How Trump came to embrace hydroxychloroquine

Dozens of books will be written about COVID-19 and the world’s handling of the pandemic. At the top of the list of controversial subjects related to the virus may well be hydroxychloroquine (HCQ). It came to the world’s attention when President Trump spoke about it as a potential treatment for COVID-19 at one of his press briefings in March. It should not have been controversial considering that the drug has been around for over 60 years and has been used to treat a wide range of viruses, as well as malaria. But we know by now that when Trump speaks, the knee-jerk reaction of Democrats and the mainstream media is to oppose him, label his statement a “false claim” and proceed in an effort to discredit it, often using falsehoods to do so.

In an exclusive interview on my “Hidden Truth Show” podcast released today, Dr. Karladine Graves revealed for the first time how Trump came to embrace the use of the drug. Graves is a board-certified family physician and heads up the Personal Healthcare Network, a group of doctors who banded together to share medical information that is not always well-received among doctors and administrators beholden to hospital chains, insurance companies and the pharmaceutical industry.

The group was meeting about COVID-19 as early as December 2019. Soon thereafter they concluded that HCQ, combined with zinc, is a very effective treatment for COVID-19, especially if administered very soon after infection. “The hydroxychloroquine opens up the cell and allows the zinc to enter the cell,” she explained. “It actually causes the RNA of the COVID virus not to reproduce.”

They composed a letter to President Trump, informing him of the drug and its benefits. “We explained that hydroxychloroquine could be a game-changer for the American people, that we would not have to shut down our economy, we would not have to close our schools, and we would not have to quarantine,” she told me.

The letter, according to Graves, was given to the president by his late-brother, Robert Trump, who had a close relationship with one of the Network doctors. Robert reported back that he had delivered the letter and that the president had read it, according to Graves. Sure enough, the next day (March 19) Trump remarked at a White House press briefing that hydroxychloroquine has “shown very encouraging, very, very encouraging early results.” He noted that more testing was needed, but that “we’re going to be able to make that drug available almost immediately.”

The media and Democrats immediately went on the attack, determined to make Trump look foolish for making the suggestion. They were heavily invested in the narrative that COVID-19 is a huge problem that is not going away and was caused by Trump’s failure to lock down the country in January. The attacks were so fierce that Twitter took down the president’s tweet providing information about research on the drug; YouTube took down videos from doctors on the subject; and numerous states banned its use in the treatment of COVID-19, including New York.

This is despite the fact that there are numerous studies indicating the effectiveness of the drug, provided on the Network’s website. It has been around for decades and used with virtually no side effects and is easily and cheaply produced. As stated on its website, “Despite what you hear in the media from politically-motivated scientists, patients treated with HCQ are recovering quickly and without severe side effects. In fact, they report relief from their symptoms in a matter of days. They are able to return to normal life much sooner because of HCQ.”

According to one study by the Journal for Infectious Diseases, “The results of this study demonstrate that in a strictly monitored protocol-driven in-hospital setting, treatment with hydroxychloroquine alone and hydroxychloroquine + azithromycin was associated with a significant reduction in mortality among patients hospitalized with COVID-19.”

Another such study was reported by a Yale doctor in the American Journal of Epidemiology, titled “Early Outpatient Treatment of Symptomatic, High-Risk COVID-19 Patients that Should be Ramped-UP Immediately as Key to the Pandemic Crisis.”The report presents an irrefutable case for using hydroxychloroquine as a treatment and prophylactic for coronavirus. It has been widely used in numerous countries, including China, India and Russia, both as a treatment and a prophylactic by high risk populations.

In addition to media opposition to Trump, Dr. Graves insists we should also not dismiss the role played by Big Pharma, which makes no money from HCQ but stands to make billions from a vaccine. But HCQ has barely been used in America, and “15 days to flatten the curve” has turned into six months of lockdown with no end in sight as we await an expensive vaccine that may never come, may or may not be effective, may have bad side effects, may not last for more than a few months, and may or may not be taken by a significant portion of the population.

So, there it is. Cancel culture canceled what could have been the best available treatment for COVID-19. Does anyone doubt that had Trump come out against the use of HCQ that the media and Democrats would have supported it and it would have been in widespread use today? Countless lives, not to mention our economy, would have been saved.