Terry McCrann: Dan Andrews’ ban on drug is Trump Derangement Syndrome
Dan Andrews’ ban on hydroxychloroquine is nonsensical and reeks of anti-Trump behaviour, writes Terry McCrann.
Terry McCrann
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The Andrews state Labor government has continued to ban a drug which could save lives from the virus, which President Trump has endorsed.
That, to my mind, is carrying TDS — Trump Derangement Syndrome — way too far; it’s certainly carrying it all the way across the Pacific.
What, if President Trump endorsed aspirin, would the Andrews Government move to ban that? On the basis that there’d be a rush on aspirin and if taken “inappropriately” it could cause bleeding?
As must now be known to just about every sentient person on the planet, in the early days of the pandemic Trump said a drug that was in long and widespread use, hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), looked promising as an antiviral treatment.
The massed TDS-inflamed media in the US and around the world, including Australia, went ballistic in attacking and ridiculing both the claim and the drug — even claiming the President was encouraging people to drink bleach pool cleaner.
Similar TDS-inflamed elements in the global medical establishment went to work to debunk any suggestion that HCQ could be of any benefit, sparked purely or impurely on the basis that the President had backed it.
This culminated in an article in the prestigious Lancet magazine that purportedly debunked any benefit from using the drug and highlighted serious heart risks.
The Victorian state government leapt in April to effectively ban or closely limit the sale of “the poison or controlled substance hydroxychloroquine”.
Poison? Poison? Tell that to the thousands of Victorians who had been using it safely and effectively for years for a variety of other conditions.
Well, that might actually have been a semi-valid basis to control its use — to ensure that there was supply for exactly those people who had been using it pre-virus.
But that might have been valid, back in April.
Not now, when the state government has extended the ban for another three months to (at least) end-October — just when the number of lives that could be saved by using it is exploding thanks to the numbing incompetence of that same Victorian Labor government.
In April supply might have been limited and a case could have been made that its use was directed to patients where the evidence of benefit was proved.
But HCQ is a generic and should be easy to obtain. That’s if you had a health system seeking to obtain it and a health system prepared to look through the frenzy of “Orange man bad” at the — what’s that word? Oh yes — evidence.
Since the initial frenzied TDS-driven wave of “proof” that it was useless and even dangerous, the real evidence has swung sharply in the other direction.
It has culminated in the utterly embarrassing debunking of the very Lancet study that purported to debunk HCQ. If you look at the study now online it has the word “withdrawn” stamped over every page.
More striking is the evidence of actual HCQ use, detailed by Dr Harvey Risch, professor of epidemiology, at that not-exactly ordinary Yale School of Public Health.
As he explained on Andrew Bolt’s program on Sky News last week, HCQ had shown significant effectiveness when used early on patients with the virus. The studies purportedly debunking it had all been on patients in serious condition in ICU.
For his efforts, it is worth disgracefully noting, the TDS-inflamed media and anti-Trump medical establishment has come down on Risch demanding he be silenced and cancelled.
Most striking has been the evidence of Qatar where HCQ is used comprehensively as part of the multifaceted antivirus strategy.
Qatar has had outstanding success in preventing cases leading on to death — precisely what HCQ is claimed to best achieve.
In Qatar there have been 110,000 cases and 169 deaths. Compare that with Australia: now more deaths at 189 from just 16,000 cases.
So, Dan, Dan, why the ban on a drug that could save lives in Australia as well as in Qatar?
And how exactly does his ban work, anyway? The premier’s been claiming that he is not responsible for the rising toll in aged care because that’s a federal responsibility?
Aren’t drugs also a federal responsibility? So why is he claiming the right to ban HCQ?
Finally, if you want to see a really impressive health minister, Google Qatar’s Dr Hanan Mohamed al-Kuwari and watch a video of her.
One final question: can we do a swap?
APRA GETS BANK DIVIDENDS RIGHT
The APRA “ban” on banks paying out more than 50 per cent of their second-half profits in dividends is sensible and appropriate.
Contrary to some silly commentary, it does not hurt shareholders in any way and arguably is net-net a plus for them.
That’s especially in limiting any planned (and needed) offsetting and small shareholder diluting (and costing) share issues.
So they (might) get a smaller dividend; so what?
The money and the value are still “in the bank”.
If it proves to be needed “in the bank”, it’s still there to be used; if not, it can be paid out later.
The “ban” really only documents what any sensible bank board of directors — and aren’t they all — would be doing anyway, in this most uncertain time of plague and arbitrary and punishing government edicts.
Originally published as Terry McCrann: Dan Andrews’ ban on drug is Trump Derangement Syndrome