{"id":12678,"date":"2021-03-30T05:05:39","date_gmt":"2021-03-30T12:05:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jennifermargulis.net\/?p=12678"},"modified":"2021-06-30T13:24:02","modified_gmt":"2021-06-30T20:24:02","slug":"peter-mccullough-md-compassion-crisis-in-medicine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jennifermargulis.net\/peter-mccullough-md-compassion-crisis-in-medicine\/","title":{"rendered":"Peter McCullough, M.D.: “We Have a Crisis of Compassion in Medicine”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"PeterPeter McCullough, M.D., is an internist and cardiologist. A professor of medicine at Texas A&M University College of Medicine<\/a>, Dr. McCullough works on the Baylor Dallas Campus. He\u2019s been involved in the response to COVID-19, both as an academic and as a physician who treats patients. In this testimony<\/a>, Dr. Peter McCullough argues that COVID-19 is treatable, that the COVID-19 vaccines<\/a> are not a magic bullet, and that there has been a concerted effort to keep important and even life-saving information from the American public.<\/p>\n

Dr. Peter McCullough testified to the Texas Senate Health and Human Services Committee on March 10, 2021.<\/p>\n

What follows is an edited and annotated transcript of his testimony. We’re concerned about the censorship on YouTube, Medium, Facebook, and many other social media platforms<\/a>. In case it gets scrubbed from YouTube, we provide Peter McCullough\u2019s testimony here.<\/p>\n

The opinions I\u2019ll express are those of my own and not necessarily those of my institution, Peter McCullough, M.D., began. I am an academic doctor. I see patients but I\u2019m very involved in research. I’m also an editor of two major journals. I can tell you, I\u2019m the most published person, in my field\u2014which deals with the heart and the kidneys\u2014in the world.<\/p>\n

He continues:<\/p>\n

When COVID 19 hit I saw it as our medical Super Bowl. There were going to be doctors, like Dr. Urso [Richard Urso, M.D. is an ophthalmologist in practice since 1988. He argues that masks<\/a>, lockdowns<\/a>, and waiting for a vaccine<\/a> was an unsustainable model from the beginning], coming out of wherever they worked to face the virus.<\/p>\n

Peter McCullough refused to let patients languish without treatment<\/strong><\/h3>\n

And there were doctors in the hospitals that just had to receive the virus, and then there were those who headed for the sidelines. Then there were those that were detractors against the pandemic. So as I started to survey the literature, I had patients with heart and lung disease who needed urgent treatment. And I refused to let a patient languish at home with no treatment and then be hospitalized when it was too late \u2026 So I used the best tools or drugs available at the time, and these are appropriately prescribed off-label.<\/p>\n

A label isn\u2019t a scientific document<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Remember a label is an advertising label. A label isn\u2019t a scientific document. Sure, there is an appropriately prescribed off-label use of conventional medicine to treat an illness. In May I put together a team of doctors. The group that was facing the pandemic to the greatest degree was in Milan, Italy, so most of them were in the Coracle Italian Research Network.<\/p>\n

[Our team] summarized all we knew about the available drugs. And we published our finding in the August 8th<\/sup>\u00a0issue of The American Journal of Medicine<\/em>. And the title of that paper was \u201cThe Pathophysiologic Basis and Rationale for Early Outpatient Treatment of SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) Infection<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

[Our paper] had a premise.<\/strong> There are two bad outcomes to COVID-19:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Hospitalization<\/li>\n
  2. Death<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    The second premise:<\/strong> if we don\u2019t do something [to treat patients with COVID-19] before <\/em>the hospitalization, we can never stop it. We can never stop it.<\/p>\n

    I was the lead author on that paper. But we had dozens of authors from Italy, India, UCLA, Emory. We had the best institutions in the United States. I can tell you the interesting thing was, there were 50,000 papers in the peer-reviewed literature on COVID, not a single one told a doctor how to treat it. Not a single one. When does that happen? I was absolutely stunned.<\/p>\n

    And when this paper was published in The American Journal of Medicine<\/em> it became a lightning rod. It became the most cited paper in basically all of medicine at that time. Boy, the world started knocking down my door. And I said, ‘Oh my lord I just can\u2019t believe what became untapped.’<\/p>\n

    My daughter said, \u201cWhy don\u2019t you make a YouTube video?\u201d<\/strong><\/h3>\n

    I had never been on social media before. My daughter, who was home from law school, I was talking to her about it, and she said, \u201cWell why don\u2019t you make a YouTube video?\u201d<\/p>\n

    So I made a YouTube video with four slides from my paper. This is a peer-reviewed paper published in one of the world\u2019s best medical journals in the world.<\/p>\n

    Four slides. I even wore a tie and a suit. And she showed me how to record it in PowerPoint and I posted it on YouTube.<\/p>\n

    It went absolutely viral. Within about a week, YouTube said, \u201cYou violated the terms of the community.\u201d<\/p>\n

    And that\u2019s when Senator [Ron] Johnson\u2019s office got involved in Washington [Senator Ron Johnson<\/a> held hearings in Washington on alternative COVID-19 treatments<\/a>]. And said, \u201cOh my gosh this is important scientific information to help patients in the middle of this crisis, and social media is striking it down. Based on what authority?\u201d<\/p>\n

    Blocking information about how to treat COVID patients<\/strong><\/h3>\n

    Well, one thing led to another, and I became the lead witness for the U.S. Senate testimony on November 19, 2020. And the reason why there was senate testimony is because there was a near total block on any information of treatment to patients. A near total block.<\/p>\n

    So what had happened over time was that we had gotten into a cycle in America of no information on treatment, patients actually think that the virus is untreatable. And so what happens is they go out to get a diagnosis. Now, I\u2019m a COVID survivor. My wife Negalia is a COVID survivor, my father in a nursing home is also a COVID survivor.<\/p>\n

    A diagnosis feels like a death sentence, says Peter McCoughlin\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n

    You get handed a diagnostic test, it says here you\u2019re COVID positive<\/a>, go home.<\/p>\n

    Is there any treatment? No.<\/p>\n

    Is there any resources I can call? No.<\/p>\n

    Any referral lines, hotlines? No.<\/p>\n

    Any research hotlines? No.<\/p>\n

    That\u2019s the standard of care in the United States! And if we go to any one of our testing centers today in Texas, I bet that\u2019s [still] the standard of care. No wonder we\u2019ve had 45,000 deaths in Texas<\/a>! The average person in Texas thinks there\u2019s no treatment. They honestly think there\u2019s no treatment.<\/p>\n

    They don\u2019t even know about the EUA [Emergency Use Authorization] antibodies [the FDA authorized a treatment for COVID-19 using monoclonal antibodies in November of 2020. Read more about that here<\/a>].<\/p>\n

    You heard from a 90 year old gentleman who got Bamlanivimab [a drug to treat COVID], terrific!<\/p>\n

    Where\u2019s the focus? Cause there\u2019s such a focus on the vaccine<\/a>; Where\u2019s the focus on people sick right now? This committee ought to know where all these monoclonal antibodies are. They ought to know where all the treatment protocols are. They ought to have a list of the treatment centers in Texas that actually treat <\/em>patients with COVID-19.<\/p>\n

    So I led the initiative. Our second paper<\/a> was published in a dedicated issue of Reviews in Cardiovascular Medicine<\/em>. Now I had 57 authors including Dr. Urso, Dr. [Stella] Immanuel, lead doctors in Houston, San Antonio, all over, and it was another worldwide paper. And now we have it updated, integrated.<\/p>\n

    Peter McCullough: \u201cThe best inflammatory drug is colchicine\u201d<\/strong><\/h3>\n

    So, yes, we used drugs to effect viable replication. The antibodies are terrific. We can use intracellular anti-infectives in that box. We use corticosteroids and inflammatory drugs. The best inflammatory drug is colchicine. You\u2019ve probably never heard about it. In the largest highest quality randomized trial<\/a> of over 4,000 patients; double-blinded randomized placebo-controlled trial. There\u2019s a [nearly] 50% reduction in mortality.<\/p>\n

    No word of it, none. Complete block to anybody. Colchicine.<\/p>\n

    How can that be?<\/p>\n

    And then the most deadly part of the viral infection is thrombosis. So I have always treated my patients with something to treat the virus, something to treat the inflammation, and something to treat thrombosis. Just as Dr. Urso had. And I have very very sick patients, and I\u2019ve lost two.<\/p>\n

    The censorship has been beyond belief: \u201cIt is a blanking phenomenon\u201d<\/strong><\/h3>\n

    But I have to tell you, what has gone on has been beyond belief. How many of you have turned on a local news station? Or a national cable news station and ever gotten an update on treatment at home? How many of you have ever gotten a single word about what to do when you get handed the diagnosis of COVID-19?<\/p>\n

    No wonder, that is a complete and total failure at every level.<\/p>\n

    Okay, let\u2019s take the White House. How come we didn\u2019t have a panel of doctors assigned to put all their efforts to stop these hospitalizations? Why didn\u2019t we have doctors that actually treated patients get together in a group and every week give us an update?<\/p>\n

    Why didn\u2019t we have that? Why didn\u2019t we have that at the state level? Zero. Why didn\u2019t we have any reports about how many patients were treated and spared hospitalization? I listened to 6 hours of testimony today. Zero. Zero.<\/p>\n

    We have a complete and total blank spot on treatment. It is a blanking phenomenon.<\/p>\n

    There are some heroes, says Peter McCullough<\/strong><\/h3>\n

    At least in the United States there are some heroes. The American Society of Physicians and Surgeons took the lead. They\u2019re the group. They’ve identified 35 treatment centers in Texas. AAPS knew who they are. They have emergency hot lines. They helped Dr. Hall put together this very brief pamphlet, but there is a more extensive one. We can pass it [the AAPS guide<\/a>, which has been used to treat over 500,000 cases in the United States] around to everyone. That at least gives people half a chance to find out about information.<\/p>\n

    This is a complete and total travesty: to have a fatal disease and not treat it. Now the National Institutes of Health and the Infectious Disease Society of America started putting out guidelines in the treatment of COVID-19. And to date [these guidelines] nearly exclusively deal with a hospitalized patient.<\/p>\n

    The two papers that I have published as the lead author, and supported by wonderful people like Dr. Urso, are the only publications in the peer-reviewed literature that tell doctors how to treat COVID-19 as an outpatient, based on the support of scientific information. The only two.<\/p>\n

    The home treatment guide by the American Physicians and Surgeons is the only source of information available to patients on how to treat COVID-19 at home. The only source.<\/p>\n

    We need a treatment guide<\/strong><\/h3>\n

    So what can be done right here right now? There\u2019s going to be more people who die in Texas, and it\u2019s an absolute tragedy. How about tomorrow? Let\u2019s have a law that says there is not a single result given out without a treatment guide and without a hotline of how to get into research.<\/p>\n

    Let\u2019s put a staffer on this and find out all the research available in Texas. And let\u2019s not have a single person go home with a test result with their fatal diagnosis, sitting at home going into two weeks of despair before they succumb to hospitalization and death.<\/p>\n

    It is unimaginable in America that we can have such a complete and total blind spot. I blame the doctors for not stepping up. Where was the medical society stepping and putting effort on this? How about the federal and state agencies? There never was a single bit of group collaborative effort to stop the hospitalizations! Nobody even kind of thought about it. Bob Hall had me on a teleconference in April or May and we were like wait a minute, how come, where\u2019s UT Southwestern? I\u2019m a graduate of UT Southwestern. Where\u2019s A&M? Where\u2019s the rest of the universities? How come we\u2019re not stopping this? How come we are not stopping this?<\/p>\n

    Why haven\u2019t we looked to successful treatment in other countries?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

    But it gets worse! Because in the paper I published in December of 2020, you know what we did, I had a terrific doctor in Brazil. We went through country by country by country and just asked the question \u201cWhat are the other countries doing?<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n

    When was the last time you turned on the news and ever got a window to the outside world? When did you ever get an update about how the rest of the world was handling COVID?<\/p>\n

    Never.<\/p>\n

    What\u2019s happened in this pandemic is a world has closed in on us. There is only one doctor whose face is on TV now. One. Not a panel. Doctors, we always work in groups, we always have different opinions. There\u2019s not a single media doctor on TV who\u2019s ever treated a COVID-19 patient. Not a single one.<\/p>\n

    There\u2019s not a single person in the White House task force who\u2019s ever treated a patient. Why don\u2019t we do something bold? Why don\u2019t we put together a panel of doctors that have actually treated outpatients of COVID 19 and get them together for a meeting? And why don\u2019t we exchange ideas? And why don\u2019t we say how we can finish the pandemic strongly?<\/p>\n

    Isn\u2019t it amazing?<\/p>\n

    The complete and total blind spot on treatment<\/strong><\/h3>\n

    Think about this. Think about the complete and total blind spot.<\/p>\n

    So what happened?<\/p>\n

    I can tell you what happened.<\/p>\n

    What happened was that in around May it became know that the virus was going to be amenable to a vaccine<\/a>. All efforts on treatment<\/a> were dropped.<\/p>\n

    The National Institutes of Health actually had a multi-drug program. They dropped it after 20 patients, said we can\u2019t find the patients. The most disingenuous announcement of all time. And then [Operation] Warp Speed went full tilt for vaccine development<\/a> and there was a silencing of any information on treatment. Any. Silencing. Scrubbed from Twitter, YouTube. Can\u2019t get papers published on this. We can\u2019t even get information out in our own medical literature on this. There\u2019s been a complete scrubbing.<\/p>\n

    So this program has been one of try to reduce the spread of the virus, and wait for a vaccine. And when we vaccinate, all efforts have to be on vaccination. And probably I\u2019ve had 4 hours of vaccination on here.<\/p>\n

    Herd immunity in Texas achieved without vaccines<\/strong><\/h3>\n

    Think about it as we sit here today, the calculations in Texas on herd immunity. We\u2019re at 80% herd immunity right now. With no vaccine effect. Eighty percent. And more people are developing COVID-19 today. They\u2019re going to become immune.<\/p>\n

    People who develop COVID have complete and durable immunity. It\u2019s a very important principle: complete and durable. You can\u2019t beat natural immunity. You can\u2019t vaccinate on top of it and make it better. There\u2019s no scientific clinical or safety rationale for ever vaccinating a COVID-recovered patient.<\/p>\n

    There\u2019s no rationale for ever testing a COVID recovered patient. My wife and I are COVID recovered. Why did we go through the testing outside? There\u2019s absolutely no rationale.<\/p>\n

    Peter McCullough, M.D.: COVID-recovered patients should not get the vaccine<\/strong><\/h3>\n

    I\u2019d encourage this committee to actually look at what\u2019s being done and ask is there any rationale? Is there any rationale for anything? Listen, there are plenty of COVID-recovered patients. Let them forgo the vaccine. And let people who are clamoring for it get it. But at 80% herd immunity \u2026 In the vaccine trials fewer than 1% in the vaccine and in the placebo actually get COVID. Fewer than 1%. The vaccine\u2019s going to have a 1% public health impact. That\u2019s what the data says.<\/p>\n

    It\u2019s not going to save us. We\u2019re already 80% herd immune. If we\u2019re strategically targeted we can actually close out the pandemic very well with the vaccine, but strategically targeted.<\/p>\n

    People under 50 who fundamentally have no health risks: There\u2019s no scientific rationale for them to ever become vaccinated. There\u2019s no scientific rationale.<\/p>\n

    Fear of asymptomatic spread not<\/em> a reason to vaccinate<\/strong><\/h3>\n

    One of the mistakes I heard today as a rationale for vaccination is asymptomatic spread. And I want you to be very clear about this.<\/p>\n

    My opinion is: There is a low degree, if any, of asymptomatic spread. Sick person gives it to sick person. The Chinese have published a study in the British Medical Journal<\/em><\/a>, 11 million people. They tried to find asymptomatic spread. You can\u2019t find it. And that\u2019s been one of the important pieces of misinformation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    When Senator Hall called a conference call, \u201cWhat should we do in the Capitol when we reopen?\u201d<\/p>\n

    I said, \u201cYou know what? You know what we do at Baylor when you walk in? They zap your temperature.” You have a temperature check and go in.<\/p>\n

    Do we test everybody that walks in Baylor Hospital?<\/p>\n

    No.<\/p>\n

    Are they a lot sicker than everybody in this room?<\/p>\n

    You better believe it.<\/p>\n

    So, why would we do something here at the Capitol that has absolutely positively no scientific rationale?<\/p>\n

    It\u2019s always been a treatable illness<\/strong><\/h3>\n

    So my testimony as we sit here today is that COVID-19 has always been a treatable illness.<\/p>\n

    A very large study from Mckinney, Texas, another one from New York City, show that when doctors treat patients early who are over age 50 with medical problems with a sequence multi-drug approach with the available drugs, 4 to 6 drugs that are available to them, now that monoclonal antibodies are better, there\u2019s an 85% reduction in hospitalizations and death.<\/p>\n

    Eighty-five percent. Eighty five percent. I want you to remember that number: 85%. We\u2019ve had over 500,000 deaths in the United States. The preventable fraction could have been as high as 85%, if our pandemic response would have been laser-focused on the problem: the sick patient right in front of us. We\u2019re focused over here, and focused over there, and focused on masks<\/a>, and what have you. Laser-focused: sick patient\u2014treat them. We lost focus on the most fundamental thing. That\u2019s my testimony.<\/p>\n

    15:20 At this point in the testimony, Senator Lois Kolkhorst interrupted Dr. Peter McCullough.<\/p>\n

    Senator Lois Kolkhorst:<\/strong><\/h4>\n

    I can tell how passionate you are \u2026 COVID-19 is going to be with us. The message is that there are drugs out there that work, there are therapies out there that work.<\/p>\n

    Dr. Peter McCullough:
    \n<\/strong><\/h4>\n

    But no single one works alone. The dismissive mistake was to do a very small study. Oh, we studied 200 patients and we used ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine and it didn\u2019t work. That\u2019s like picking one drug and saying oh, it doesn\u2019t reduce cancer mortality. We never do that in cancer, we never did that in AIDS.; we don\u2019t do that in hepatitis C … What we look for is signals of benefit and safety and then we combine them.<\/p>\n

    At the 19-minute mark Dr. Peter McCullough claims that medical doctors who say they don\u2019t treat COVID are really saying they don\u2019t care about the outcomes of patients with COVID. \u201cWe have a crisis of compassion in our country, in the medical field.\u201d<\/p>\n