It’s a sad fact of the Wuhan pandemic that, like everyone else in this Clown World, it has been ruthlessly politicised, root and branch. Especially by the mainstream media. Everything, everything, about it is almost immediately divided along tribal political lines by the (left-wing) media.
When Donald Trump first referred to it as a threat, the media insisted he was scare-mongering. When Trump told people not to panic, the media screeched that he was ignoring the threat. When Anthony Fauci and his henchmen (with dubious motives, as it turned out) dismissed the lab-leak theory, the media duly shrieked that it was a loony conspiracy theory. When the same people acknowledged the possibility of a lab leak, the media turned on a dime, without ever admitting their earlier outraged denialism.
The same media and medical bureaucracy which not only encouraged but joined in Black Lives Matter protests, hurled furious invective at Freedom protesters.
But few things have been as relentlessly politicised as potential medical treatments.
The media hyped the dire need for ventilators — which, as it turned out, may do more harm than good. When Trump (again) touted the possible benefits of hydroxychloroquine (probably wrongly), the media couldn’t just say that the treatment was unproven: they had to attack it relentlessly, and make up bogus stories of hayseed Trump supporters “overdosing on hydroxychloroquine”. (On the flip side, the right endlessly hype hydroxycholoroquine, despite the dearth of robust evidence supporting it as a covid treatment.)
The same has happened with Ivermectin. A more promising treatment than hydroxychloroquine, it has nonetheless been just as thoroughly demonised by the clueless, tribal media. Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration went so far as to ban its off-label prescription. Meanwhile, the right praise it as the covid wonder drug for the ages. The truth probably lies somewhere in the middle.
With all that in mind, though, I am cautiously sceptical when the uber-left ABC suddenly waxes lyrical about another, off-label covid use for a common prescription drug.
Melbourne researchers have turned one of the world’s most-used drugs into a nasal spray which they hope could prevent COVID-19 transmission.
Northern Health medical divisional director Don Campbell said he had a “crazy idea” that the blood-thinning drug heparin could stop the virus growing in cells.
But it wasn’t until his wife asked “well, what are you going to do about it?” that he got to work.
Nearly two years later, with the help of researchers at Melbourne, Monash and Oxford Universities, his team has been able to replicate international findings that heparin can block the transmission of COVID-19 and prevent infection.
I’d maybe put this down to parochialism, but the Borody Protocol (the combined regime of Ivermectin, Vitamin D and zinc) was also developed in Australia, by a highly-respected, experienced medical researcher. The ABC has been just as feral in its denunciations of Ivermectin as the rest of the lumpen mainstream media.
Still, let’s not play their game: let’s examine the evidence. How does this treatment supposedly work?
The spray coats the nose but does not go down into the lungs. The researchers say it is cheap, easy to distribute and is expected to be effective against mutant strains of the virus including the Omicron variant.
“It won’t matter if a new variant comes along, this drug will block that protein from infecting the cells,” Professor Campbell said […]
“When [COVID] first gets into the nose it binds to a molecule called heparan and if it mutates that binding site it can’t bind,” he said.
“Heparin is so close in structure to heparan that it binds on and paralyses the virus, so it stops it infecting and also stops it spreading to others.”
The proof, as for any treatment, is in the pudding.
The treatment has received $4.2 million from the Victorian government to undergo clinical trials.
Over the next six months, 340 Victorian households will be given the heparin nasal spray or a placebo, within hours of their household contact testing positive, to reduce transmission.
“The treatment will be given to household family contacts of the persons who get COVID, and we will also give it to the person who is infected,” Professor Campbell said.
“We want to get to them within 24 hours of the diagnosis being known and we are confident we can do that.”
ABC Australia
Like Ivermectin, Heparin is a widely used, safe drug. What’s more, it can be stored at room temperature for months.
If this lives up to its promise, it might finally put an end to covid hysteria.
For this very reason, the cynic in me suspects, the medical bureaucracy and Big Pharma will fight it, tooth and nail.
Still, let’s wait and see.