Jair Bolsonaro, just like Trump, claims that there is no epidemic from COVID-19 and shows himself smiling as he swallows chloroquine, thus projecting the image of a good-tempered and decidedly stupid despot.
A lot of people make a simple reasoning: if he takes chloroquine, it must certainly be a stupid thing to do.
It should be pointed out that hydroxychloroquine should be administered wisely and not as in Bolsonaro’s video where he talks about it as if it were the new aspirin, thus inducing people to believe that COVID-19 is like a common cold, that distancing and protection serve no purpose, that “everything is fine” despite the thousands of deaths, and that everybody can eagerly go back to work.
The WHO banned chloroquine following upon publication of two studies, namely: the study by Mandep R. Mehra, et al., published in The Lancet and immediately debunked by 120 scientists and hundreds of doctors as being basically phoney (see https://www.
Also here the result is that hydroxychloroquine is completely ineffective against COVID-19 because the WHO says so (the WHO is heavily funded by Bill Gates and Big Pharma who aim at introducing the anti-COVID vaccine and the anti-flu vaccine on a large scale). Actually, the WHO deliberately ignores the existence of a large number of scientific studies that have proven the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine, not of least importance the study in Marseilles by Prof. Didier Raoult.
Let us explain this more clearly: in the Recovery study hydroxychloroquine was used at doses that were much higher than the doses recommended, and moreover on patients who were already in serious conditions and to whom there is no point in administering it, not even at normal doses.
In addition, hydroxychloroquine was tested alone, whereas it is widely known that it is effective at the early stages of the disease and in association with azithromycin and possibly with heparin.
What is the purpose of this? I don’t want to sound mischievous, but appearing on the horizon are great interests in expensive antiviral treatments and in the anti-COVID vaccine. This will be of crucial importance if no simple and effective therapy is available to contain cases and heal patients at the very first symptoms, i.e., long before they reach the advanced stage and finally need intensive care.
We cannot put into question the existence of the COVID-19 pandemic, as dominating populists would like to do, but what we can certainly put into question is that the cause of death is the coronavirus alone, at least considering the course of events.
I here wish to recall that the American Association of Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) submitted on June 22, 2020 a motion for a preliminary injunction to compel release to the public of hydroxychloroquine by the U.S. government. “Why does the government continue to withhold more than 60 million doses of HCQ from the public?” asks Jane Orient, M.D., the Executive Director of AAPS. “This potentially life-saving medication is wasting away in government warehouses while Americans are dying from COVID-19.”.
In short, Bolsonaro on the one hand and the WHO on the other discredit the only cheap drug that is effective in the early stages of the disease, namely, hydroxychloroquine. It is difficult to say to what extent the stupid type and the bandit type prevail in both.
Prof. C. M. Cipolla of the University of Berkley already ironically warned us: reasonable people are often kept in check by fools as they are surprised by their unpredictable attack and fail to organize a rational defense because the attack has no rational structure (freely quoted from “The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity”).
It might be laughable, but if we think of the damage that these seemingly opposite positions cause to the world, where people continue to die as a result of COVID-19, we wonder in what desperate direction humanity is going.
We can and must stop delegating interpretation of reality to politicians and super-experts and give voice to our critical sense, patiently debunking pseudo-scientific constructs and populisms that simply support the major interests of multinationals.
Many movements are rising throughout the world of doctors and citizens who rebel against the arrogant stupidity of those who think about the interests of a few, forgetting that there is no salvation if this does not reach everyone, because we are interconnected and interdependent. In Italy, among others, the movement IppocrateOrg https://www.facebook.com/IppocrateOrg/ founded by Mauro Rango, and forming part of which are numerous doctors, arose. In this video, Dr. Rango explains clearly all the steps made so far. https://d.tube/#!/v/ippocrateorg61/QmNVfobeBW8G6igGJZT2ghzYLrHRrUQVBKNP7uUcJJQ36r
I cannot conclude without recalling the extermination of native Brazialians that is advancing unchallenged because of COVID-19 and the continuous invasion of their territories by gold diggers and big landowners, defended by Bolsonaro, who spread diseases and viruses to which the indigenous are very vulnerable. Perhaps it is not so much hydroxychloroquine distributed by Bolsonaro, on the other hand without method and due attention to heart problems, that is useful to the natives, but their freedom to retain their own identity and follow their own traditions, without any invasions and aggressions. https://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?pid=S1414-753X2020000100910&script=sci_arttext
Maria Antonietta Bàlzola, M.D.
