LAURA INGRAHAM (HOST): For more than a week I've been telling about the potential benefits of these decades-old antimalarial, the drug called hydroxychloroquine, and last Friday I highlighted a landmark study that found treating patients with a combo of hydroxy and azithromycin, commonly known as Z-pak, did eliminate virus symptoms within six days. Now it was a small study and we’re ongoing. Things are ongoing, now people are using it. And some experts say results like this are just anecdotal, but my next guest says not in his case -- it worked. Joining me now is Jay Forman, a coronavirus patient. Jay, yesterday was your birthday. I had a chance to talk to you on the phone. Happy belated birthday. And I'm glad -- you're looking pretty good there. I'm glad you're out of the hospital, but you had a nasty fever for days on end. Tell us about what happened and what happened then after the hydroxychloroquine and Z-pak.
JAY FORMAN: Well I got sick originally on the 16th -- it was Sunday. I went to the hospital, I had a fever, a little bit of a cough, and the doctor gave me Motrin and a cough medicine and sent me on my way. So, as I stayed home, progressively I got worse. By Friday I was in bad shape. My wife says you've got to go back to the hospital. I go back to the hospital, they admit me right away. I had 102 fever, coughing, couldn't speak, couldn't breathe. It was terrible. And then, I think -- I guess it was Saturday morning they started giving me the hydroxychloroquine and the Z-pak and then four days later, my fever broke, I have basically no symptoms still. It’s like a 180 turnaround.
INGRAHAM: And you were released yesterday, Jay, or today?
FORMAN: I was released this morning.
INGRAHAM: Oh, fantastic. And I know you were telling me on the phone that it's very -- you're obviously extremely isolated. People come in the room very quickly and leave very quickly. Before you got the hydroxychloroquine -- and again, we don't have a controlled study, maybe you would have gotten better on your own, et cetera, et cetera. We don’t know. But you felt -- you felt like you were going in a bad direction, a very bad direction. Given what you've heard.
FORMAN: Absolutely. I think that the hydroxychloroquine and the Z-pak definitely saved my life.
INGRAHAM: And what do you think about governors who are saying that doctors cannot prescribe it and off-label use if it's not part of a controlled study, that it's just not allowed? We’re seeing states put in those emergency -- almost rationing regulations in place.
FORMAN: Well they have to do what they have to do to save people's lives. I mean, I'm laying in the bed in the hospital watching President Trump say this possibly can work and I'm living proof. I'm on the TV right now, with you, telling people in America, this drug works. So if there is someone in a hospital, pick up your buzzer, buzz your nurse, and tell them you want that drug. If they tell you no, pick it up and buzz it again, because it works. I'm a firm believer of it.