Knowledge Is Power: What Medicine Is Learning from the COVID-19 Pandemic

American Thinker ^ | 05/22/2020 | Keith Jackson

[SeekAndFind]

With every great health care challenge, there is knowledge to be gained. We are only months into this pandemic, and we have been forced to recognize once again how humbling it is to try to fight nature. We have managed to dampen the lethal potential of viruses, primarily through vaccines, only in the past few lifetimes. Great scourges of the past such as smallpox and polio have been reduced to only a historical footnote. Yet we are shut down.

The Spanish Flu of 1918 prompted some of the greatest medical advances in human history. It was associated with the advent of bacteriology, virology, and the nascent field of antibiotic pharmacology. We think we have learned so much since then, but viruses are a dispassionate teacher, reminding us of how much we still do not know.

We believe we have learned several things from this particular iteration of viral illness and the treatment options we have provided:

1. Initial survival after intubation for respiratory failure from COVID-19 in many reputable hospitals was 20–30%. Only weeks later, it is 70–80%. This is due to a multiplicity of reasons, but one is the use of prone ventilation, essentially breathing for them through a tube while flat on their stomachs rather than lying on their backs.

2. Use of oxygen-assisted CPAP and BiPAP machines for patients with very low oxygen levels in their bloodstream has proven desirable when intervention is done in time. Opting for this instead of intubation has resulted in greater survival. These machines are the standard of care in obstructive sleep apnea all over the world and are readily available.

3. COVID-19 can cause advanced clotting disorders in the blood vessels and the heart. Hearts filled with a large thrombus (clot) are inefficient at pumping,

[SeekAndFind]

For those interested in Hydroxychloroquine, we have this tidbit:

6. Use of hydroxychloroquine prophylactically in uninfected health care professionals may have caused sudden cardiac deaths in people with previously undiagnosed cardiomyopathies or arrhythmias. This is a reminder that even “safe” drugs are potentially lethal.

As for the Dr. Fauci favored Remdesivir from Gilead, we have so far learned:

7. Remdesivir, an antiviral medication, was being studied in a double-blind study and was judged effective a lot sooner than most scientists would have liked. To those familiar with statistics, medicine considers a p-value of >0.05 significant. Once Remdisivir hit 0.059, it was judged to be effective enough to no longer give trial patients a placebo medication.

While a small percentage of lives are being saved with this decision, it will interfere with future testing of treatment options, as testing will no longer be done without using this medication as well. Many research pharmacologists think we are missing a great opportunity for more rigorous study with more statistically significant numbers.

[DannyTN]

Knowledge is Power

No no I get told every day on FR that knowledge is fear mongering.

[SeekAndFind]

Depends on what you do with the knowledge.

Some people have lots of knowledge but little wisdom.

[Pontiac]

Use of oxygen-assisted CPAP and BiPAP machines for patients with very low oxygen levels in their bloodstream has proven desirable when intervention is done in time. Opting for this instead of intubation has resulted in greater survival. These machines are the standard of care in obstructive sleep apnea all over the world and are readily available.

And yet we have companies like Ford motor company continue to churn out Ventilators for which we have no use.

We may be learning from the virus but we simply will not learn to back way from failed political decisions no matter what the economic cost.

[JZelle]

Whoa Nellie

[libertylover]

we have been forced to recognize once again how humbling it is to try to fight nature.

But liberals STILL don't see the need to control our borders and certainly haven't learned that nature is bigger than we are because they cling to their fantasy that they can change the climate.

[silverleaf]

Remdesivir pushers have an agenda. It must be administerec IV so hospitalization is required. This happens at the half stage of disease when much damage is already occurring. Although the clinical studies are rigged to succeed ( unlike hydroxy trials that look rigged to fail) if you dig and read between the lines you can find that 48% of the participants suffered significant or severe liver damage.
https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/covid19/86582
Check the last 3 paragraphs

https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/29/gilead-says-critical-study-of-covid-19-drug-shows-patients-are-responding-to-treatment/

The heart complication with chloroquine is higher than the hydroxy formulation but both so rare that it is listed by WHO as among the worlds safest drugs and has been used by millions over decades and is a long term therapy for several inflammatory disorders as well as a long term prophylactic for malaria. A covid treatment lasts 5-7 days.

[TexasKamaAina]

Wait a minute - hydroxychloroquine has both benefits and risks (like every other medication)? I think some folks are going to have a problem with that.

[MarvinStinson]

Keith Jackson, medical authority.

[Buckeye McFrog]

All medical breakthroughs and discoveries happen through a process of trial and error.

Which really sucks if you’re a patient in an early stage of that. At least COVID patients weren’t bled with leeches.

[Jim Noble]

I must admit, after a week with remdesivir (used correctly), I’m more impressed than I thought I would be.

[silverleaf]

Good luck!