Another Self-Appointed Medical Specialist
Let's put our faith in the real Doctors and not the ones who pretend to be Doctors on Facebook
I am tired of lay people and right wing Republican organizations trying to play doctor. It is inappropriate to be giving inaccurate medical information.
We The People of Maryland’s Facebook page has been posting false medical information around Remdesivir. Josh Barry, a self-named health activist, did his own “research” around the product. To the best of my knowledge Josh Barry is not employed in the medical industry. I have repeatedly asked for his credentials that would lend support to the credibility of his “research”. I have received no response. I am willing to be corrected on his medical research expertise.
Josh made a 15 minute live FB presentation to the monthly meeting of We The People of Maryland. They have since put together a more formal “video” of his presentation. The presentation and the video are nothing but poor research done by a lay person who has no understanding of how medical research is done, laden with conspiracy theory and innuendo.
I will keep this brief for The Duckpin. However, I will write up an extensive explanation of the facts around Remdesivir that prove that Josh’s work contains numerous inaccuracies and post it through FB. For purposes of this post, I will highlight only two items from the video.
Josh indicates that the publication in Virology Journal, 2005 proves the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine for Sars-Cov infections. He then provides comments from The Northwest Connection – a right leaning non-medical publication. I have highlighted relevant words.
Here is the Virology article link: https://virologyj.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1743-422X-2-69
“Chloroquine, a relatively safe, effective and cheap drug . . . is effective in inhibiting the infection and spread of SARS CoV in cell culture. The fact that the drug has significant inhibitory antiviral effect when the susceptible cells were treated either prior to or after infection suggests a possible prophylactic and therapeutic use.
These features suggest that further evaluation of chloroquine in animal models of SARS-CoV infection would be warranted as we progress toward finding effective antivirals for prevention or treatment of the disease.”
This is a study in CELL CULTURE. We NEVER approve a product for a specific indication taken only from cell culture. The process involves taking the POSSIBILITY of a product’s success in cell culture, to an animal study for the intended indication. If the animal study is successful, then we take it to Phase I or Phase II clinical trial in humans.
And it is neither a simple process, nor a guaranteed process!
“Currently, nine out of ten experimental drugs fail in clinical studies because we cannot accurately predict how they will behave in people based on laboratory and animal studies,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt.
“As discussed in the literature [24], there are many other reasons why drugs fail the development process . . . It may be that the effect seen in cultured cells did not translate into an effect in animal studies [19], or the candidate drugs did not have good safety profiles in animals for unexpected reasons or if they had poor PK/bioavailability and PD profile or they fail due to poor or lack of efficacy and safety issues in human clinical trials [12, 24, 25, 29, 37, 38] . . . .” https://transmedcomms.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s41231-019-0050-7
Josh tries to convince us that HCQ is effective because a conservative non-medical journalist comments it is so. This article is useless in terms of medical science. https://nw-connection.com/opinion-fauci-knew-about-hcq-in-2005-nobody-needed-to-die/
All this to say that a statement was made by a lab virologist that IN THE CELL CULTURE, there is potential for chloroquine to be successful as a therapeutic. Cell Culture does NOT give us human data as to efficacy or safety in the indication being studied. HCQ has NOT proven to be of benefit for Covid 19 in any good RCT. And we do NOT use non-medical publications to prove a pharmaceutical works in humans.
Can we put this argument to bed?
The second thing I will discuss has to do with Josh’s use of Drugs.com and the patient (user) comments. Physicians will always record patient comments re: efficacy or side effects. However using patient testimony for medical accuracy in this instance is just wrong as it introduces bias, involves placebo effect, and does not consider comorbid conditions.
Let’s test this. I chose a drug and have provided excerpts below from patient testimonies. Guess the drug? (I have substituted “Drug X for the actual name of the drug.)
My husband (48) & I (44) took (Drug X) trying to protect us from Covid. Side effects were AWFUL: stomach pains, nausea, diarrhea & my husband had really bad blurred vision & dizziness. He stopped taking it after 3 wks because of side effects. I hoped it would work better than it did, but we BOTH still got Covid 4 weeks after starting Drug x. My son, who refused to take Drug X since he was vaccinated for his job, didn’t get Covid although he is currently staying with us. I think it was all for nothing since we’re both still so sick after 16 days & my son didn’t have any of these side effects with his vaccine & also didn’t even get sick! Worth noting that the ER doc said my husband was already weak & dehydrated when he got Covid-19 since he’d been having diarrhea for weeks before, from Drug X. I don’t recommend taking Drug X-It didn’t keep us from getting Covid & we are still really sick with Covid.”
“I tried it and had terrible just terrible neurological side effects. I even took a pretty low dose. If you have any CNS issues whatsoever or have had tinnuties, peripheral nerve issues DO NOT TAKE THIS. I am suffering big time with shaking, internal vibrations, and nerve issues and crossing my fingers this goes away.”
“I am a 38 year old female and took Drug x for 9 days. I would rate my experience as 1/10. I started Drug X 2 days after getting a positive COVID-19 test. I don’t think Drug X works at all! I have pneumonia and I can barely breathe. I can hardly walk and I can’t keep food down and literally feel like death. I have literally been having diarrhea, nausea and sometimes throwing up since I started it and so i don't know if it's from the Covid or the drug but on advice from urgent care I stopped it today to see if maybe I’m having a bad reaction. This sucks! I can’t believe I’m still sick at almost 2 weeks. Can’t hardly move or anything. I’m taking steroids, albuterol, and, antibiotic now. I know I’ll get crap for it but I’m getting the vaccine ASAP because this hasn’t done anything but make me MORE sick than I probably would have been with just Covid by itself!”
“I was prescribed to take Drug X. The first day was very mild dizziness, no problem. The second day was fine. I only started getting side effects the night on Day 2, and they were horrific. Muscle tremors, shaking, rashes, loss of appetite, heart palpitations. I was trying to sleep and I kept being woken up from doze because of the palpitations. Well I tried continuing its usage up until midday Day 3, when I was so beyond the point of shaking that my teeth were chattering and I had to stop taking them of fear of something happening to me. Fast forward a few days later off of them, still experiencing side effects. Skin is peeling, skin is red, moderate shaking.
The drug is ivermectin. Can you see my point regarding web-site patient reviews as medical science?
As I stated in the beginning, I have discussed only two of the mischaracterizations that Josh made in his research. I will provide a thorough write-up of the mistakes in his research and place it on Facebook.
I respect Josh’s interest in finding information on any health condition. But I fault anyone who does not have the experience to properly evaluate the information. I fault anyone who uses non-medical references, and who make assumptions that simply cannot be made.
We are harming people with all the misinformation that is available on SM. We are doing a disservice to our neighbors by spreading this information. People must get their medical information from medical people.
I dare say that if I researched “How to Fix My Car”, that I could find numerous reasons why my car is not running well. But I don’t. I expect my local mechanic to be my specialist. I can be an informed consumer of car repair, but I realize I am not the expert.