Patterico's Pontifications

7/14/2020

But Of Course They Do: White House Attacks Dr. Fauci

Filed under: General — Dana @ 10:11 am



[guest post by Dana]

So, in the midst of a raging pandemic, the government’s top infectious disease specialist, who has labored tirelessly to help stem the spread of Covid-19, and worked equally as hard, I’m guessing, to resist publicly mocking a president for his outlandish comments and unqualified criticisms of a medical professional who has spent decades at his post, now finds himself a target of the White House because his increasing concerns about a disease running amok is distracting Americans from the president’s re-election strategy:

Fauci’s advice has often run contrary to President Trump’s views, and the attacks on Fauci have begun to look like a traditional negative political campaign against an opponent. Yet this time, the opponent is a public health expert and career civil servant working within the administration.

Dan Scavino, deputy chief of staff for communications, shared a cartoon on his Facebook page late Sunday that depicted Fauci as a faucet flushing the U.S. economy down the drain with overzealous health guidance to slow the spread of the pandemic.

The cartoon, which shows Fauci declaring schools should remain closed and calling for “indefinite lockdowns,” did not accurately portray what Fauci has advised in public.

Untitled

Adm. Brett Giroir, the administration’s testing czar offered this opinion of Fauci:

“I respect Dr. Fauci a lot, but Dr. Fauci is not 100 percent right and he also doesn’t necessarily, and he admits that, have the whole national interest in mind,” Giroir told “Meet the Press” on Sunday. “He looks at it from a very narrow public health point of view.”

Of course neither Fauci nor Giroir nor any health care professional is right 100 percent of the time. None of them walk on water, but giving Fauci the benefit of the doubt for having the nation’s best interest at heart isn’t difficult. Understanding that experts can be wrong at times should be a given. But seeing health experts change course when new data demands actually signals that they are willing to be corrected and are willing to adapt their practice as new information is provided.

As posted yesterday, infection rates are spiking in a number of states, with some governors re-introducing soft lockdowns because of increased transmission. Meanwhile, Trump, who is desperate to get the economy humming so that an economic rebound happens before November’s election, continues to downplay virus concerns. There is no question that Americans need to work. There is no question that businesses need to be up and running. There is no question that there is an increased risk of transmission when people congregate in close proximity to one other. And there is no question that there is an even greater risk of transmission when those people congregating in close proximity to one other do not observe social distancing measures, including wearing a mask. All of these things can be true at the same time. It’s not an either-or proposition. The question, for the thousandth time, is how best to balance public health and the economy. Clearly Trump’s strategy has been to downplay any risk, blame increased testing for increased numbers, suggest that the disease will just “disappear,” and as recently as last weekend, echo claims that everyone is lying:

Untitled (Recovered)

Because government health care experts found themselves put in an awkward position by Trump’s careless retweet, Giroir was compelled to publicly deny that he or his colleagues lie to the public .

Fauci commented about his lack of communication with the president these days:

Fauci, who has not appeared at recent White House task force briefings and has been largely absent from television, told the Financial Times last week that he last saw Trump in person at the White House on June 2 and hadn’t briefed him in at least two months.

He blamed the fact that he has refused to toe the administration’s line for its refusal to approve many of his media requests.

“I have a reputation, as you probably have figured out, of speaking the truth at all times and not sugar-coating things. And that may be one of the reasons why I haven’t been on television very much lately,” Fauci said.

And interestingly:

Fauci’s public contradictions of Trump have been viewed by the president as a personal affront and have caused some in the West Wing to sour on the doctor, officials say. Some say that, while he is critical of the president in media interviews, he is largely deferential behind closed doors. And they complain about those outside the administration, including some in the media, who have elevated Fauci at the expense of other officials.

The White House, however, views things a bit differently:

“I have a very good relationship with Dr. Fauci,” Trump told reporters Monday, calling him “a very nice person.” But the president added, “I don’t always agree with him.”

That supportive message was not echoed by Peter Navarro, a top White House trade adviser who has been working on the coronavirus effort.

In an email, Navarro continued to criticize Fauci to The Associated Press on Monday, saying the doctor has “a good bedside manner with the public but he has been wrong about everything I have ever interacted with him on.” That includes, he said, downplaying the early risk of the virus and expressing skepticism over the use of hydroxychloroquine, which Navarro has aggressively championed despite contradictory evidence on its efficacy and safety.

And now, unsurprisingly, just as fast as you can say “bad public relations,” Fauci is back at the White House:

A day after President Trump’s press office tried to undermine the reputation of the nation’s top infectious disease expert with an anonymously attributed list of what it said were his misjudgments in the early days of the coronavirus, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci returned to the White House on Monday.

Dr. Fauci — who has not had direct contact with the president in more than five weeks even as the number of Americans with Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, has risen sharply in the Southwest — slipped back into the West Wing to meet with Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, while his allies denounced what they called a meanspirited and misguided effort by the White House to smear him.

White House officials declined to comment on what was discussed in the conversation between Mr. Meadows, who has long expressed skepticism about the conclusions of the nation’s public health experts, and Dr. Fauci, though one official called it a good conversation and said they continued to have a positive relationship.

Note: The cartoon that Scavino shared on Facebook was drawn by none other than Ben Garrison, whose anti-Semitic cartoon got him barred from the White House in 2019.

–Dana

105 Responses to “But Of Course They Do: White House Attacks Dr. Fauci”

  1. Good morning.

    Dana (25e0dc)

  2. Why did Fauci lie about the efficacy of masks back in March?

    Was Fauci unaware of the 2005 NIH study that suggested chloroquine as a treatment for the coronavirus family?

    Just askin’.

    Capsaicin Addict (041266)

  3. Fauci isn’t sufficiently devoted to Trump so he must go.

    Time123 (306531)

  4. The problem with Trump’s smear campaign against Fauci is that everyone knows it’s a smear campaign against Fauci.
    The other problem is that two-thirds of the American people trust Fauci when it comes to CV19 and only 26% trust Trump.

    Paul Montagu (52bb2d)

  5. “Why did Fauci lie about the efficacy of masks back in March?”

    Trump supporter very concerned about lies.

    Davethulhu (5612ad)

  6. Why did Fauci lie about the efficacy of masks back in March?

    Was Fauci unaware of the 2005 NIH study that suggested chloroquine as a treatment for the coronavirus family?

    Just askin’.

    Capsaicin Addict (041266) — 7/14/2020 @ 10:16 am

    He was wrong. He’s since done a 180 on that and admitted he was wrong.

    Time123 (306531)

  7. Allahpundit scratches his head:

    What’s the White House’s strategy in going after Fauci?

    I’m cringing at my own headline since there rarely is any conventional “strategy” anymore. There’s just the president doing what he wants to do — grumbling about NASCAR banning the Confederate flag at events, say, or taking jabs at his top infectious disease expert — and the people around him scrambling to back him up reflexively irrespective of how it might affect his chances this fall. Nearly every Trump move can hypothetically be rationalized as a stratagem designed to please his base and maximize their turnout, but that assumption gets weaker by the day. He’s thrown so many bones to populists already by attacking their hate objects that there can’t be any voters left on the right at this point that require further persuasion to commit to him. Who’s still holding out after Trump’s rants about BLM and Democratic governors using lockdowns to tank the economy and the “deep state,” etc etc etc, and just needs a *little* bit more antagonism towards Anthony Fauci from POTUS before finally deciding to vote for Trump this fall?

    […]

    Then they started circulating to reporters a list of comments made by Fauci about the pandemic that turned out to be wrong or shortsighted in hindsight. I’ve never heard of a White House pushing oppo on their own guy, and certainly never on an official like Fauci who’s liked and trusted by most of the public. Most administrations would consider someone like that an asset, worthy of *greater* public visibility in the hope and belief that voters’ respect for Fauci might translate into respect for Fauci’s boss as well. As it is, Trump cronies like Stephen Moore are openly chattering to reporters about their plans to try to further damage his reputation […]

    It doesn’t bother me at all that Trump has apparently decided to try to lose the election. It’s the “taking America down with him” part that’s problematic…

    Dave (1bb933)

  8. it’s not fauci has been unfallible, not in the least,

    https://fumento.com/articles/dr_faucis_recurring_disease_nightmares_often_dont_materialize/

    narciso (7404b5)

  9. Trump supporter very concerned about lies bad coronavirus advice!

    Fixed.

    Dave (1bb933)

  10. Note: The cartoon that Scavino shared on Facebook was drawn by none other than Ben Garrison, whose anti-Semitic cartoon got him barred from the White House in 2019.

    His drawing style definitely looked familiar to me, and not in a good way.

    JVW (ee64e4)

  11. He’s thrown so many bones to populists already by attacking their hate objects that there can’t be any voters left on the right at this point that require further persuasion to commit to him.

    Yup! That’s all Trumpkindom is about. Hate objects.

    nk (1d9030)

  12. Dr. Fauci is certainly a learned and experienced source for reasoned and seasoned guidance through this maze of knowns and unknowns. However, there is a tendency in the media to create a singular, ‘go-to’ guy to tap as a contrarian to another source simpl to generate controversy. Fox excels at this formula. It makes for good conflict TeeVee– generating more entertaining heat than enlightenment, but does little to help a viewer discern an chart a safe course.

    _____

    OT- Remember when James Baker used ‘jobs’ as a rationale to wage war over oil and energy policies? Apparently Plagiarist JoeyBee swiped the same rationale today announcing a plan to assault climate change in his speech– a speech in Wilmington where he was slurring his words again:

    “When I think about climate change, I think about jobs.” – JoeyBee 7-14-20

    Jobs? Like the jobs of Delaware-based Dupont pumping out pollutants into the atmosphere for decades Who was their senator for decades, JoeyBee? He is also slurring his words again.

    He’s an idiot.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  13. I think Allahpundit misses the point though.

    It’s not about winning over more low-information, white grievance types, it’s about feeding them a steady diet of alternative reality so they remain blissfully ignorant of everything he doesn’t want them thinking about.

    His love interest, Little Rocket Man, would understand perfectly.

    Dave (1bb933)

  14. I agree, Dave.

    Keeping his base doped up on alternative reality is foremost on his list. If he didn’t do this, they might wake up from their stupor and realize that Trump world is little more of a sham perpetuated by a an individual’s craven need to use anyone and do anything to retain his power. He is the swamp, and the swamp is him.

    Dana (25e0dc)

  15. Note: I reduced the size of Woolery’s tweet by 20% because it wasn’t displaying well in my browser. I hope that fixed it for anyone with similar issues without messing it up for those who were already able to view it just fine.

    JVW (ee64e4)

  16. JVW,

    A follow-up to cartoonist Ben Garrison:

    Ben Garrison is suing the ADL for calling him anti-Semitic. He’s represented by Steven Biss, most known for helping Devin Nunes sue a cow.

    Dana (25e0dc)

  17. Steven Biss sounds like a credit to his vocation in the same way that the former superstar-in-waiting for the Democrat Party Michael Avenatti is.

    JVW (ee64e4)

  18. Dave — if he can take America down in the right way, he can pin the blame on everyone else and rally his base behind him as the only possible savior.

    aphrael (f63619)

  19. 2. Capsaicin Addict (041266) — 7/14/2020 @ 10:16 am

    Why did Fauci lie about the efficacy of masks back in March?

    Because a that time they were saying – others dealing with supply issues – that there was a shortage of masks. He (and others) didn’t exactly lie, but he came close to arguing they were useless if you weren’t infected so that people wouldn’t buy them.

    It was a half truth then, and it is half truth now that they have it the other way..

    At that time (prepared March 4, 2020, before any lockdowns) New York City had a fact sheet that said in part:

    If you’re feeling well, no need to wear a face mask – and don’t worry if someone else does. People wear masks for many reasons – be respectful.

    Maybe the first way closer to the truth – they are mainly useful for preventing someone who has it from giving it to someone else, but could also be valuable if you knew you were likely to be exposed.

    Now if only 1 in 200 or 1 in 500 people you might meet is contagious, wearing a mask is not likely to have much of a point to it, since there is a low risk of catching the disease in the first place.

    There are several kinds of masks. The ones they wanted health care workers, who could be around known coronavirus cases, to have, were called N95, the strongest but to have that effect they had to be fitted like a gas mask..

    Sammy Finkelman (c54485)

  20. Fauci is another hack who should be put in the private sector to suffer in the shutdown.

    mg (8cbc69)

  21. Was Fauci unaware of the 2005 NIH study that suggested chloroquine as a treatment for the coronavirus family?

    There are several fact checks on that, but they don’t say he didn’t know, but rather that he (and everybody else) was justified in disregarding it.

    They don’t establish that he was in fact justified in disregarding it, even if that’s the sort of thing federal drug regulatory agencies do all the time, especially since there was anecdotal evidence that it worked.

    https://healthfeedback.org/claimreview/blog-posts-inaccurately-claim-that-a-2005-nih-study-demonstrated-the-effectiveness-of-chloroquine-treatment-against-coronavirus-infection-such-as-covid-19

    The argument is that that 2005 study was in vitro and here we are dealing with in vivo and a lot of times things that look good in vitro don’t do much to fight the disease in vivo and also that SARS-CoV-1 and SARS-CoV-2 are only 79% genetically identical (which however I think means that a random antibody produced by the body against SARS should work 79% of the time also against SARS-CoV-2. And things that are not antibodies should work perhaps more often because some of the mutations don;t matter much.)

    The Politifact fact check mostly spends time knocking down straw men, pretending one report about it is the whole case for paying attention to that study.

    https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/may/06/blog-posting/dont-fall-conspiracy-about-dr-anthony-fauci-hydrox

    This argues that the study dealt with chloroquine and Trump was talking about a similar, but not identical drug called hydroxychloroquine (which is safer by the way) It claims both are risky for people with heart problems. (?!)

    It says that the One News Now story claims it was published in “the official publication of Dr. Fauci’s National Institutes of Health.” which isn’t true.

    One News Now also claimed that “HCQ functions as both a cure and a vaccine” (!!?) which is nonsense (it’s mostly useful at stopping an infection before it gets really going and maybe only if there is enough zinc in the bloodstream. And it only increases the odds.) Rudolph Giuliani said yesterday on his radio show that he knows people who took it and he thinks it helped.

    The Politifact fact check also argues that we can ignore cell culture activity because it is only the first step, and many antivirals never made it all the way to clinical use, and that’s that. Now there are two obvious flaws with that last statement. First it is talking about anti virals not this, and second the fact that most anti virals fail at later steps in the development process doesn’t mean they had to fail. They maybe didn’t fail at all but were abandoned.

    Sammy Finkelman (c54485)

  22. I don’t trust left-wing “factcheckers’. Talk about false advertising. When you have to fact-check the fact-checkers they can’t be relied on.

    rcocean (2e1c02)

  23. 7.

    Most administrations would consider someone like that an asset, worthy of *greater* public visibility in the hope and belief that voters’ respect for Fauci might translate into respect for Fauci’s boss as well

    Trump didn’t appoint him, although he (or Mike Pence) named him to the coronavirus task force.

    The Washington Post seems to suspect that it is Peter Navarro who compiled that list of wrong statements by Dr. Anthony Fauci (maybe because Navarro early on thought this disease would be more serious.)

    It apparently struck reporters as similar to what a political campaign might produce against an opposing candidate.

    Sammy Finkelman (c54485)

  24. Rudolph Giuliani said yesterday on his radio show that he knows people who took it and he thinks it helped.

    Essential oils use the same scientific rigor.

    Time123 (306531)

  25. Typical media hype.

    1) Ask White house about dr. Fuaci
    2. WH responds with some truthful criticsm
    3. Fake Outrage. How dare WH attack Facui!
    4. Without evidence, talk about “WH Strategy for taking out Facui”.
    5. Without evidence speculate that Fauci is leaving CDC and being “Forced out”.
    6. Start asking Trump and his press secretary why they are “attacking Dr. Facui”.
    7. Fake more outrage about how Dr. facui is being attacked by Orange man.
    8. Rinse and repeat.

    rcocean (2e1c02)

  26. As for masks, I assume they work. But as usual no SCIENCE is provided to the public, just a “Hey this works, we mandate it”.

    I’ve also read 3 feet is adequate social distancing, and yet 6 feet is required because people thought that if you told people 6 feet, you could be more positive they’d stay 3 feet away. This is important since the 6 foot rule is being used to determine how many people can be in building at the same time.

    The public should be given the statistics and the scientific studies. Instead, we just get hysterical MSM/Democrats screeching “Lock it all down”. Or “Why, are asking questions? What are you, some sort of nut?”

    rcocean (2e1c02)

  27. 13, 14… the upcoming election transcends the current occupant in the Oval Office. Democrat politicians, the Left and the Democrats with bylines media have lectured us exactly what they like and value about America (nothing!), and they’ve also demonstrated – through riots, looting, physical assault and cancel culture – the strategy and tools they will use to transition America to their vision of a socialist paradise.

    It’s an easy choice for those clear thinkers who value freedom, capitalism, the Rule of Law, the Constitution and so many other wonderful things that enrich American lives.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  28. 22. rcocean (2e1c02) — 7/14/2020 @ 12:54 pm

    When you have to fact-check the fact-checkers they can’t be relied on.

    You always have to fact check the fact checkers.

    Clarification. I wrote:

    It says that the One News Now story claims it was published in “the official publication of Dr. Fauci’s National Institutes of Health.” which isn’t true.

    I means it isn’t true that that’s where it was published, although the article was included in their index here:

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

    It was published in something called Virology Journal,which is published in the United Kingdom, and the authors worked for the CDC or a place in Montreal (remember, SARS was in Canada) and it was funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

    Sammy Finkelman (c54485)

  29. As for masks, I assume they work. But as usual no SCIENCE is provided to the public, just a “Hey this works, we mandate it”.

    I’ve also read 3 feet is adequate social distancing, and yet 6 feet is required because people thought that if you told people 6 feet, you could be more positive they’d stay 3 feet away. This is important since the 6 foot rule is being used to determine how many people can be in building at the same time.

    The public should be given the statistics and the scientific studies. Instead, we just get hysterical MSM/Democrats screeching “Lock it all down”. Or “Why, are asking questions? What are you, some sort of nut?”

    rcocean (2e1c02) — 7/14/2020 @ 1:02 pm

    I’ll bet you spent more time complaining that no science was provided than it took me to look it up on google.

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7191274/
    http://files.fast.ai/papers/masks_lit_review.pdf

    happy reading.

    Time123 (306531)

  30. Miami is now the coronavirus epicenter as cases surge, expert says
    With more than 2,000 patients hospitalized and hundreds in Intensive Care Units, “Miami is now the epicenter of the pandemic,” one infectious disease expert said, comparing the South Florida metropolitan area to the city where the novel coronavirus originated.

    All of Florida is struggling. On Tuesday, state health officials reported 132 Covid-19 related deaths from Monday, breaking the state’s record for most deaths in a single day due to coronavirus. The previous record was 120 deaths reported July 9.

    “What we were seeing in Wuhan — six months ago, five months ago — now we are there,” Lilian Abbo, with the Jackson Health System said during a news conference hosted Monday by the Miami-Dade County mayor.
    …..
    In the past 13 days, Miami-Dade County has seen staggering increases in the number of Covid-19 patients being hospitalized (68%), in the number of ICU beds being used (69%) and in the use of ventilators (109%), the Miami-Dade County Government reported.

    Forty-eight Florida hospitals, including eight in Miami-Dade, have reached their ICU capacity, according to the Agency for Health Care Administration.
    …..
    As cases climb, experts are renewing calls for Americans to take precautions — and wear face masks. But more than two dozen states don’t have a statewide mask mandate.

    “You have a choice,” Dr. George Rutherford, a professor at the University of California, San Francisco, said. “You can be locked down as the economy goes to hell, or you can wear a mask.”
    …….

    RipMurdock (d2a2a8)

  31. 26. rcocean (2e1c02) — 7/14/2020 @ 1:02 pm

    As for masks, I assume they work. But as usual no SCIENCE is provided to the public,

    Thee isn’t any except for maybe hints.

    If masks were a medical device, I don’t think they would be approved yet by the FDA.

    I’ve also read 3 feet is adequate social distancing, and yet 6 feet is required because people thought that if you told people 6 feet, you could be more positive they’d stay 3 feet away.

    I didn;t read that, but they started out at 6 feet. This must be a rationalization for not reducing it. Actually 6 feet is not enough either. 3 feet is a good measure for the immediate effects of a cough. If we are worried about more, even 150 feet isn’t completely safe.

    hysterical MSM/Democrats screeching “Lock it all down”. Or “Why, are asking questions? What are you, some sort of nut?”

    Or “Who are you to challenge SCIENCE?

    What are you, someone who thinks the climate won’t change so as to make the Earth uninhabitable in 12 11 years unless maybe Democrats are put in charge?

    They don’t even say DOCTORS.

    Sammy Finkelman (c54485)

  32. The administration orders hospitals to bypass the C.D.C. with key virus data, alarming health experts
    …..
    The new instructions are contained in a little-noticed document posted this week on the Department of Health and Human Services’ website, Sheryl Gay Stolberg reports. From now on, H.H.S., and not the C.D.C., will collect daily reports about the patients that each hospital is treating, how many beds and ventilators are available, and other information vital to tracking the pandemic.
    ……
    Public health experts have long expressed concerns that the administration is politicizing science and undermining the disease control centers…..

    “Centralizing control of all data under the umbrella of an inherently political apparatus is dangerous and breeds distrust,” said Nicole Lurie, who served as assistant secretary for preparedness and response under former President Barack Obama. “It appears to cut off the ability of agencies like C.D.C. to do its basic job.”
    …..
    But news of the change came as a shock inside the C.D.C., which has long been responsible for gathering public health data, according to two officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it. A spokesman for the disease control centers referred questions to the Department of Health and Human Services, which has not responded to a request for comment.
    …….

    RipMurdock (d2a2a8)

  33. The attacks on Fauci further confirm that Trump is stumbling around as he tries desperately to come up with a solid campaign platform. We all know he’s not about cleaning out any swamp, he’s not concerned about the well being of Americans during a pandemic, Mexico will never pay for a wall, etc., etc. He can’t seem to get any traction in his re-election strategies. Now he is attempting to make an economic rebound happen. But for that to be successful (whether it’s accurate or not), this pesky virus must either be stopped, or, stop taking up so much space in the American conversation. He must distract Americans from it if it won’t go away on its own, or he won’t have a lane toward victory.

    Dana (25e0dc)

  34. 29. The second link seems to cover a lot of ground but it’s talking about cloth masks. Like I said, if this was amedical device it would not yet be approved by the FDA. There seems to be a double standard, depenning on wat kind of an intervention it is.

    These rules are put together like Bismarck said legislation was.

    Laws are like sausages. It’s better not to see them being made.

    Except maybe it wasn’t Bismarck: (after all, Imperial Germany wasn’t exactly a full democracy)

    And the quotation itself seems to contain an echo of “The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair, which was not published until 1906. After Bismarck died – he was dismissed from power in 1890 and died in 1898. And it was published in the United States. But “The Jungle” does not talk specifically about sausages.

    https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/07/08/laws-sausages

    This is usually attributed to Bismarck, but the Iron Chancellor was not associated with that quip until the 1930’s. The Daily Cleveland Herald, March 29, 1869, quoted lawyer-poet John Godfrey Saxe that “Laws, like sausages, cease to inspire respect in proportion as we know how they are made,” and this may be the true origin of the saying.

    More:

    Why was the quotation assigned to Otto von Bismarck? Bismarck is more famous than Saxe, and quotes are sometimes credited to greater luminaries. But there is another possible reason. The researcher John Baker found a remarkable anecdote about Bismarck that emphasizes the unpalatable nature of some sausages. This story was repeated for decades and may have popularly connected Bismarck with sausages. The tale recounts a proposed duel between Otto von Bismarck and the scientist Rudolf Virchow that would have used sausages as the weapon of choice. Baker noted that the story “goes back at least to A.H. Miles, One Thousand and One Anecdotes (1895).” QI located a version of the anecdote in a South Carolina newspaper in 1867 [DBV]:

    (In this account Vichow is misspelled as Vircow.)

    A Berlin journal relates that the famous Bismarck once challenged Dr. Vircow for offensive language used in parliamentary debate. The learned doctor was at that time engaged in investigations relating to trichinosis. He is said to have thus replied to the messenger who bore Bismarck’s challenge: “My arms; there they are—those two sausages. One of them is full of trichinae; the other is pure. Let his Excellency breakfast with me. We will eat the sausages; and he shall take his choice of them.”

    Sammy Finkelman (c54485)

  35. 33… We all know he’s not about cleaning out any swamp, he’s not concerned about the well being of Americans during a pandemic,

    We all don’t know that.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  36. 29. The second link seems to cover a lot of ground but it’s talking about cloth masks. Like I said, if this was a medical device it would not yet be approved by the FDA.

    Sammy, The 2nd link is a summary of many different studies and an assessment of what they say and their methods. They note that the science is ‘advancing rapidly’. Which implies there’s a lot we don’t know right now. I posted it because RCocean said that there wasn’t any science to back up the mask recommendation and implied he wanted to know more.

    The science around the use of masks by the general public to impede
    COVID-19 transmission is advancing rapidly. Policymakers need
    guidance on how masks should be used by the general population
    to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. Here, we synthesize the relevant
    literature to inform multiple areas: 1) transmission characteristics of
    COVID-19, 2) filtering characteristics and efficacy of masks, 3) estimated population impacts of widespread community mask use, and
    4) sociological considerations for policies concerning mask-wearing

    The preponderance of evidence indicates that mask wearing reduces the transmissibility per contact by reducing transmission of infected droplets in both laboratory and clinical contexts.

    Public mask wearing is most effective at stopping spread of the virus when compliance is high. The decreased transmissibility could substantially reduce the death toll and
    economic impact while the cost of the intervention is low. Thus we
    recommend the adoption of public cloth mask wearing, as an effective form of source control, in conjunction with existing hygiene, distancing, and contact tracing strategies. We recommend that public
    officials and governments strongly encourage the use of widespread
    face masks in public, including the use of appropriate regulation.

    Time123 (306531)

  37. Teh Grifter: As the Worm Squirms…

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNvuYPpX0C0

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  38. 33… We all know he’s not about cleaning out any swamp, he’s not concerned about the well being of Americans during a pandemic,

    We all don’t know that.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 7/14/2020 @ 1:57 pm

    I agree with CH, it’s wrong to say we all know that. It’s more accurate to say the evidence is clear and consistent that he’s not about cleaning out any swamp, he’s not concerned about the well being of Americans during a pandemic

    Time123 (306531)

  39. 38… you have less than 4 months to go before you will be among those who will be rending garments and grimacing heavenward, as your lamentations and tears are savored by the victors.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  40. 5. Then I, most certainly not a Trump supporter, will ask the question: Why did Fauci lie about masks back in March?

    Gryph (08c844)

  41. 33. I think Fauci is a lying weasel, and I didn’t (and won’t) vote for Donald Trump. How do you account for these apparently irreconcilable and mutually exclusive assertions?

    Gryph (08c844)

  42. 33.The attacks on Fauci further confirm that Trump is stumbling around as he tries desperately to come up with a solid campaign platform.

    The biggest mistake everyone has made who has ever had dealings w/Trump–in public life, business or private life– is underestimating him. He has an established ‘platform’– it’s a big one, and he’s building sub-divisions allover it:

    “The Great Silent Majority”: ‘White people constitute the majority of the U.S. population, with a total of about 234,370,202 or 73% of the population as of 2017…’ – source, wikisecretTrumpVoters

    It’s gonna be Nixn Redux seasoned w/some George Wallace.

    “You want to know what the State of the Union is – and I’m gonna tell you what the State of the Union is. There are folks that say that there is a fly in the ointment. And it’s not the Communists. And it’s not the Birchers. There is a villain in history, though. And it’s not the Jews. It’s not the labor leaders. It’s not the bankers. And it’s not the Russians. And it isn’t the even the Chinese. Who? Who after all, then, has caused all of our troubles? Those who are stiff, baby! Not with love, but with age! While we’re young, we’ve lived in small pads with no bread. While they’re living high and fat – with all the money! Well, troops, I want to tell you that they’re heavy with honey. And they can’t fly. You better believe me that they can’t fly! Now, some of us have changed this for ourselves already. But, now we’re gonna change it for everyone. You give me the tools. You give me the laws! Give *me* – the power!” – Max Frost [Christopher Jones] ‘Wild In The Streets’ 1968

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  43. OT- USS Bonhomme Richard still burning in San Diego; USN says $1.5 billion ship may ‘still be salvageable.’

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  44. 43. For every minute it continues to burn, the chance of anything about or aboard that ship being salvageable decreases.

    Gryph (08c844)

  45. I’ve been following it (my son is stationed in San Diego, luckily not on that ship), and I’m super skeptical at this point that the ship is anything other than a future coral reef.

    Davethulhu (5612ad)

  46. Israeli Data Show School Openings Were a Disaster That Wiped Out Lockdown Gains
    …..
    Importantly, on May 17 in Israel it appeared the virus not only was under control, but defeated. Israel reported only 10 new cases of COVID-19 in the entire country that day.
    ….
    The road from anti-coronavirus paradigm to rampant infection in this country of 9 million people followed two months of almost total lockdown. May 17 also was the day Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former rival Benny Gantz swore in their “corona emergency government,” whose sole declared purpose is to fight the spread of the virus. Netanyahu’s decree that the nation’s entire school system would reopen was a political flourish to signal everything was under control.
    ……
    On June 3, two weeks after schools opened, more than 244 students and staff were found to test positive for COVID-19.

    According to the education ministry, 2,026 students, teachers, and staff have contracted COVID-19, and 28,147 are in quarantine due to possible contagion.

    Just in the first two weeks of July, 393 kindergartens and schools open for summer programs have been shuttered due to cases of COVID-19.

    On July 2, Eric Feigl-Ding, an epidemiologist and health economist at the Federation of American Scientists, tweeted a chart showing Israel’s rate of infection surging past Europe and fast approaching the disastrous rate in the U.S., noting that it was exactly one month since the reopening of Israeli schools.
    …..
    The source of the infection explosion can be seen clearly in the numbers from June. ….. 1,400 Israelis were diagnosed with the disease last month. Of those, 185 caught it at events such as weddings, 128 in hospitals, 113 in workplaces, 108 in restaurants, bars, or nightclubs, and 116 in synagogues, according to Kliner, while 657—which is to say 47 percent of the total—were infected by the coronavirus in schools.

    “Not a single school was prepared,” says Mohammad Khatib, who teaches public health at the Zefat Academic College and is the epidemiological expert on the health ministry’s newly formed advisory committee on the coronavirus in the Arab sector.

    “Adults, including teachers and other employees, brought it into schools, which are, in the end, closed spaces,” he said, underscoring the finding that middle-school children proved to be the most dangerous vectors.
    ……
    Galia Rahav, who chairs the department of infectious diseases at the Sheba Medical Center in Tel Aviv, said in an interview that “what happened in schools is just too much gathering, day after day, and kids come home and infect mom and dad. The top numbers of new infections were in kids.”

    Due to the large number of infections among children, she noted, “the average age of an Israeli with COVID-19 has gone down to between 20 and 39,” while infections in citizens over 65 have held steady. In Jerusalem, the Israeli city with the highest rate of infection, most of the people with COVID-19 are under the age of 35.
    ……

    RipMurdock (d2a2a8)

  47. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32395713/

    I remember someone who used to post here raving about melatonin as a support for dealing with the Wuhan flu and it looks like he might have been right.

    NJRob (b794a5)

  48. @45/44. Agreed. But then, you’d expect the USN to try to put a positive spin on it- but even the local news teams pretty much see it as a lost cause– the cameras don’t lie. Apparently the hull has been breached by the heat in several spots and it is listing, albeit due to the water being dumped on it by fire boats and choppers. Seems there’s a million gallons of fuel aboard,too, that they want to keep ‘cooled’ – why they haven’t tried to offload any of it is a tip off of how extensive the damage is.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  49. Breaking – SCOTUS Justice Ginzburg hospitalized in Baltimore; being treated for an ‘infection.’

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  50. 49… relax, just a severe case of gonorrhea…

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  51. I’ve been following it (my son is stationed in San Diego, luckily not on that ship), and I’m super skeptical at this point that the ship is anything other than a future coral reef.

    Davethulhu (5612ad) — 7/14/2020 @ 3:09 pm

    You are correct. That ship has too much insane technology on board that must be relied upon. You never know, five years from now, when some tiny defect causes a catastrophe. The publicity sailors won’t admit it, but it’s training tool now.

    What a loss. This was an incredible ship.

    Dustin (724986)

  52. First COVID-19 vaccine tested in US poised for final testing
    ……
    “No matter how you slice this, this is good news,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the U.S. government’s top infectious disease expert, told The Associated Press.

    The experimental vaccine, developed by Fauci’s colleagues at the National Institutes of Health and Moderna Inc., will start its most important step around July 27: A 30,000-person study to prove if the shots really are strong enough to protect against the coronavirus.
    …….
    Those early volunteers developed what are called neutralizing antibodies in their bloodstream — molecules key to blocking infection — at levels comparable to those found in people who survived COVID-19, the research team reported in the New England Journal of Medicine.

    “This is an essential building block that is needed to move forward with the trials that could actually determine whether the vaccine does protect against infection,” said Dr. Lisa Jackson of the Kaiser Permanente Washington Research Institute in Seattle, who led the study.

    There’s no guarantee but the government hopes to have results around the end of the year — record-setting speed for developing a vaccine.

    The vaccine requires two doses, a month apart.

    There were no serious side effects. But more than half the study participants reported flu-like reactions to the shots that aren’t uncommon with other vaccines — fatigue, headache, chills, fever and pain at the injection site. For three participants given the highest dose, those reactions were more severe; that dose isn’t being pursued.

    Some of those reactions are similar to coronavirus symptoms but they’re temporary, lasting about a day and occur right after vaccination, researchers noted.
    …….

    RipMurdock (d2a2a8)

  53. Trump could win re-election on the youth vote if this keeps up.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  54. Biden seems to think the answer to Covid, AGW and various social ills is to nationalize the economy. He calls this “jobs.”

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  55. @54

    Of course. More government is the solution to all our ills.

    norcal (a5428a)

  56. It’s not Biden who murdered 138,000 Americans so his Wall Street cronies can become $600 billion plus richer. Nationalize the economy! What do you think the orange-outan has been doing for the last three and a half years?

    nk (1d9030)

  57. Why did Fauci lie about masks back in March?

    To save lives.

    Dave (1bb933)

  58. Universal Masking to Prevent SARS-CoV-2 Transmission—The Time Is Now
    ……
    Covering mouths and noses with filtering materials serves 2 purposes: personal protection against inhalation of harmful pathogens and particulates, and source control to prevent exposing others to infectious microbes that may be expelled during respiration. When asked to wear face coverings, many people think in terms of personal protection. But face coverings are also widely and routinely used as source control. For instance, if given the choice between having surgery performed by a team not wearing some covering over their mouths and noses vs a team that does, almost all patients would reject the former. This option seems absurd because it is known that use of face coverings under these circumstances reduces the risk of surgical site infection caused by microbes generated during the surgical team’s conversations or breathing. Face coverings do the same in blocking transmission of SARS-CoV-2.

    Early in the pandemic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended that anyone symptomatic for suspected coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) should wear a face covering during transport to medical care and prior to isolation to reduce the spread of respiratory droplets. After emerging data documented transmission of SARS-CoV-2 from persons without symptoms, the recommendation was expanded to the general community, with an emphasis on cloth face coverings that could be made more widely available in the community than surgical masks and to preserve personal protective equipment such as N95 respirators to the highest-risk exposures in health care settings. Now, there is ample evidence that persons without symptoms spread infection and may be the critical driver needed to maintain epidemic momentum.
    …….
    …..[I]nvestigators in Missouri found that adherence to universal masking for source control as mandated by city ordinance and company policy helped prevent transmission of SARS-CoV-2 from 2 symptomatically infected stylists at a hair salon in Springfield, Missouri. Before they were diagnosed as having COVID-19, the hair stylists had served 139 clients but had been required to wear masks at all times while working with them. After public health contact tracing with the hair salon clients and after 2 weeks of follow-up, no symptoms of COVID-19 were identified among the exposed clients or their secondary contacts. Among 104 interviewed clients, 102 (98%) reported wearing face coverings for their entire appointment. In addition, another analysis published by Goldman Sachs Research suggests that expanding community masking by 15% could prevent the need to bring back stay-at-home orders that would otherwise cost an estimated 5% of gross domestic product, or a projected cost of $1 trillion.
    ……
    ……It is probably safe for individuals and safe for others to drive alone or to walk or jog alone on an uncrowded route without a face covering. But when individuals choose to go out or must be close to others in public, a cloth face covering can help reduce the spread of COVID-19 from asymptomatic individuals or others. With cloth face coverings, personal protection is derived from their use by all members of the community.
    …….
    Footnotes removed.

    RipMurdock (d2a2a8)

  59. Fauci didn’t lie. He made his comments on March 8th, and CDC reversed its policy on April 3rd.

    LaPook, March 8: There’s a lot of confusion among people, and misinformation, surrounding face masks. Can you discuss that?
    Fauci: The masks are important for someone who’s infected to prevent them from infecting someone else… Right now in the United States, people should not be walking around with masks.
    LaPook: You’re sure of it? Because people are listening really closely to this.
    Fauci: …There’s no reason to be walking around with a mask. When you’re in the middle of an outbreak, wearing a mask might make people feel a little bit better and it might even block a droplet, but it’s not providing the perfect protection that people think that it is. And, often, there are unintended consequences — people keep fiddling with the mask and they keep touching their face.
    LaPook: And can you get some schmutz, sort of staying inside there?
    Fauci: Of course, of course. But, when you think masks, you should think of health care providers needing them and people who are ill. The people who, when you look at the films of foreign countries and you see 85% of the people wearing masks — that’s fine, that’s fine. I’m not against it. If you want to do it, that’s fine.
    LaPook: But it can lead to a shortage of masks?
    Fauci: Exactly, that’s the point. It could lead to a shortage of masks for the people who really need it

    This was before people really knew about asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic spread. When knowable facts change, positions change, which is appropriate.

    Paul Montagu (52bb2d)

  60. sad day for the navy

    mg (8cbc69)

  61. 59… there’s one obvious issue: they got Pookie involved.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  62. Biden seems to think the answer to Covid, AGW and various social ills is to nationalize the economy. He calls this “jobs.”

    That and America’s children are still not safe around him. I watched him going on today about the importance of “getting our kids to market”…

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  63. 61… which was a BIG mistake… https://youtu.be/uxSkzgxsIkg

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  64. Its like beating a dead horse with a switch coronello

    Narciso (7404b5)

  65. One reason we had a shortage of masks is that Trump had shipped our national reserve to China.

    nk (1d9030)

  66. I think Fauci is a lying weasel, and I didn’t (and won’t) vote for Donald Trump. How do you account for these apparently irreconcilable and mutually exclusive assertions?

    Think again.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  67. 66. In the first place there’s a thread for that, and in the second place what’s it got to do with Trump’s toadies attacking Fauci for not being a Trump toady?

    nk (1d9030)

  68. ‘He calls this “jobs.”’

    Reagan Seed; James Baker 101.

    “Hellooooo, Mr. Wilson!” – Dennis Mitchell [Jay North] Dennis The Menace, 1959-63, CBS-TV

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  69. It’s not Biden who murdered 138,000 Americans

    Over the top like that a lot these days, nk? So, the way you see it, Trump conspired with Putin to sneak this virus into the country, then he pretended to bar travelers from China, but secretly imported thousands of them to pollute our essence? Then what, he told people not to wear masks for months, while secretly hording them himself? Then he demanded doctors use ventilators as a first line of treatment, while turning all others away from hospitals with heart attacks and such. Then he used his mind-control rays to make Cuomo put Covid patients into nursing homes, even though Cuomo and all Democrats insisted it would kill thousands (which it did).

    Frankly, nk, you are off the loonie edge here, right up there with Truthers and flat earthers in your deranged need to blame everything on Trump. It’s beyond tiring. Take a break.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  70. Hes just had too many cheeseburgers and pepsi, or been hanging lizard lightfoot.

    Narciso (7404b5)

  71. He made his comments on March 8th, and CDC reversed its policy on April 3rd.

    He fukked up; he trusted them (paraphrasing Animal House),

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  72. I picture Fauci in the Surgeon General role in Give Me Liberty.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  73. Ah you remembered that one,

    Narciso (7404b5)

  74. So, the way you see it, Trump conspired with Putin to sneak this virus into the country, then he pretended to bar travelers from China, but secretly imported thousands of them to pollute our essence? Then what, he told people not to wear masks for months, while secretly hording them himself? Then he demanded doctors use ventilators as a first line of treatment, while turning all others away from hospitals with heart attacks and such. Then he used his mind-control rays to make Cuomo put Covid patients into nursing homes, even though Cuomo and all Democrats insisted it would kill thousands (which it did).

    No, of course not, why should I see it like that, when I have witnessed every day what Trump has actually done and not done?

    nk (1d9030)

  75. Frankly, nk, you are off the loonie edge here, right up there with Truthers and flat earthers in your deranged need to blame everything on Trump. It’s beyond tiring. Take a break.

    Patterico has provided a balm for any discomfort I may be inflicting on your tender sensibilities on the sidebar:

    Make the comments of annoying commenters disappear, with a simple comment script! Instructions here: https://is.gd/CommentScript

    nk (1d9030)

  76. There’s a reason both lawyers and doctors merely “practice.” Even meteorologists ‘guesstimate’ at best, three days out. The only things certain are death and taxes. 😉

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  77. dont let the haters rain on your sunny disposition mr nk

    Dave (1bb933)

  78. Sorry I didn’t back to this sooner. Busy day.

    https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/todaysdebate/2020/07/14/anthony-fauci-wrong-with-me-peter-navarro-editorials-debates/5439374002/

    Now, I’ll grant it’s an editorial from a guy who might be only slightly less deranged than Paul Krugman, but if even half of what he says is true the real question is why we’re still paying Fauci.

    But hey, what do I know. I am but a humble pepper from the farm.

    Capsaicin Addict (041266)

  79. 57. So how many lives did he save? When I look around at the number of people soiling themselves over a virus so deadly you have to be tested to even know you have it, it looks to me like he failed.

    Gryph (08c844)

  80. Kelly went to work for a company with two former deepstaters, so did mattis, carter page is trying to put his life together, as is general flynn who you keep trying to bury.

    Narciso (7404b5)

  81. Papadopoulos was also largely put out of business by mifsud and halpers reindeer games

    Narciso (7404b5)

  82. Scaramucci was begging hna to buy his skybridge, its a much either road to success to denounce.

    Narciso (7404b5)

  83. Mcmaster ends on the board of china dominated zoom, qui bono. Ashcroft session 1.0 ended up lobbying for qatar, of course comey was the lookout for hsbc the secomd largest laundry in the world.

    Narciso (7404b5)

  84. Sessions was savaged by an out right liar and conman who ted kennedy kremlin stooge repeated the libel, it took him 10 years to recover by winning the senate seat. Now another kremlin stooge al franken then pushed some garbage ploy to force a recusal like they did 14 years before with ashcroft.

    Narciso (7404b5)

  85. The same handoff mueller eickenrode comey fitzgerald then, wray strzok rosenstein mueller now.

    Narciso (7404b5)

  86. Vitter who was canceled by miss daniels for investigating the looting of nigeria, by clinton cronies, got back on his knees grubbing for mercury on behalf of russia.

    Narciso (7404b5)

  87. Peter Navarro’d “unauthorized column yesterday in USA Today about Dr. Anthony Fauci:

    https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/todaysdebate/2020/07/14/anthony-fauci-wrong-with-me-peter-navarro-editorials-debates/5439374002

    Published 6:45 p.m. ET July 14, 2020 | Updated 10:36 a.m. ET July 15, 2020

    Anthony Fauci has been wrong about everything I have interacted with him on: Peter Navarro

    …..In late January, when I was making the case on behalf of the president to take down the flights from China, Fauci fought against the president’s courageous decision — which might well have saved hundreds of thousands of American lives.

    When I warned in late January in a memo of a possibly deadly pandemic, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases was telling the news media not to worry.

    When I was working feverishly on behalf of the president in February to help engineer the fastest industrial mobilization of the health care sector in our history, Fauci was still telling the public the China virus was low risk.

    When we were building new mask capacity in record time, Fauci was flip-flopping on the use of masks.

    And when Fauci was telling the White House Coronavirus Task Force that there was only anecdotal evidence in support of hydroxychloroquine to fight the virus, I confronted him with scientific studies providing evidence of safety and efficacy. A recent Detroit hospital study showed a 50% reduction in the mortality rate when the medicine is used in early treatment….

    (Editorial note) Peter Navarro, an assistant to the president, is the director of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy. (Parts of this statement were shared with other news organizations. The Food and Drug Administration has revoked its approval for treating COVID-19 with hydroxychloroquine.)

    Sammy Finkelman (5818f3)

  88. Peter Navarro, an assistant to the president, is the director of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy. (Parts of this statement were shared with other news organizations. The Food and Drug Administration has revoked its approval for treating COVID-19 with hydroxychloroquine.)

    And I for one would like to know why the FDA did so, seeing as how the Lancet retracted that so-called ‘damning’ study.

    I also wonder who has stock in the manufacturers of Remdesivir.

    So many questions.

    Capsaicin Addict (041266)

  89. 54. Kevin M (ab1c11) — 7/14/2020 @ 4:51 pm

    Biden seems to think the answer to Covid, AGW and various social ills is to nationalize the economy. He calls this “jobs.”

    That’s his solution – and it not at all worked out – for the climate, and it probably has no math. In what is probably actually a sign of moderation, he put AOC in charge of developing his climate policy (and not something else. It’s just busy work)

    For Covid, his solution is listen to the public health experts. He, too, by the way, prioritizes the importance of the economy over the disease. Biden says we need to successfully handle the disease because it is necessary to do that in order to deal with the economic crisis.

    https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/joe-biden-clean-energy-plan-speech-transcript-july-14

    ….Joe Biden: (01:47)

    It’s gotten bad enough that even Donald Trump finally decided to wear a mask in public. I’m glad he made the shift. But, Mr. President, it’s not enough. We won’t be able to turn the corner and get American people back to work safely without presidential leadership. Mr. President, open everything now isn’t a strategy for success. It’s barely a slogan. Quit pushing the false choice between protecting our health and protecting our economy. All it does is endanger our recovery on both fronts.

    Joe Biden: (02:30)

    Mr. President, please listen to your public health experts instead of denigrating them. Do your job, Mr. President. Because, if we can’t deal with the public health crisis, we can’t deal with the economic crisis or deal with almost 18 million Americans who are out of work and the incredible pain inflicted on small businesses and communities of color. We can’t deal with the climate crisis that could cast us into an even darker and more permanent shadow that would loom over the country in the world for a long time…..

    Sammy Finkelman (5818f3)

  90. White House distances itself from extraordinary Navarro op-ed criticizing Fauci
    The White House on Wednesday moved to distance itself from an extraordinary op-ed in USA Today in which Peter Navarro, President Trump’s trade adviser, heavily criticized Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious-disease official, over his handling of the coronavirus crisis.

    “The Peter Navarro op-ed didn’t go through normal White House clearance processes and is the opinion of Peter alone,” White House spokeswoman Alyssa Farah said in a tweet, adding: “@realDonaldTrump values the expertise of the medical professionals advising his Administration.”
    ……
    A White House official said Wednesday that Navarro “went rogue” by writing the op-ed.

    “The White House does not stand by these unauthorized opinions,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal White House dynamics.

    RipMurdock (d2a2a8)

  91. Fauci strikes back. Well done.

    Paul Montagu (5ffc5f)

  92. USA TODAY: The Food and Drug Administration has revoked its approval for treating COVID-19 with hydroxychloroquine.)

    89. Capsaicin Addict (041266) — 7/15/2020 @ 9:10 am

    And I for one would like to know why the FDA did so, seeing as how the Lancet retracted that so-called ‘damning’ study.

    The FDA said it was asked to do so by the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) (BARDA was headed by Rick Bright until Trump had him transferred, and Bright claimed the reason was that he oppped hydroxyxhlroquine, whcich others said was not a big deal to him

    https://www.fda.gov/media/138945/download

    June 15, 2020
    Gary L. Disbrow Ph.D.
    Deputy Assistant Secretary
    Director, Medical Countermeasure Programs
    Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA)
    Office of Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR)
    U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)
    330 Independence Ave, S.W., Room 640G
    Washington, D.C. 20201

    Dear Dr. Disbrow:

    This letter is in response to your request, dated today, that the Food and Drug Administration
    (FDA) revoke the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for emergency use of oral formulations of chloroquine phosphate (CQ) and hydroxychloroquine sulfate (HCQ) to be distributed from the
    Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) issued on March 28, 2020. Like BARDA’s earlier request to FDA to issue the EUA, BARDA’s request to revoke the EUA is part of a collaborative, USGinteragency effort to rapidly respond to this continuously evolving public health emergency.

    Today’s request to revoke is based on new information, including clinical trial data results, that
    have led BARDA to conclude that this drug may not be effective to treat COVID-19 [Coronavirus Disease 2019] and that the drug’s potential benefits for such use do not outweigh its known and potential risks….

    That letter is clearly written for public consumption.

    There’s no outright legal impediment to the use of hydroxychloroquine on Covid patients since it is an established drug, and drugs can be prescribed off label. It only means that the Strategic National Stockpile will no longer distribute doses of hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine to hospitalized patients being treated for Covid-19. Companies maybe won’t donate it. Maybe there could be insurance issues. And certain people might get in trouble for using it because it isn’t approved..

    Some people in the White House are pushing for a re-authorization

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/07/10/peter-navarro-hydroxychloroquine-coronavirus/

    There are other studies.

    https://nypost.com/2020/07/03/hydroxychloroquine-can-save-covid-19-patients-lives-study

    It isn’t so great but it is not useless.

    Sammy Finkelman (3ea6b3)

  93. 93. If HCQ is approved for anything, its safety is not in question. If it were in question, then the drug would be pulled off the market and no longer available for prescription for any use. The only question concerning HCQ and CoViD-19 is whether it is effective for that particular use.

    Gryph (08c844)

  94. Drugs can have dangers, or side effects, and still remain available.

    Sammy Finkelman (3ea6b3)

  95. 95. All drugs have side effects. There is not a single effective drug that doesn’t. The question isn’t if there are side effects and/or dangers; the only question is whether those dangers outweigh the benefits of continuing to have that drug on the market. In the case of HCQ, the FDA has clearly determined that having it on the market ouweighs the risks.

    Whether it is effective in treating CoViD-19 is a legitimate question, but the way this was handled by BARDA and the way the FDA folded like a cheap suit, it all looks to me like someone somewhere has an agenda.

    Gryph (08c844)

  96. Gryph (08c844) — 7/15/2020 @ 2:53 pm

    Whether it is effective in treating CoViD-19 is a legitimate question, but the way this was handled by BARDA and the way the FDA folded like a cheap suit, it all looks to me like someone somewhere has an agenda.

    I said there was a slander campaign being waged against hydroxychloroquine.

    I don;t think the agenda is against hydroxychloroquine. IT’S AGAINST ANYTHING except a few favored drugs or approaches. Remdesivir (which for ten years has been a cure in search of a disease) seems to get a pass, but otherwise it;s vaccines only

    Monoclonal antibodies seem to be stepchildren.

    Sammy Finkelman (3ea6b3)

  97. This is one guy with the agenda. That’s the real reason he was fired, because other people knew he had an agenda. He was suspected of having favorites.

    So he goes on offense:

    https://www.statnews.com/2020/06/25/rick-bright-expand-whistleblower

    Sammy Finkelman (3ea6b3)

  98. 97. When you look at how expensive Remdesivir is (and I believe it’s still under patent, no?) vs. HCQ, the most plausible hypothesis is that someone is making a sh!tload of money off of taking HCQ off the market in this instance. There may be more to it than just that, but it does seem pretty plausible to me.

    Gryph (08c844)

  99. Remdesivir is not a direct competitor of HCQ, since Remdesivir works by preventing replication of avierus since it has infected a cell, and is thus useful in the middle to late stages of a disease, (any viral disease) while HCQ, according to two of the theories as to how it works, prevents the cell from being infected in the first place.

    It is a competitor in this way: If the disease is prevented from getting serious, there is no need for Remdesivir, but the same can be said for virtually any treatment.

    Sammy Finkelman (3ea6b3)

  100. In today;s Wall street Journal:

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-politics-of-hydroxychloroquine-11594831408

    Hubert Humphrey began his career as a pharmacist before going into politics. Today’s politicians sometimes seem to have the opposite aspiration. President Trump “pushes dangerous, disproven drugs,” Joe Biden declares in his “Plan to Beat Covid-19.” “Our country is now stuck with a massive stockpile of hydroxychloroquine, a drug Trump repeatedly hailed.”

    Neither man has any expertise in pharmacology, and Mr. Trump did get out over his skis in promoting the malaria treatment, also known as HCQ, for the novel coronavirus….

    ….The Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency use authorization on March 28, allowing hospitals to treat Covid-19 patients outside clinical trials using HCQ donated by manufacturers to the national stockpile. But on June 15 the agency rescinded the authorization. “In light of ongoing serious cardiac adverse events and other potential serious side effects,” the FDA announced, “the known and potential benefits of . . . hydroxychloroquine no longer outweigh the known and potential risks for the authorized use.”

    But the scientific basis for the revocation now appears faulty. Most studies didn’t adjust results for confounding variables such as disease severity, drug dosage or when patients started treatment. Two new peer-reviewed studies find that HCQ can significantly reduce mortality in hospitalized patients. With hospital beds filling up across the American South and West and a limited supply of Gilead Sciences ’ antiviral remdesivir, the FDA should reinstate its emergency-use authorization for HCQ.

    HCQ has been safely used for decades to treat patients with lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, both inflammatory autoimmune conditions. The drug has also been found to interfere with the novel coronavirus’s replication in vitro, and studies this spring from France, Brazil and China showed the drug might help moderately ill patients.

    HCQ also has side effects. It can cause cardiac arrhythmias, a particular risk for severely ill Covid-19 patients because the virus can damage heart tissue. But the FDA emergency authorization warned about this and required doctors to monitor patients closely and report adverse side effects to the agency.

    In late May, the Lancet published a large-scale international study that claimed hospitalized Covid-19 patients treated with HCQ were 30% more likely to die. But the medical journal retracted the study on June 4 after more than 120 scientists pointed out significant flaws in the data and methodology. The source of the raw data refused to share it with independent reviewers

    [It was an outright fabrication! And it says something that someone would go to the trouble of organizing a complicated hoax like that. This needs to be investigated. Whoever did it should be prosecuted. And we need to find out why, and at least some of the people who were behind it. This is more important than getting someone into a college. SF]

    Nonetheless, the anti-Trump media claimed vindication later that day when the New England Journal of Medicine published a randomized trial that concluded HCQ didn’t prevent illness in people who had been exposed to the virus. The study’s raw data showed that people who took HCQ within two days of exposure were 38% less likely to develop symptoms. But a third of subjects in the trial took the drug four days after exposure, which obscured its benefits. Since the average viral incubation period is five days, starting the drug four days after exposure is unlikely to do much good….

    ….The first of the new studies showing benefits from HCQ appeared in the Journal of General Internal Medicine on June 30. It found patients treated with the drug at New York’s Mount Sinai Health System hospitals were 47% less likely to die after adjusting for confounding variables such as underlying health conditions and disease severity. Notably, Mount Sinai’s treatment protocol called for lower dosages than in the Oxford trial, and patients on average were treated within one day of hospitalization.

    The second, published July 1 in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases, found that patients treated with HCQ at Henry Ford Health System hospitals in Detroit were 50% to 66% less likely to die after adjusting for confounding variables including other treatments. Nearly all patients began treatment within two days of admission, received dosages that hewed closely to FDA guidelines, and were continuously monitored for cardiac arrhythmias.

    “Our patient population received aggressive early medical intervention, and were less prone to development of myocarditis, and cardiac inflammation commonly seen in later stages of COVID-19 disease,” the Henry Ford doctors noted.

    This shouldn’t be surprising. An FDA safety review published July 1 reported only five adverse side effects from HCQ through the emergency use authorization among tens of millions of doses that were distributed to hospitals…..

    Sammy Finkelman (b4888e)

  101. 100. Not a direct competitor, huh? How about telling that to the patients who could benefit from cheap, off-label off-patnet HCQ therapy but have to shell out hundreds of dollars for multiple doses of a drug that only one manufacturer makes? If that’s a coincidence, it’s one hell of a coincidence.

    Gryph (08c844)

  102. Thee=re is a long story, and interview with Dr Zev Zelenko (as they call him) in the current issue (dated 25 Tammuz 580/July 17,2020 issue of the highly Orthodox Jewish weekly Yated Ne’eman (published in English – there is adifferent Yated Ne’eman published in Hebrew in Israel. It starts on page 38 and goes on to page 41. It is not one of the articles posted online, which I kind of suspected – maybe too controversial.

    It says he is vindicated. Dr, Zelenko, by the way still practices medicine, but he is now in Monsey and he says some of his patients followed him. He said people listened to him because he had been practicing medicine as a family doctor for 20 years, and also because that community of Kiryas Joel, officially known as Palm Tree, is the most detached Jewish community from the outside world “so the media didn’t penetrate their skulls with the false narrative as much as it did in other communities.”

    There is a lot in it and I will try to tell more, but here he is as to how, with help from heaven, stumbled upon it, I guess.

    I was doing research online and I came across a lecture series on Covid-19 and I happened to come across an episode that explains the mechanism of action of zinc and hydroxychloroquine. I thought that was pretty cool. I started doing research and I found that in China and South Korea, they had used zinc and hydroxychloroquine with success, though that was with hospitalized patients.

    There is also this French doctor in Marseille, Dr. Didior Raoult, who was using hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin, but not zinc. He had some success. But my focus is not on hospitalized patients; my focus has always been in the prehospital setting, in the doctor’s office settings. My job is to keep people out of the hospital, before they get critically ill. I have a solution for the respirator crisis – don’t get on a respirator [this aside is a bit out of date. They know now – and by the way I think Dr Fauci was very late to come around – that respirators are the often the wrong thing to use for Civic-19. and there is no shortage now. -SF]

    So I decided to combine the different approaches from the Far East and from France, and I made a three -drug regimen and adjusted the dosage to what I thought works best in an outpatient setting. I started administering it to patients as soon as they came to my office, even before I had the results of the test. This is key, because you only have about five days to treat the virus before it gets out of control. For patients who don’t come to the doctor until days three, four, five – usually between days four and five – if you wait until the test results come back, the patient is half dead already.

    So my approach was, if I think the patient has Covid-19, I’ll treat the patient clinically and not let the patient go home without a treatment. It’s like you have a fire and you call the fire department and they tell you, “Oh, we’ll come in three days.” I decided to start putting out the fire right away. The end result was that things got really better.

    He decided he needed to get the attention of the most powerful people in the world, and the only way he knew how to do that would be by putting out a YouTube video. He didn’t even know ho to do it – he had to ask his 17-year old son to help. The first video asked the president (Trump) for help and the next day, ark Meadows, his chief of staff, called him [I think it helped that Kiryas Joel voted for Donald Trump, sort of: 1,592 votes for Donald Trump, 1,291 votes for Hillary Clinton, 247 votes for Gary Johnson, 66 write-in votes, 21 votes for Jill Stein, and around 3,000 voters who skipped over that race! There were splits on legislative races and the presidential race was not on the sample ballots handed out to voters. The village is historically close to the Democratic Party.]

    The next week, Rudy Giuliani called him and he interviewed him for his podcast. Then Sean Hannity called him.

    Sammy Finkelman (b4888e)

  103. 102. Gryph (08c844) — 7/16/2020 @ 2:51 pm

    100. Not a direct competitor, huh? How about telling that to the patients who could benefit from cheap, off-label off-patnet HCQ therapy but have to shell out hundreds of dollars for multiple doses of a drug that only one manufacturer makes? If that’s a coincidence, it’s one hell of a coincidence.

    Not a direct competitor because the are not given at the same stage of the disease.

    Now anything that cures or prevents, Covid-19, is, in a sense, a competitor to Remdesivir. Now of all the thins that could impact the disease, the one that will take the longest to have an impact is a vaccine. So if an unethical AND EVIL drug company company was behind all of this skepticism about treatments, it would be pushing vaccines and maybe also warning that they might not work.

    I don’t think Gilead could be behind all of this, but maybe whoever is has links to it. Maybe it is vaccine company, which thought that Remdesivir is the least harmful approach to their jackpot. I have no idea who’s behind the slander campaign against HCQ – the only thing clear is that there is one, and I don’t think it’s anti-Trump politics.

    The patent is owned by Gilead. Well, actually, two federal biomedical research agencies, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Disease own some of the patents involved. And HHS could probably take control of the manufacturing of the drug but Gilead has enough influence to prevent it or from the U.S. government from doing that. And from invoking its patent rights?

    There’s an applicable law here that could reduce the price but it hasn’t been used for anything in decades.

    https://www.statnews.com/2020/07/02/powerful-law-gives-hhs-right-to-control-remdesivir-manufacturing-distribution

    . 28 U.S.C. § 1498 allows federal agencies to take control of industry owned patents using a tool known as government patent use. Essentially, government patent use would let HHS control both the manufacturing and distribution of remdesivir by simply paying compensation to Gilead for the use of its patents.

    HHS could license remdesivir manufacturing to multiple competing drug manufacturers, which would provide adequate supply while pushing prices down. Patients and payers would pay low prices for remdesivir, close to its manufacturing costs. HHS’s intervention would increase competition, not hinder it.

    Meanwhile, Gilead would still be rewarded for its contributions to the development of remdesivir, as Gilead can go to court to collect the “reasonable and entire compensation” to which it is entitled under law for the government’s use of Gilead’s patents. (The court-awarded “reasonable and entire compensation” is typically a market-rate royalty, which could be worth tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars.)

    A Chinese lab now has a patent but only for use in China

    Sammy Finkelman (b4888e)

  104. 104. Meh. This doesn’t pass the smell test. I suppose you and I are arguing details and we agree on far more than we disagree when it comes to this particular point. It’s just frustrating, I guess.

    Gryph (08c844)


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