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Nov. 26, 2020 - Dennis Prager Show
06:51
Yale Epidemiology Professor Attacked For Stance on Hydroxychloroquine
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I say this, it's not overkill.
I grew up reading Pravda in Russian.
Never thought that I would apply my skills at reading propaganda to American newspapers.
But that's the way it is.
So, of course, it's a one-sided report.
They took the word of a public health dean at Brown University.
To call those who advocate for hydroxychloroquine snake oil salesmen.
I thought, first of all, I always thought that people selling snake oil had some benefit in the people purchasing the snake oil.
So if people are selling snake oil but get no benefit from it, why would they be selling the snake oil?
But of course, nobody will ask the professor at Brown this question because...
You don't challenge people on the left.
Anyway, how did you react to the New York Times piece?
I reacted approximately the same way as the misinformation that he gave at the hearing, which is that he did not respond to the points that were raised, the science and the clinical points that were raised, but he went off on a tangent onto his points that were irrelevant.
And pretended that those irrelevancies applied to what we spoke of.
And then he accused us of doing what he actually did.
Would you debate him on a public forum?
If he agreed to stick to the rules of the debate, yes.
Well, if I were you, I would just debate him and let him talk about baseball if he wants.
These people don't debate.
You have much more experience in the sciences.
I have much more experience in this realm.
The left doesn't debate.
Never.
It's a very unremarked-upon fact.
I have offered $20,000 to New York Times columnists to debate me or any of my colleagues.
And, of course, there's no response.
It's not a little money, $20,000, just to defend your position.
So, what is his name?
Joe?
What is his...
J-H-O? Is that his name?
Joe.
J-H-A. J-H-A, yeah.
So, I want you to know, Professor Risch, that I, for about five months now...
Have been taking hydroxychloroquine and zinc every week.
I take zinc every day, hydroxychloroquine once a week.
I don't believe that I am buying snake oil.
And anyway, nobody is profiting from it.
It is so cheap that nobody's profiting.
By the way, I also think that the fact that nobody profits from it because it's so cheap is part of the reason for the opposition.
Any merit to that?
Yes, that's been stated many times.
That it's inexpensive, but the third part of that equation is that it's effective.
If it weren't effective, then who would worry about it?
The whole point is it's in a marketplace where it solves the problem at a cost-effectiveness point that puts out of business much more costly agents even if they worked as well.
So just look at it from the marketplace point of view.
How do you answer the charge that there are no studies that show that it works?
Well, there are at least 170 studies that show that it works in different contexts.
But in my case, what I'm laying claim to is early outpatient use.
And that is the one where all the evidence is completely consistent.
There are seven studies of Non-randomized but controlled trials, these are studies where patients came to their doctors as outpatients in the first few days of the illness and were given the choice as to what to take and the patients in consulting with their doctors chose to take hydroxychloroquine or other medications or not.
And all of these studies show Substantial benefit, all statistically significant benefit of at least 50% reduced risk of population.
Now, the criticism of these, of course, is that they weren't randomized.
But when one looks at the details of who was in the study, you see that patients who were sicker when they went to their doctors were more likely to take the medications.
The people who weren't quite as sick thought, okay, I could probably get this through this on my own.
I don't really need the medications.
They were less likely to take it.
So the people who were already sicker, who were more likely to be hospitalized, were the ones who were taking the medications.
And in spite of the fact that they were sicker, they did better than the ones who didn't take the medications.
And in addition, there's now seven studies, seven randomized control trials.
All of these are weak studies, contra to what Dr. Jha said, as these were well-designed.
You know, important in his puffery language.
Studies, these were studies that were cut short in the middle that did not recruit enough patients.
There were studies done of people who were too young to benefit, not high-risk patients.
Nevertheless, when these studies, these randomized controlled studies, are analyzed together, they show, again, statistically significant benefit of reduced risks of hospitalization and mortality.
And so all of the evidence on outpatient studies Early outpatient studies shows that the risk of hospitalization mortality is reduced by taking hydroxychloroquine.
There is no other evidence in outpatient studies.
Everything else that is cited are inpatient studies that are smeared into outpatient studies.
Which is very different.
It has to be taken early.
So if you have the time, I'd just like you to respond to this $64,000 question.
Why has the CDC come out against hydroxychloroquine?
And why has the NIH come out against hydroxychloroquine?
And why has the FDA come out against hydroxychloroquine?
Yeah, good.
Now you've tripled the 64,000.
So the answer is, whose interests are being served?
Good.
Answer it when we come back.
Qui bono, as they say in Latin.
Who benefits?
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