He might be an actual doctor, but he’s been a dangerous quack snake-oil salesman for decades.
What are the odds Trump replaces Dr Anthony Fauci with Oz on the Fox “townhall”?
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Look, even if we had a medicine that we 100% knew worked, or a vaccine, etc, no one should be self administering this stuff.
Chloroquine may well help with some of the symptoms, and it is an often used, safe drug. (I have two friends who are taking it for other issues.) But no way in hell should you be taking a non-medical source of it in unknown doses not prescribed by a physician.
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And the president should be emphasizing that in his messaging. But he’s not, because “I’ve found a miracle cure!” makes for better TV.
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Apparently the callers to beer distributors to order specifically referenced quinine, protection from COVID, asked about brands with real quinine or higher amounts of quinine or mentioned Trump.
Couple of my accounts were laughing about it when I visited yesterday. Took them a bit to figure out why they were getting so many calls about tonic.
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Man, part of me agrees with you, and part of me is like, “Should we have to explicitly tell people to not ingest fish tank cleaner?” or “Make sure you get it from a doctor at a pharmacy?”
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There’s no reason a President should be mentioning possible cures by name in the first place during a public address, let alone unproven ones that can be lethal if self-administered.
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Is Trump even licensed to practice Maritime Medicine?
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It is exactly the same compound (chloroquine phosphate) in the fish meds and in the antimalarial people drug (formerly called Aralen). The fish meds are unregulated, so may contain impurities and aren’t approved for human consumption, but the bigger issue is that they took an overdose and it wasn’t prescribed.
A lot of aquarium drugs are just people drugs without government oversight; people get into trouble self-prescribing aquarium antibiotics all the time, but desperate people will try anything.
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Please people, dont take your fish tank chemicals thinking that is the same as medicine.
Please don’t tell people the President is advising people to take it because that is not true and is misinformation.
Sad that people have to be explained to, that ingesting fish tank chemicals is dangerous and Deadly
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I dunno. If Obama had said there is promise in drug by name that helped with symptoms, I really wouldn’t have a problem with it. There had already been news about this drug before his press briefing, and I full one would expect a report would have asked about it.
My problem with the way he has presented it, is that he is acting like this is a silver bullet, when the science has not confirmed that one way or another.
People shouldn’t be ingesting chemicals they don’t know enough about in unknown quantities. Tylenol and even water can be lethal if self administered in high enough doses.
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There’s a reason no one overdosed on unproven drugs that Obama was touting as possible miracle cures for Swine Flu: because Obama never went on TV announcing that certain unproven drugs might be a miracle cure for swine flu.
A President’s words have consequences. This death is a completely foreseeable consequence of Trump’s statements.
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This is, I hope, a great summary. Has anyone fact-checked it?
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Headline seems accurate enough:
NBC News correspondent Vaughn Hillyard spoke to the wife by phone from her hospital bed. She had this to say:
“We saw Trump on TV–every channel–and all his buddies–saying that this was safe. Trump kept saying it was pretty much a cure.”
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As Lamar Smith said about trump while he was still the chair of House Science Committee: “Better to get your news directly from the president. In fact, it might be the only way to get the unvarnished truth.”
Its a crazy-making situation. On the one hand you can listen to the president and congressmen and the news, on the other hand you can declare you know best and listen to no one. People dying for blindly following what authorities say vs. dying for rejecting it (see antivaxxers). Without good public education (in and out of schools) and reliable advice from those in positions of authority, there aren’t many good choices available for people like this
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That number may go into “crime against humanity” scale soon.
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People are being taught to submit to authority from childhood and the president of their country is a supreme authority to them. It would be more surprising if no one believed what he says.
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We will need to see the Trial results. Could be months??years???
Either way
1)Drug found not to have any discernable effect:
people died from not following doctor’s prescription for care–TRUMPS fault.
2)Drug found to effectively treat the disease thereby making Trumps statement of it being a promising drug actually true in hindsight:
people died from not following doctor’s prescription for care-- still TRUMPS fault.
I guess he should be safe and say there is no hope in his briefings and no potential treatments that they are currently looking at so that he wont be criticized for being wrong:
people die from not following doctor’s prescription for care-- somehow still TRUMPS fault. Probably because he didnt offer any info that they are looking at possible treatments.
Think about reading this headline a year ago and your emotional response to reading it then:
"Local 81 year old man passed away yesterday due to complications from pneumonia. "
How about
“Local 81 year old man passed away yesterday due to complications from pneumonia, found to be caused by newly observered strain of virus that is dangerous for immunocompromised individuals and those with underlying health complications”
Now its:
“Another patient dies from the deadly novel strain of Coronavirus bringing the state’s total deaths now to 5. The governor has issued an emergency order with restrictions for citizens of the state.”
Also anyone else notice the amount of fear they have successfully been able to generate from you. Enough maybe to want to hand over your rights without thinking over a virus that they admit the majority of people will recover from or not even show symptoms. (Currently no right to assemble and discuss ideas amongst each other) We can electronically discuss for now, but it is interesting the bills that are being pushed right now focused in that area
Wouldn’t that be nice! No, though. Unfortunately we have elected for ourselves a “person” made of teflon that could, to borrow his own words:
We are totally, absolutely, 100%, utterly fucked.
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Or how about
- Trump refrains from offering any and all medical advice to the American public until said advice has been vetted by medical professionals who know what the hell they are talking about.
There was no reason for Trump to publicly announce any specific drug, let alone an unproven one, as a possible cure for COVID-19. None.
Leave the “prescriptions for care” to the people who are actually qualified to prescribe things.
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