There’s a small handful of people from whom I seek advice, and whose every word I read, because they are reliable and wise.
One of them is Roger McCaffrey, whom I’ve had as a guest on the Tom Woods Show several times.
The McCaffrey family name will be familiar to those of you interested in the history of libertarianism and conservatism. It was Neil McCaffrey, Roger’s father, who in addition to founding the Conservative Book Club also founded Arlington House Publishers, which published Murray Rothbard and others like him at a time when people with our point of view often had great difficulty breaking through the big houses.
Roger is himself a publisher and a direct mail expert, as you may recall from his appearances with me.
He sent the following to a few friends, including me, the other day. I thought you should read it.
Hydroxychloroquine, used in combination with Zithromax (and without), is being tested in several key medical centers right now for COVID-19. That is virtually an overnight development, and that means one thing: there are many successes.
While the New York Times and the major networks, in their unrelenting quest to destroy President Trump, dissed him for daring to mention an “unproven” drug a few days ago, he mentioned it with forethought. And yesterday, Dr. Scott Gottlieb wrote another WSJ piece—which are memos to the President, among other things—in which he made the obvious urgent recommendation: “For the most promising drugs, we should scale up manufacturing before we know for sure if they work.”
Beneath his op-ed piece was this one by two prominent private sector doctors:
“THESE DRUGS ARE HELPING OUR COVID-19 PATIENTS”
The fact is that Hydroxychloroquine has proved successful, turning the lives around of many COVID-19 patients already. (Does it not count to CNN if they are French?) One was featured on Tucker Carlson’s show last night, Monday—it’s a must see, though, not because of the patient’s story, which was notable enough. Carlson interviewed the key government medical figure in this drama, the FDA chairman, who flatly declared that Hydroxychloroquine is available for COVID patients—the FDA is not in any doctor’s way.
This is absolutely vital for drug companies, hospitals and doctors, and their lawyers, scared ever-shitless by the Times and the networks.
Carlson then interviewed Dr. Mark Siegel, who is a paid consultant but is also in clinical practice in New York. He said he would not hesitate to prescribe this drug for a COVID-19 patient.
Of crucial importance, Siegel notes, is the distinction between chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine—they are not the same, and it’s the latter that you want, a souped up version of the former, which is used for malaria.
Of equal importance but not stated on the show is that the patient who was dying was administered the drug by IV drip. Because it’s also available in pill form, you need to be aware that it’s not the same when time is of the essence.
Folks, I can’t stress enough, having dealt with timid and evasive pharmaceutical executives and medical specialists with my son’s life urgently on the line—with a brilliant new drug briefly withheld by Novartis because it was “unproven in children”—how important Carlson’s Monday program is going to be. He will never get the credit for what he’s done. But Carlson’s quick left-right combination of the FDA commissioner and Dr. Mark Siegel will embolden doctors and drug manufacturers alike…thereby saving many lives. Ditto the WSJ op-ed pieces mentioned above.
What the WSJ articles this past month are signaling, is that an intense political battle, over drugs that will save lives right now, is going on in the relevant agencies and the White House. You need to be aware of it. Trump watches Carlson, talks to both him and Gottlieb, and will also be encouraged. Remember, medical robots like Dr. Tony Fauci are not showing the president treatments that are working. They are instead lecturing him, as doctors do, and demonstrating their superiority to him, because they want to influence him (which he is inviting), and we all understand why.
And yet: appearances to the contrary, they don’t really give a damn whether you, your Dad, your daughter, live or die because they’ve held up a promising drug for an extra couple months. Friends: they do not give a damn about you. Some people do care about you. Unfortunately, just not the average medical bureaucrat in Washington or your state capitol.
You also need to line up a plan if you or a family member contracts the virus. Please do not automatically accept the protocol of your local hospital or doctor. These protocols were drawn up for the last virus, the last war—with zero reference to what is today saving patient lives.
You should also be aware of the near-100% success of blood serum antibody use by Johns Hopkins—and I’m certain now other scattered institutions—for COVID-19 patients who were likely dying. Do not meekly allow your local medical zeitgeist to kill you. It does not matter if you really like your doctor. That’s not relevant. Does he or she have courage and resolve? You might need that. You don’t need a protocol more suited to the SARS virus.
Nor should you assume that if somebody young in your family has the virus, it won’t be serious. Find out with bloodwork if the patient has decent IGG levels and chemistries. If you have baseline bloodwork on file, print it, get it out, have it handy, for any and all family members. On the margin, it could save a life. For example, if you have a tendency to lowish IGG levels, your COVID-19 doctor needs to made aware of it.
Now, down to business:
Coming today on the Tom Woods Show: my conversation with Jack Spirko, host of The Survival Podcast, on reasonable preparations normal people should make.
Then, later this week: two economists join me to discuss the extraordinary case study we are living through, namely, the economics of a massive shutdown.
Meanwhile, my Tom Woods Show Elite community is really hopping these days as we discuss the implications — for health, society, economy, politics, and more — of the coronavirus crisis.
And:
I just added some really juicy bonuses, like my public speaking tips, my live presentation at Commission Expo last year on how I beat the crap out of everyone in that room in sales because of my email method (I was nice about it, of course), and more.
My supporters group is your refuge from pervasive insanity.
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Read the original article at TomWoods.com. https://tomwoods.com/coronavirus-turning-point/
Thomas E. Woods, Jr., is the 2019 winner of the Hayek Lifetime Achievement Award from the Austrian Economics Center in Vienna. He is a senior fellow of the Mises Institute and host of The Tom Woods Show, which releases a new episode every weekday. Visit https://tomwoods.com