Source: The Australian Author: Terry McCrann
I’m in a quandary. I am unable to decide which of two examples is the more egregious demonstration of the utterly mindless stupidity that results from regulatory pomposity combined with the “expertism” — that’s, to be clear, the fake version of good, human-enhancing expertise — that I lamented some columns ago.
The first is the bureaucratic keepers of our public health, the Therapeutic Health Administration (TGA), designating a drug as a poison with the specific, stated reason of preserving supply of that drug-now-poison for those sick people who have been taking it to improve their health for some 65 years.
Hmm, we’ll define something in widespread common use as a poison so it can be fed to people who need it. What next? Spinach? Avocados? Salmon? Carrots? The list is endless. Please go to work, TGA.
First the TGA and hydroxychloroquine, which went from just another common drug to the most devilish poison that has ever been invented (albeit, with that asterisk: it’s miraculously not a poison to those tens of thousands, actually tens of millions, of people around the world who have been taking it for decades) just because it passed the lips of President Donald Trump.
That’s of course the word not the drug itself, although it had also literally passed his lips with no apparent ill-effect. Just shows how devilish he really is: he can chomp down on the poisonous HCQ as if they were M&Ms.
You think I jest? Mock, yes, jest, no; and I quote from the relevant TGA notice in March: “I (the designated bureaucrat) decided to amend the Poisons Standard by creating a new Appendix D listing for hydroxychloroquine.”
He/she went on: People seeking it to treat the virus were creating demand shortages and “this poses a serious health risk to individuals currently using this medication”.
The TGA might reasonably argue that in March it needed to act to preserve supply for regular users. But designating it as a “poison”? Of which the most common definition is, and I quote, “a substance that is capable of causing the illness or death of a living organism when introduced or absorbed”.
While, in almost literally the same bureaucratic breath, pleading that it was desperately needed to fight illness and prevent people from dying?
That argument also vanished all-but immediately. HCQ is a widely available — and very widely used (so, where exactly are all the bodies?), very cheap generic. Within weeks Clive Palmer had 30 million doses that he offered to make available.
Now the efficacy/harmfulness issues of HCQ are outside the scope of this column about surrealistic bureaucratic mindlessness, but I will note this.
After the unrelenting tidal waves of Trump Derangement Syndrome-driven media and medical expertism attacking the drug, the Swiss which had been using it widely in late May banned its use. I have no information on whether they defined it as a “poison”.
What happened? What’s called the “Case Fatality Ratio Index (CFRI)” for the virus rocketed — and I mean, tripled. So, just 13 days later, the Swiss revoked the ban.
What happened then? The CFRI collapsed back to its prior HCQ-using levels. Bluntly, fewer — many fewer — people died. Apparently, the drug that’s a poison down under worked to save lives in Switzerland.
Related: Covid-19 strategies in Sweden & Switzerland put our policy makers to shame
Australian MP Craig Kelly delivers powerful parliamentary speech on hydroxychloroquine
Hydroxychloroquine, Parachutes And How to Understand ‘The Evidence’