What's the Deal With Hydroxychloroquine?

In June of 2020 the FDA withdrew their Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) regarding hydroxychloriquine. The first and most obvious take away was that the FDA has a history with hydroxychloriquine and it’s off label use. The history of hydroxychloriquine goes back a bit [2] and is rooted in quinine. That history goes even further back than the creation of the FDA. The use of quinine in one form or another has, if not an ancient background, a history that’s old enough.

Jesuit missionaries were first taught of the healing art of quinine by the natives of Peru in the mid 17^th century. [3] When the Countess of Chincon of Spain, the wife of the Viceroy of Peru, contracted malaria, Jesuit’s recommended this tree bark powder. She healed from her bout with malaria. Impressed with the cure, she had large quantities of the cinchona tree bark powder shipped back to Spain. For almost 200 years this tree bark powder was used for a variety of ailments.

It took some time for Jesuit powder to have the chemical agent quinine identified as the active ingredient beneficial in the healing of malaria. In 1820, Pierre Joseph Pelletier and Joseph Caventou isolated quinine and extracted from the bark. [4] Once that happened, besides the development of the gin and tonic, quinine became a common tool in folk medicine. Medicine to treat general malaise as well as malaria. Simple quinine has long been recognized for its versatility.

By 1934 a derivative of quinine, chloroquine was developed. Shortly after, hydroxychloriquine was developed. [5] This newly developed drug was also successful in the treatment o f malaria and widely used by the United States military during World War II for soldiers fighting in the Pacific.

Because of the toxicity of chloroquine [6], a drug studied in clinical trials (1945) and approved, a new derivative was developed. That was hydroxychloriquine.

Since WWII, hydroxychloriquine has become a standard medicine for the treatment of malaria. Regarding lupus, it was actually quinine that was first used to treat cutaneous lupus in 1834. After chloroquine and hydroxychloriquine had been synthesized, by 1955 HQC was found to be an effective treatment for systemic lupus and rheumatoid arthritis as well. In 1956 the FDA approved the off-label use of HQC not only lupus and rheumatoid arthritis but for skin inflammation, hair loss, mouth sores, fatigue and joint pain. [7]

By the 1960’s, chloroquine was showing anti-cancer properties and by the early 2000’s HCQ was also showing anti-cancer properties. [8] In 2014, the results of the first clinical trial on HCQ’s anti-cancer properties was published. [9] In 2005, Virology Journal published a study titled: *Chloroquine is a potent inhibitor of SARS coronavirus infection and spread.* [10]

This study shows the strong antiviral effects of chloroquine while also stating that no prophylactic or post-exposure therapy is available. The study does conclude that the compound is effective in slowing the spread of the SARS coronavirus. That’s just chloroquine. The clinical trials the mainstream media and even Dr. Anthony Fauci have insisted don’t exist, started publishing in 2005 through 2014.

HCQ had long been an FDA approved drug for many uses when Donald Trump first suggested in a press briefing that it might work on COVID-19. [11] Then the circus followed. [12] On March 24^th, NPR reported that “an Arizona man and his wife was hospitalized after the couple ingested a form of chloroquine which turned out to be fish tank cleaner. [13] As absurd as that story was it set the tone for media alarm, questionable studies and ultimately the FDA’s withdrawal of their EUA regarding HCQ.

There was a concerted effort by mainstream experts to undermine the perception that HQC – a very inexpensive drug – even before that withdrawal. The most infamous example was the now retracted study published by The Lancet [14]. This was first published online in May of 2020. Before that, medRxiv published an online study of veterans hospitals and patients with Covid-19 and the use of HCQ [15].

The study not only found no evidence that HCQ reduced symptoms, they found an increased mortality by those treated with the drug. By late May, Dr. Anthony Fauci was declaring HCQ an ineffective treatment for Covid-19. [16] The World Health Organization (WHO) was in the midst of its own study of the four most promising treatments for Covid, HCQ among them [17], but following the Lancet study, the WHO stopped that study.

At the center of the Lancet study was it’s use of data from a then unknown analytic company called Surgisphere. The Lancet study itself wasn’t a randomized controlled study. What it did rely upon was what Surgisphere claimed was a very large registry of observational data. They claimed to have collected the hospital records of almost 100,000 Covid-19 patients from 671 hospitals spanning six continents. [18] Dutifully, the mainstream media sounded the alarm.

CBS NEWS reported that a “large study finds drugs touted by Trump is ‘not useful and may be harmful’ for Covid-19 patients. [19] Reuters declared “drug touted by Trump to treat Covid-19 linked to higher death risk.” [20] The Washington Post warned “Antimalarial drug touted by President Trump is linked to increased risk of death in coronavirus patients, study says.” [21] Financial Times blared “Drug touted by Trump linked to higher death rates.” [22]

This is when the WHO halted their study. France revised prescription regulations based upon the Lancet study. [23] It didn’t take long, however, for the problems with the data of the Lancet study to have a light shined upon them. Perhaps one of the most obvious problems was the high numbers of cases presented by the data. In some continents the numbers from the data exceeded the number of cases or deaths. Efforts by The Scientist and The Guardian failed to find any hospitals that had contributed to the registry. [24] [25]

As this was happening there were doctors on the front line of this pandemic who were using HCQ as a therapy for the virus. The International Journal for Infectious Disease (IJID) published a study on the 1^st of July that found; “among hospitalized patients, use of hydroxychloriquine alone and in combination with azithromycin was associated with a significant reduction in hospital-mortality compared to not receiving hydroxychloriquine. [26] Some might have been led to believe, after so many health-agencies recommending against HCQ that such a study couldn’t happen. Yet it did.

It happened because individual doctors who had experienced success with HCQ continued to use it despite what the mainstream apparatus was claiming. [27] While the mainstream media did report on the IJID study, they were sure to point out the claims were “disputed.” [28] By this time the scandal revolving around Surgisphere had faded away and Lancet’s retracted study forgotten. But for many front-line doctors the effects of that scandal were felt. [29]

These front-line doctors found themselves increasingly censored by social media. [30] Despite the retracted study by The Lancet, despite the limited VA study facing increasing criticisms and even in the face of the WHO resuming their study on HCQ, by late July the outright censorship of doctors relaying their successes with HCQ was the new normal. The politicization of medicine has become that new normal.

Bibliography

1 – https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/coronavirus-covid-19-update-fda-revokes-emergency-use-authorization-chloroquine-and

2 – https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Key-events-in-the-history-of-hydroxychloroquine-The-serendipitous-identification-of-the_fig1_287806293

3 – https://rheumnow.com/blog/nine-lives-hydroxychloroquine

4 – https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3121651/#:~:text=In%201820%2C%20quinine%20was%20extracted,are%20all%20effective%20against%20malaria.

5 – https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/491452-heres-what-you-need-to-know-about-hydroxychloroquine

6 – https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3393441/

7 – https://www.lupusil.org/wp-content/uploads/plaquenil.pdf

8- https://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/content/73/1/3#:~:text=The%20use%20of%20chloroquine %20sensitizes,leading%20to%20acute%20kidney%20injury.

9 – https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4203528/

10 – https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1232869/

11 – https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7151388/