Author: HP McLovincraft

Seeker of rabbit holes. Pessimist. Libertine. Contrarian. Your huckleberry. Possibly true tales of sanity-blasting horror also known as abject reality. Prepare yourself. Veteran of a thousand psychic wars. I have seen the fnords. Deplatformed on Tumblr and Twitter.

The Feds Are Still the Jackbooted Thugs We Were Warned About

Federal law-enforcement agents brutally enforcing the government’s will against a segment of the population on the outs with the current administration are “jack-booted government thugs,” the National Rifle Association (NRA) charged in communications with its membership. Questioned by the press, the gun-rights group’s Wayne LaPierre defended the heated words, saying “they are a pretty close description of what’s happening in the real world.”

But that was in 1995, and the federal agents in question were (very much still) out-of-control agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). Now booted-and-helmeted Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agents battle protesters in Portland over the protests of local officials, adding fuel to the fire of violent demonstrations there and in a growing number of other cities. Yet the NRA and other past critics of federal overreach are silent.

The NRA’s tough 1995 language came at a time of increasing government restrictions on self-defense rights, including the 1994 “assault weapons” ban. Gun opponents pushed hard at the state and federal level to limit the types of firearms that Americans could own.

Enforcement of restrictive laws brought complaints about the government’s methods. As early as 1982, even before federal misconduct at Ruby Ridge and Waco, a report by the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution concluded that “enforcement tactics made possible by current federal firearms laws are constitutionally, legally, and practically reprehensible.”

That was the climate in which the NRA wrote in a fund-raising letter that “not too long ago, it was unthinkable for federal agents wearing Nazi bucket helmets and black storm trooper uniforms to attack law-abiding citizens.”

Twenty-five years later, “heavily armed men in camouflage fatigues advanc[ed] in a skirmish line along downtown Portland’s Main Street at 2 a.m., firing tear gas at fleeing crowds,” The Oregonian reports. “Federal officers clearing out nearby Lownsdale Square, yanking shields from some people and striking others with batons. Uniformed government agents pulling at least two people into unmarked vans off city streets for questioning.”

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The Key to Defeating COVID-19 Already Exists. We Need to Start Using It

As professor of epidemiology at Yale School of Public Health, I have authored over 300 peer-reviewed publications and currently hold senior positions on the editorial boards of several leading journals. I am usually accustomed to advocating for positions within the mainstream of medicine, so have been flummoxed to find that, in the midst of a crisis, I am fighting for a treatment that the data fully support but which, for reasons having nothing to do with a correct understanding of the science, has been pushed to the sidelines. As a result, tens of thousands of patients with COVID-19 are dying unnecessarily. Fortunately, the situation can be reversed easily and quickly.

I am referring, of course, to the medication hydroxychloroquine. 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.

On May 27, I published an article in the American Journal of Epidemiology (AJE) entitled, “Early Outpatient Treatment of Symptomatic, High-Risk COVID-19 Patients that Should be Ramped-Up Immediately as Key to the Pandemic Crisis.” That article, published in the world’s leading epidemiology journal, analyzed five studies, demonstrating clear-cut and significant benefits to treated patients, plus other very large studies that showed the medication safety.

Physicians who have been using these medications in the face of widespread skepticism have been truly heroic. They have done what the science shows is best for their patients, often at great personal risk. I myself know of two doctors who have saved the lives of hundreds of patients with these medications, but are now fighting state medical boards to save their licenses and reputations. The cases against them are completely without scientific merit.

Since publication of my May 27 article, seven more studies have demonstrated similar benefit. In a lengthy follow-up letter, also published by AJE, I discuss these seven studies and renew my call for the immediate early use of hydroxychloroquine in high-risk patients. These seven studies include: an additional 400 high-risk patients treated by Dr. Vladimir Zelenko, with zero deaths; four studies totaling almost 500 high-risk patients treated in nursing homes and clinics across the U.S., with no deaths; a controlled trial of more than 700 high-risk patients in Brazil, with significantly reduced risk of hospitalization and two deaths among 334 patients treated with hydroxychloroquine; and another study of 398 matched patients in France, also with significantly reduced hospitalization risk. Since my letter was published, even more doctors have reported to me their completely successful use.

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