The WHO today called a halt to trials on the use of Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) for COVID19, citing issues of safety. This drug has been used for COVID19 across Europe to very good effect. It has been credited with saving many lives. In the US where there is no FDA approval for its use, doctors are using it “off label” because they are seeing it’s usefulness.

As mentioned in our post Pharma Monopoly? Medical Colonialism? Alive and well, most trials of HCQ seem to have been set up to fail. Professor Didier Raoult who first brought it to attention in France, is one more respected scientist to have been censored (See the post …..). Doctors who are practising according to the Hippocratic Oath First Do No Harm are using it in crticial care.

HCQ has been used consistently for the last 60 years to treat malaria, its safety record has not been in question, the contraindications regarding cardiac patients, the dose and length of medication are clear. Suddenly it is being banned from use in the middle of a pandemic, where the WHO state clearly there is NO TREATMENT and the only way out is via a vaccine.

Thinking rationally if we were in the middle of pandemic, and there was a treatment, tested on the medical front line and found to be effective – that had the bonus of also being inexpensive and without a pharma company patent to restrict its manufacture, we would surely be announcing it across the world and making it available to every medical team dealing with critically ill patients. The fact that not only is this not happening but the trials are being stopped, should raise some serious questions.