RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/03/political_furor_over_drugs_that_might_help_fight_against_covid19.html

Why would anyone mock a drug that shows promise?

Here’s what we’re dealing with:

“No U.S. city will be spared”
Fauci: Up to 200,000 Americans could die
NYC: Dead bodies being loaded on refrigerated trucks
Nurses die, doctors fall sick as panic rises on front lines
Trump extends social distancing through end of April

Why would anyone mock a drug that shows promise?  Chloroquine and its less toxic derivative, hydroxychloroquine, are existing antimalarial drugs thought to be effective in treating coronavirus.

Dr. Steve Kassapidis is a COVID-19 critical care physician in New York City.  During a recent interview on Fox News, Dr. Kassapidis told Tucker Carlson that he’s taking Plaquenil (hydroxychloroquine) as a prophylaxis.  Many other doctors in the U.S., Europe, and elsewhere are taking the antimalarial drugs in hopes of protecting themselves from COVID-19 and are prescribing the off-label medications to patients infected with the disease.

In a March 21 interview on Philadelphia’s AM 990, Dr. Anthony Fauci said, “Of course, I would try chloroquine on coronavirus patients.”  But despite the potential of antimalarial drugs to mitigate COVID-19, politically driven journalists are pooh-poohing them as ineffective treatments touted by a recklessly incompetent president.  Desperately hoping hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine will be a flop, mainstream journalists are ridiculing President Trump over his advocacy of their potential in the fight against the coronavirus.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/04/how_george_soross_marijuana_advocacy_makes_the_covid19_panic_worse.html

George Soros’s first major effort to reshape America was undertaking the legitimization of illegal drug use, especially marijuana.  Soros initially said his overarching goal was to promote informed discussion of drug policy.  But debate and discussion are not his style and were not his objects.  Instead, he used his resources to fund think-tanks, foundations, and public policy action groups that successfully muddled public opinion enough to change public laws, making illegal drug use legal.

In the early 1990s, the notion of legalizing marijuana in the U.S. was unthinkable and unacceptable.  The voices to legalize drugs were marginal and not in sync.  This changed in 1993, when Soros, who claimed that prohibitionist drug policies are wrong because they contradict his vision of the “Open Society,” launched a $15-million pro–drug legalization propaganda campaign that has made him the new darling of the media left.  Soros and his acolytes have garnered enormous press attention through a barrage of magazine articles, op-ed pieces, and television appearances.  By 1996, the slogans of “medicalization” and “compassion” joined “legalization” and “decriminalization,” as well as “nonviolent drug offender.”  All of these were shaping the vocabulary of the public dialogue.  Soros’s sponsorship provided the credibility theretofore lacking in the movement to legalize drugs.

https://pjmedia.com/trending/trump-destroys-connecticut-governors-claim-the-strategic-national-stockpile-has-been-emptied/

Ned Lamont, the Democrat governor of Connecticut, claimed on Tuesday that the U.S. Strategic National Stockpile of medical supplies is now empty and alleged that the state is now on its own in securing ventilators and masks to fight the coronavirus pandemic without the help of the federal government.

“It was disturbing today to find out that the national strategic stockpile is now empty. We did get 50 ventilators, for which I am very thankful,” Governor Lamont said. “For now we are on our own. For now, we are doing the best to scour the globe for PPE (personal protective equipment) as best we can.”

This, it turns out, was not true. President Trump was asked about Lamont’s claim during the Coronavirus Task Force press briefing, and he explained what’s really happening.

“It’s not emptied, let me explain something. What we’re doing […] rather than having it brought into the stockpile, where appropriate […] we’re trying to have supplies sent directly to the states,” Trump explained. “Because we don’t want medical supplies coming into warehouses all over the place and then we take them from there and bring them to another warehouse. So we’re having them brought, ideally, from the manufacturer directly to the hospital or the state where it’s going.”

https://thefederalist.com/2020/03/30/its-not-the-federal-governments-fault-new-york-doesnt-have-more-ventilators-its-andrew-cuomos/

While New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo blames the president and the federal government for the lack of beds and ventilators in his state, the power to determine the number of these critical medical supplies in New York hospitals falls squarely upon the shoulders of the governor.

During a Tuesday press conference, Cuomo lashed out at the federal government for not sending enough ventilators as the Wuhan coronavirus continues to rattle the state. “Four hundred ventilators? I need 30,000 ventilators,” Cuomo said. “You want a pat on the back for sending 400 ventilators?” The state is projecting it will need approximately 140,000 beds in 14 to 21 days, which is higher than its previous estimation of 110,000 beds by early to mid-May.

However, New York, along with 35 other states and the District of Columbia, have in place what are known as certificate-of-need (CON) laws. According to Reason, “Their stated purpose is to keep hospitals from overspending, and thus from having to charge higher prices to make up for unnecessary outlays of capital costs. But in practice, they mean hospitals must get a state agency’s permission before offering new services or installing a new medical technology. Depending on the state, everything from the number of hospital beds to the installation of a new MRI machine could be subject to CON review.”