevent and treat coronavirus in primate cells (Figure 1 and Figure 2). According to South Korean and China human treatment guidelines, chloroquine is effective in treating COVID-19. Given chloroquine’s human safety profile and existence, it can be implemented today in the U.S., Europe and the rest of the world. Medical doctors may be reluctant to prescribe chloroquine to treat COVID-19 since it is not FDA approved for this use. The United States of America and other countries should immediately authorize and indemnify medical doctors for prescribing chloroquine to treat COVID-19. We must explore whether chloroquine can safely serve as a preventative measure prior to infection of COVID-19 to stop further spread of this highly contagious virus.
Here is the second study by Jianjun Gao, Zhenxue Tian, Xu Yang
Abstract:
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) virus is spreading rapidly, and scientists are endeavoring to discover drugs for its efficacious treatment in China. Chloroquine phosphate, an old drug for treatment of malaria, is shown to have apparent efficacy and acceptable safety against COVID-19 associated pneumonia in multicenter clinical trials conducted in China. The drug is recommended to be included in the next version of the Guidelines for the Prevention, Diagnosis, and Treatment of Pneumonia Caused by COVID-19 issued by the National Health Commission of the People’s Republic of China for treatment of COVID-19 infection in larger populations in the future.
Here is the third, in the journal Nature. It’s titled ‘Remdesivir and chloroquine effectively inhibit the recently emerged novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) in vitro’
Extract:
Chloroquine, a widely-used anti-malarial and autoimmune disease drug, has recently been reported as a potential broad-spectrum antiviral drug.8,9 Chloroquine is known to block virus infection by increasing endosomal pH required for virus/cell fusion, as well as interfering with the glycosylation of cellular receptors of SARS-CoV.10Our time-of-addition assay demonstrated that chloroquine functioned at both entry, and at post-entry stages of the 2019-nCoV infection in Vero E6 cells (Fig. 1c, d). Besides its antiviral activity, chloroquine has an immune-modulating activity, which may synergistically enhance its antiviral effect in vivo. Chloroquine is widely distributed in the whole body, including lung, after oral administration. The EC90 value of chloroquine against the 2019-nCoV in Vero E6 cells was 6.90 μM, which can be clinically achievable as demonstrated in the plasma of rheumatoid arthritis patients who received 500 mg administration.11Chloroquine is a cheap and a safe drug that has been used for more than 70 years and, therefore, it is potentially clinically applicable against the 2019-nCoV.
What does this mean?
Essentially it means the end of the nightmare is – or ought to be – much closer than we think.
It will take many, many months before a vaccine is available for COVID-19. In the meantime, this is a very effective stop-gap solution. Not only does it make those critically affected by the virus less likely to die; but it also acts as a prophylactic – that is, it is capable of stopping people from getting the disease in the first place.
The reason that Chloroquine works, I understand from an expert in viral pandemics, is that enables the body to absorb more zinc. Zinc appears to be the most effective agent in disrupting the virus and preventing the ‘cytokine storm’, which is the deadly phase in which the virus tricks the body’s immune system into attacking its own healthy tissue, with often fatal consequences.
Why isn’t there more excitement about this readily available treatment?
One possible reason is that chloroquine is a generic drug to which no pharmaceutical company owns the patent. Big Pharma’s money and lobbying power will strive to persuade governments – and markets – that the only viable solution to the coronavirus is a vaccine. But in the short term this simply isn’t true. Nor is it clear to me that the global economy is going to survive on lockdown for as long as it takes to develop and test that vaccine – which may not even prove effective in any case.
Note that point in the Todaro and Rigano paper about the need for FDA approval. There is no time to waste.
Please take a moment to consider this. Now, more than ever, people are reading Geller Report for news they won't get anywhere else. But advertising revenues have all but disappeared. Google Adsense is the online advertising monopoly and they have banned us. Social media giants like Facebook and Twitter have blocked and shadow-banned our accounts. But we won't put up a paywall. Because never has the free world needed independent journalism more.
Everyone who reads our reporting knows the Geller Report covers the news the media won't. We cannot do our ground-breaking report without your support. We must continue to report on the global jihad and the left's war on freedom. Our readers’ contributions make that possible.
Geller Report's independent, investigative journalism takes a lot of time, money and hard work to produce. But we do it because we believe our work is critical in the fight for freedom and because it is your fight, too.
Quick note: We cannot do this without your support. Fact. Our work is made possible by you
and only you. We receive no grants, government handouts, or major funding.Tech giants are shutting us down. You know this. Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Adsense, Pinterest permanently
banned us. Facebook, Google search et al have shadow-banned, suspended and deleted us from your news feeds.
They are disappearing us. But we are here.
Subscribe to Geller Report newsletter here— it’s free and it’s essential NOW when informed decision making and opinion is essential to America's survival.
Share our posts on your social channels and with your email contacts. Fight the great fight.
Remember, YOU make the work possible. If you can, please contribute to Geller Report.
Join The Conversation. Leave a Comment.
We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. If a comment is spammy or unhelpful, click the - symbol under the comment to let us know. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.
If you would like to join the conversation, but don't have an account, you can sign up for one right here.
If you are having problems leaving a comment, it's likely because you are using an ad blocker, something that break ads, of course, but also breaks the comments section of our site. If you are using an ad blocker, and would like to share your thoughts, please disable your ad blocker. We look forward to seeing your comments below.
I could just use a drink! I wasn’t thinking about quinine. It’s s crazy out there!
I’ve become more of a boring teetotaler. My resistance is low. A couple sips of anything alcoholic would probably put me to sleep. It’s not like my younger days….
I know from whence you speak. I used to be able to pound down a fifth of single malt and walk a straight line, heel-toe. An old acquaintance dropped by Tuesday night. I broke out two bottles of a 1979 St. Emilion. Over a three hour period, we polished them off. In the old days, that wouldn’t have even made pre-game warmups. However, I was almost ready to call it a night, at 8:00 pm, EDT. I don’t think that I was walking that well, either.
Relax, you guys! Hydroxychloroquine is different from quinine, and you would have to drink a gallon of tonic water to get much quinine anyway. Plus, some tonic water is just ‘quinine flavored’, and it costs more than the pills. Also, it was the azithromycin antibiotic added to hydroxychloroquine that did the best.
That’s why you buy quinine water, as opposed to tonic. If it worked for the East Indian Trading Company, it’s good enough for me. Gin and quinine, please. I can buy quinine water for under a buck a liter (almost twice the price of tonic water). The gin costs far more than the quinine. Moreover, I don’t need a prescription.
Did I cover my West Texas Intermediate WAY too soon? Or, did I cover my West Texas Intermediate way too soon?
Woulda, shoulda, coulda, hadda, oughta, and never short Tandy.
Quinine has been used for close to 400 years to treat malaria.
However, you’ll find that quinine water has substantially more quinine, in it, that tonic water. An extra wedge of lime is all that it takes to make it palatable.
Gin and quinine, please.
TomSJr
4 years ago
POOR, POOR LIBERALS! They just can’t win AT ANYTHING! HATRED BLINDS THEM TO ANY GOOD AROUND THEM and they MISS it all! I CALL THAT WINNING AGAINST EVIL!
Trump may need to adjust his attack on the Chinese virus.
Achmed Mohandjob
4 years ago
Hey, if that stuff works, let’s have a shot at quinine, which has been used to treat malaria for close to four hundred years.
What better way to fight the corona beer virus.
Another gin and tonic, please.
Here’s the abstract from the French study tha just came out:
Abstract
Background
Chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine have been found to be efficient on SARS-CoV-2, and reported to be efficient in Chinese COV-19 patients. We evaluate the role of hydroxychloroquine on respiratory viral loads.
Patients and methods
French Confirmed COVID-19 patients were included in a single arm protocol from early March to March 16th, to receive 600mg of hydroxychloroquine daily, and their viral load in nasopharyngeal swabs was tested daily in a hospital setting. Depending on their clinical presentation, azithromycin was added to the treatment. Untreated patients from another center, and cases refusing the protocol were included as negative controls. Presence and absence of virus at Day6-post inclusion was considered the end point.
Results
Six patients were asymptomatic, 22 had upper respiratory tract infection symptoms and eight had lower respiratory tract infection symptoms. Twenty cases were treated in this study and showed a significant reduction of the viral carriage at D6-post inclusion compared to controls, and much lower average carrying duration than reported of untreated patients in the literature. Azithromycin added to hydroxychloroquine was significantly more efficient for virus elimination. Conclusion
Despite its small sample size our survey shows that hydroxychloroquine treatment is significantly associated with viral load reduction/disappearance in COVID-19 patients and its effect is reinforced by azithromycin.
Trump’s team is on it right now, doing a new test to make sure the French study is valid. That will probably take 10 days. But if I was really sick with Covid-19, I would ask a doctor for these meds. They are quite safe and cheap, every pharmacy carries them, and most physicians can prescribe them.
Trump is quick. It’s the FDA that drags its feet. I’d bet the FDA is like a country club looking for payoffs to okay drugs. Maybe I have become too cynical.
The FDA can be bypassed in this case. These meds are already proven safe and effective for other uses, and approved by the FDA. Most physicians can prescribe existing meds ‘off-label’ for other indications like this one. So docs can be writing scrips right away.
Eventually, the FDA will add Covid-19 to the indications for these meds, if the meds work for Covid-19. And maybe they won’t. The French study was very quick, and had only 20 patients in treatment. Some patients were not helped. Even scientists sometimes get excited and exaggerate.
Allot of doctors are reluctant to do that because of liabilty. My old GP would prescribe that but he retired in January. His replacement is one that would be prickily to deal with. I just haven’t gotten around to replacing her. Allot of GP doctors are not taking on new patients…. At the moment I don’t need her….
Here’s a link to the actual peer-reviewed published study, in English: https://drive.google.com/file/d/186Bel9RqfsmEx55FDum4xY_IlWSHnGbj/view
Trump talked about it today. You can download it and/or print it, and have it ready to shove into your doctor’s hands. Docs are used to getting internet stuff from patients, but his one comes from the ‘International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents’, a respected science journal.
I stand with you on that Felix, I’m still waiting on the FCC to curb the film industry 1950’s would be a good start for rollback. Kids don’t stand a chance today without diligent parenting.
Trump is quick. It’s the FDA that drags its feet. I’d bet the FDA is like a country club looking for payoffs to okay drugs. Maybe I have become too cynical.
Well the SARS virus is extinct in the wild, it only lives in labs now. So it’s too late to test chloroquine drugs on SARS patients. The chloroquine was only tested in test tubes against SARS, and that’s a long way from real life.
We will see some docs writing scrips for these meds today. It’s horrible to watch patients pass away from severe pneumonia. And anything is worth a try at that point.
I know, and it will. But we have to let docs do their jobs. Don’t worry about the liability, Trump helped pass “right to try” legislation, and there are other compassionate means for patients to insist on experimental treatments.
Dr. Hahn of the FDA was not very enthusiastic about use of chloroquine for Corona. Examine his dour face during Thursday’s conference with the President. His response confirms he is a Deep State punk, and in with the perverts of Big Pharma and the AMA.
To make progress combating the virus, his type must go.
felix1999
4 years ago
Note that point in the Todaro and Rigano paper about the need for FDA approval. There is no time to waste.
The FDA favors pharms.. If a pharm didn’t patent it, why would the FDA want it approved? It’s all about money and how each can benefit from it. Hopefully Trump can do something about this.
felix1999
4 years ago
Can you use that for preventive care without side effects?
Unfortunatley with allot of incompetent doctors out there shuffled through medical school based on identity politics, a patient is forced to do their own research. Dosage will probably be influenced by weight and over all health. We are used to doing our own reasearch.
sumsrent
4 years ago
Good article… we have hope… 🙂
[edit] Of course… the massive lying idiot Trumpo is still an idiot…
Halal Bacon
4 years ago
bingo!
Zinc Deficiency
Zinc deficiency is characterized by growth retardation, loss of appetite, and impaired immune function
They may want to test you for it unless you have a flexible doctor.
Dan Knight
4 years ago
Great news …
Efficacy is always a tricky subject … i.e. what does it really do? When does it do it? Who is it good for? When should it be used? … etc. … I’m sure it’s not as simple as a ‘magic bullet’ … but if it helps … Hoorah!
Also … we hope for a vaccine … we don’t plan on a vaccine.
Vaccines can be tricky too.
sumsrent
4 years ago
Chris Martenson reported on this over a month ago…
For the best info on CV19… everyday…
You Tube… “Peak Prosperity”…
1PierreMontagne1
4 years ago
The Leftist Liberals will be outraged – all the hope for civil war to avoid a Trump re-election is now dashed.
The MSM will claim the whole pandemic thing was a false flag designed to make Trump Look good.
Biden will be happy he wont have to be President after all.
John Acord
4 years ago
This medicine should be approved for OTC use immediately. There will be a hundred OTC manufacturers rushing to fill the shelves.
CARRENO BARTOX
4 years ago
Dearest Pamela !
Billions of Influenza patients and ten thousands of COVID19 patients have been treated with medications which are suppressing their vital immune systems, medicaments which can be bought over the counter !!!
Here the most popular medicaments for treating Influenza which are widely used also by patients suffering of COVID19:
ACETAMINOPHEN (PARACETAMOL), ISOBUTYLPHENYLPROPIONIC ACID (IBUPROFEN), METAMIZOL-SODIUM (NOVALGIN, banned in US), and their “relatives” / derivatives.
And what for ?
Mostly to lower pain and fever which come with influenza and COVID19 – right ?
Sure – fever & pain make us feeling sometimes very uncomfortable and bad – BUT to lower fever and pain, which in unnumbered cases could be supported and treated otherwise without drugs … is it worth to WEAKEN our immune system, which is the ONLY OPTION to kill the viruses, especially in elder people cases ?!
NOBODY KNOWS how many patients passed “more comfortably” away because of taking these medicaments which have influenced their immune system negatively.
Don’t let us forget how wicked and selfish a lot of pharmaceutical companies were and are acting, and how much money is made by them and the pharmacies, with medicaments which are sometimes dubious and dangerous.
Do not forget :
Pharmacists basically do not study medicine, do not examine patients, cannot judge the level of illness, are not entitled to recommend medicaments whithout a proper diagnosis, and therefore are NOT Medical Doctors.
Be sure – the producers and their lobbyists won’t let pass the opportunity to make BIG money during the COVID19 pandemic…
By the way – the active ingredients of ACETAMINOPHEN (PARACETAMOL, TYLENOL), ISOBUTYLPHENYLPROPIONIC ACID (IBUPROFEN), are mostly produced in ASIA, and are unbelievable cheap – BILLIONS are made by selling them…
Last not least : NOTHING is proved regarding “CHLOROQUIN” – the study which is made in FRANCE is absolutely dubious, has no relevance for the human body.
NOBODY could pretend to know if CHLOROQUIN is a useful or a possibly dangerous treatment against Influenza and COVID19 !
sumsrent
4 years ago
TDS = Trumpo Derangement Syndrome…
These people worship the idiot Trumpo… they believe he is a god…
They are mesmerized by every word the massive lying idiot Trumpo speaks…
They are incapable of deciphering the idiot Trumpo’s lies…
The head of the FDA backpedaled immediately, saying testing had only started and has a long way to go.
Obviously you automatically believe anything Trump says. What you automatically need to do is to do a sanity check on anything Trump says.
It is the conflict of our age, yet no one dares talk about it. The true story of the Islamic Supremacist war on free speech as told by those on the front lines fighting for our First Amendment rights,
.
Pamela Geller tells her own story of how she became one of the world's foremost activists for the freedom of speech,
individual rights, and equality of rights for all. "It's my story, it's what happens when someone fights for freedom in America today,"
Geller explained.
Today Islamic supremacists are demanding more accommodation of Islamic principles
and practices than ever, and daily growing more aggressive in eroding our freedoms – with politically
correct public officials only too happy..
Popular conservative blogger Pamela Geller and New York Times bestselling author
Robert Spencer sound a wake-up call for Americans to stop the Obama administration from limiting our
hard-won...
The Ground Zero Mosque: The Second Wave of the 9/11 Attacks is a groundbreaking documentary on the controversy
over the planned Islamic supremacist mega-mosque at Ground Zero.
Tech giants are shutting us down. You know this. Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Adsense, Pinterest permanently banned us. Facebook, Google search et al have shadow-banned, suspended and deleted us from your news feeds. They are disappearing us. But we are here.
