Apropos of no drug in particular: off-label prescriptions are common and despite what some people are trying to hammer here, the FDA issues guidance on the use of pharmaceuticals.

When people say a particular drug is “not FDA approved for this disease,” they probably don’t know that the horse has left the barn. Once a drug passes muster (and it can take *a while*), it can be prescribed by a doc for a condition other than the original reason.

What the FDA does not have is plenary power over a physician and patient’s decision to use a drug for off-label use. A doctor does not have to beg the FDA to approve of a treatment route, although such approval can diminish the doc’s *liability* if things go sideways.

You as a patient have to weigh your options with your doc in terms of treatment. If you want to have him try something that you heard someone suggest? Ask him. He might agree. He might not. Maybe he’ll only do it if you indemnify him if things go bad.

Now, for COVID-19. If you reflexively want to advise people against asking their doctor about HCQ, and your motive is a combination of Orange Man Bad and OMG the FDA Hasn’t Approved, it’s a bit of a bad faith argument.

The FDA issued emergency authorization for the use of HCQ to treat COVID-19. This is not an explicit endorsement of the treatment. It was made necessary because State governors decided to prevent off-label use because.

They said it’s to protect supply for those who use it as indicated. These governors are all Democrats. I don’t believe for one second that their intentions were fully non-political. I don’t think it’s calculated either. They just let internalized partisanship cloud their heads.

So I’m not taking the conspiratorial route. I don’t think Whitmer and Sleestak sat in their offices wearing Rorshach masks and thinking to themselves, “they will come to me begging for my permission and I will say ‘no.’”

I just think they’re dumb and tribal.

But MEDIA PUNDITS who keep pounding the table that the “FDA hasn’t approved it for use” are a different kind of evil. They should already know that the FDA *has* issued an emergency use approval. What they want is for you to be afraid of asking your doctor. To be shy about it.

Now. Ivermectin. Just because it’s approved for human use as an antiparasitic doesn’t mean it will perform in the human body the way the Australian in vitro study showed it would. Side effects vary and dose calculations are an art form.

There’s a lot more about ivermectin in this linked thread. Revisit it here after my thread. I’m not a medical professional, I do have to make that clear. It’s still too early to hang any hope on it at this stage. That’s all I’m saying.
https://twitter.com/chrisvcsefalvay/status/1246621341006118913?s=21 https://twitter.com/chrisvcsefalvay/status/1246621341006118913

But now comes the broader question in medical ethics that I as a non-medpro would love us all to ask: let us say that early administration of HCQ (and related drug cocktails) is effective in half of lightly symptomatic patients? Is that not enough to start with?

What if HCQ (and related drug cocktails) helped half of intubated patients recover faster than those who didn’t take it? Would that not be enough for you to lay off the issue?

We’re in a pandemic situation, and where hospitalizations are almost to capacity, would not the perfect be the enemy of the good? Maybe down the road we’ll find the right drug to specifically attack it and deliver much higher success rates. Maybe.

But where one can stack the odds in favor of survival, why not? And why oppose it SO HARD just because Trump is laying his hopes on it? That’s not false hope. Colloidal silver is false hope. This is hope.

Isn’t this why so many of us are staying home? “If it saves one life,” right? Would you be okay with this working out if it saves one life? Even if it means Trump will get credit for following his instincts? If it saves 50% of patients who might otherwise die, is that not GOOD?