LAURA INGRAHAM (HOST): Now finally, a new global survey of thousands of doctors just came out late yesterday found that their preferred treatment -- these are the doctors -- for COVID patients is, drum roll please, hydroxychloroquine. Of the 6,227 physicians surveyed in 30 countries, 37% rated hydroxychloroquine the most effective therapy for combating the potentially deadly illness and also found that 23% of medical professionals had prescribed the drug in the U.S., far less, this is interesting, than other countries. Outside the U.S., hydroxychloroquine was equally used for diagnosed patients with mild to severe symptoms, whereas in the U.S., it was most commonly used for high-risk diagnosed patients.
In Spain, 72% of doctors surveyed said they had already prescribed it. So why -- I've been thinking about this a lot over the last couple of days. Why the obvious bias against the drug here? Again, hydroxychloroquine. Well, the cynic in me wonders if it's because big pharma can't make money off of it.
Remember it is cheap, it's an old drug, it's been around for decades, and it’s safe, it's a generic, and it's scalable. We could get it quickly and cheaply. That's what you want in a crisis. China has already done its own controlled study of hydroxy which was very promising.
And the outcomes and Dr. Didier Raoult's non-controlled study in France were really impressive as well. He's one of the most renowned epidemiologists in all of Europe. He says you got to use it.
Renowned infectious disease specialist Dr. Stephen Smith, whose group is treating dozens of COVID patients. He described the amazing results he's getting with hydroxy and azithromycin.
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DR. STEPHEN SMITH (FOUNDER, SMITH CENTER FOR INFECTIOUS DISEASES AND URBAN HEALTH): We treat everybody with hydroxychloroquine and azithro, and we've been doing so for a while. No person has received five days or more of the hydroxychloroquine-azithro combination has been intubated. Laura, I think this is the beginning of the end, of the pandemic. I'm very serious.
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INGRAHAM: When he said that my heart stopped. I thought he meant the beginning of the end, the end, no, of the pandemic.