No Donald Trump. The Cure Is Not Worse Than The Problem.

Regarding the coronavirus sweeping across the United States, on March 22, 2020, U.S. President Donald Trump said in a tweet; “WE CANNOT LET THE CURE …

No Donald Trump. The Cure Is Not Worse Than The Problem.

Doctors Are Hoarding Unproven Coronavirus Medicine by Writing Prescriptions for Themselves and Their Families

No numbers of how many suspected hoarders or fraudulent prescriptions. Hope they have not joined those who don’t fact check!

20200324-corona-pill-1200x630.jpg

by Topher Sanders, David Armstrong and Ava Kofman

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.

A nationwide shortage of two drugs touted as possible treatments for the coronavirus is being driven in part by doctors inappropriately prescribing the medicines for family, friends and themselves, according to pharmacists and state regulators.

“It’s disgraceful, is what it is,” said Garth Reynolds, executive director of the Illinois Pharmacists Association, which started getting calls and emails Saturday from members saying they were receiving questionable prescriptions. “And completely selfish.”

Demand for chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine surged over the past several days as President Donald Trump promoted them as possible treatments for the coronavirus and online forums buzzed with excitement over a small study suggesting the combination of hydroxychloroquine and a commonly used antibiotic could be effective in treating COVID-19.

callout.svg

Help Us Report on Coronavirus

Are you a public health worker, medical provider, elected official, patient or other COVID-19 expert? Help make sure our journalism is responsible and focused on the right issues.

If you develop emergency warning signs for COVID-19, such as difficulty breathing or bluish lips, get medical attention immediately. The CDC has more information on what to do if you are sick.

Reynolds said the Illinois Pharmacists Association has started reaching out to pharmacists and medical groups throughout the state to urge doctors, nurses and physician assistants not to write prescriptions for themselves and those close to them.

“We even had a couple of examples of prescribers trying to say that the individual they were calling in for had rheumatoid arthritis,” he said, explaining that pharmacists suspected that wasn’t true. “I mean, that’s fraud.”

In one case, Reynolds said, the prescriber initially tried to get the pills without an explanation and only offered up that the individual had rheumatoid arthritis after the pharmacist questioned the prescription.

In a bulletin to pharmacists on Sunday, the state association wrote that it was “disturbed by the current actions of prescribers” and instructed members on how to file a complaint against physicians and nurses who were doing it.

“People are losing their minds about this product,” said Brian Brito, president of SMP Pharmacy Solutions in Miami. “We’re selling so much of this stuff and people are just stockpiling it prophylactically if anybody in their family gets sick — they’re just holding on to it.”

Get Our Top Investigations

Subscribe to the Big Story newsletter.

Don’t miss out on ProPublica’s next investigation. Sign up and get the Big Story email whenever we break news.

Email address

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

The two drugs are only available through a prescription and cannot be purchased over the counter. Hydroxychloroquine, sold under the brand name Plaquenil, is approved to treat lupus and rheumatoid arthritis while chloroquine is an anti-malarial treatment.

There is little evidence that the drugs work to treat coronavirus, although clinical trials are underway to find out. But as coronavirus cases multiply and protective gear for medical workers vanishes from emergency rooms, many patients and physicians see the drugs as the only hope to reverse the course of serious disease.

Brito said his pharmacy had about 800 tablets on Monday and were nearly sold out in about an hour. One doctor called and asked for 200 tablets, but the company refused. “He was a little upset about it but he understood and he went quickly from 200 to 42 tablets, which is essentially treating two people,” Brito said. “So yeah, they’re stockpiling it.”

A pharmacist in Houston, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation and violating patient privacy, said he was recently asked by a surgeon for an unusually large quantity with unlimited refills. “He said it was because his wife had lupus,” the pharmacist said, “but when I asked him for her name and diagnosis, he told me just to put it in his.”

Lupus patients are reporting difficulty in refilling their prescriptions for the drug. On Monday, the Lupus Foundation of America issued a joint statement asking the White House Coronavirus Task Force to “take action to ensure current supplies are allocated for patients taking them for indicated uses.” Several states in the past few days have already moved to limit prescriptions of the drugs, neither of which is approved to treat the coronavirus. Trump, in press conferences and tweets over the past week, has promoted the use of the drugs as potentially blunting the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak.

“It’s unfortunate that a news conference, I think prematurely, made it sound like this was the answer, and that’s led to this panic,” Michelle Petri, director of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine’s Lupus Center, said Friday. “I have spent the last two days trying to help lupus patients who actually need their refills.” She said some patients have refills on back order while others are being provided smaller amounts than usual.

The West Virginia Board of Pharmacy, in an alert Saturday, ordered pharmacists to limit new prescriptions to no more than 30 tablets and only to cases where the drugs were being used for approved indications.

“Currently, both nationally and in West Virginia, some prescribers have begun writing prescriptions for these drugs for family, friends, and coworkers in anticipation of Covid-19 related illness,” the board wrote.

Texas and Ohio have also restricted prescribing of the drugs. Louisiana on Sunday also issued an emergency rule limiting when the drugs can be prescribed, citing “inappropriate use” and “hoarding.” On Monday, the Louisiana Board of Pharmacy said it was rescinding that order because manufacturers had boosted distribution of the drugs.

Experts are warning that any use of the drugs outside of a hospital setting can be dangerous, and admonished doctors to stop prescribing the medicines inappropriately.

Daniel Brooks, the medical director of the Banner Poison and Drug Information Center in Phoenix, said it was “immoral” for physicians to hoard the medications.

“One should not be selfish and scared, especially medical providers,” he said. “I find it incredibly embarrassing and unfortunate that physicians appear to be prescribing these medications inappropriately.”

This weekend Brooks cared for a man in his 60s who died after ingesting a version of chloroquine commonly used to clean fish tanks. The man, who thought he might have COVID-19, took a small amount of the substance in a misguided effort to treat his symptoms. His wife was also hospitalized after taking the substance but survived.

Brooks said the amount the couple ingested was equivalent to a couple days’ worth of prescription chloroquine.

Ken Thai, the owner of a chain of Los Angeles-area pharmacies, said his stores are witnessing a rash of inappropriate prescribing.

“A lot of physicians, unfortunately, are writing high amounts for more than the required number of tablets and calling in five, six, seven and eight prescriptions at a time,” he said. “I don’t want to insinuate what is going on, but it is very unusual.”

He said his pharmacists are declining to fill suspicious orders and telling prescribers they don’t have enough of the medication on hand to complete those requests. Among the prescriptions flagged are those for people who have not previously taken the drug as well as orders from doctors who do not typically treat lupus and rheumatoid arthritis patients.

“If a doctor is writing a prescription for himself or aunts and uncles, that is usually a red flag for us,” he said. “Whatever we have in stock, we have to preserve for the patients we currently service.”

On Twitter, pharmacy workers traded stories about dentists and opthamologists requesting hydroxychloroquine under dubious pretenses. “A dentist just tried to call in scripts for hydroxychloroquine + azithromycin for himself, his wife, & another couple (friends),” tweeted a pharmacist in Eugene, Oregon. “I have patients with lupus that have been on HCQ [Hydroxychloroquine] for YEARS and now can’t get it because it’s on backorder.”

Steve Moore, president of the Pharmacists Society of the State of New York, said medical providers hoarding the drugs is occuring in the state, which has the highest number of coronavirus cases in the country.

“That’s a double whammy,” he said. “We’re potentially taking that medication away from patients with autoimmune conditions and patients with the actual virus that may need treatment.”


Tell Us More About Coronavirus

Are you a public health worker, medical provider, elected official, patient or other COVID-19 expert? Help make sure our journalism is responsible and focused on the right issues.

This form requires JavaScript to complete.
Powered by Screendoor.
13385504.gif

Henry Gray obituary

2808.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=8

Blues pianist who played and recorded with Howlin’ Wolf

In the electrifying blues scene of 1950s Chicago there were two men who rose above all others. On one side stood the stylish Muddy Waters; on the other the towering, intense Howlin’ Wolf. Henry Gray, who has died aged 95, played with both of them.

It was with Wolf he went deepest. Beginning in 1956 Gray spent more than a decade playing the piano on some of the Mississippi bluesman’s finest sessions in the studio while leading his band outside it, always making sure the other musicians stuck to Wolf’s firm no-drinking, no-smoking onstage rules. Older, wiser and more disciplined than many of the others, he proved to be the steady hand Wolf was looking for.

Continue reading…

Russian official questions Putin over coronavirus

guy behind Putin in mask

1986.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=8

Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin tells president situation more serious than thought

When Vladimir Putin sat down for a briefing on coronavirus, Moscow’s mayor had a tough message for him: the number of infected people is far higher than you’ve been told, he said, and Russia’s healthcare system could be overrun.

Breaking with official tallies that show the disease’s conservative growth in Russia, Sergei Sobyanin told Putin on Tuesday that a serious situation was developing as the disease spread in Moscow and in the regions, and that the problem “would emerge sooner or later”.

Continue reading…

Coronavirus Live Updates: As India Imposes 21-Day Lockdown, Trump Calls for U.S. to Be Open ‘by Easter’ – The New York Times

The Tokyo Olympics have been postponed. New York, now the center of the outbreak in America, braces for a flood of patients.

Me: It’s BOHICA time (look it up if you do not know what it means).

President and Vice President don’t think anything through; denying all they hear and even endangering their own families. My God, what are we to do? I’ve written my Governor and Senator this morning – pleading for them to stay the course and do the right thing. I’ll be 76 in July, I want to at least see 77, next year. I’d like to go back to work in the clinic in our homeless shelter but fear for my life now if I do. Now with this announcement by the President… what am I/we to do?

Trump’s Claims that Antimalarials May Cure Coronavirus Is Now Leading to Deaths

Donald Trump, who is decidedly not a doctor and barely qualifies as a human, is now directly responsible for people’s deaths after he announced that the antimalarials chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine could potentially be used to treat covid-19.

— Read on jezebel.com/trumps-claims-that-antimalarials-may-cure-coronavirus-i-1842463182

Second Look Behind the Headlines – News you can use…

Baldacchino di Perla

"Luce di parole, ombra di sogni."

Northern Desert Photography

Living on the Edge of the Sagebrush Ocean

Susana Cabaço

Spiritual Insights & Personal Empowerment

Barbara Picci

Artist & Art Blogger

craft journey

Furnicraft, woodwork, and art

musings corner

reveries and rants

Japão para Românticos

Bem Vindos a este espaço onde compartilhamos um pouco da realidade do Japão à todos aqueles que desejam visitar ou morar no Japão. Aqui neste espaço, mostramos a realidade do Japão e dos imigrantes. O nosso compromisso é com a realidade. Fique por dentro do noticiário dos principais jornais japoneses, tutoriais de Faça você mesmo no Japão e acompanhe a Série Histórias de Imigrantes no Japão. Esperamos que goste de nossos conteúdos, deixe seu like, seu comentário, compartilhe e nos ajudar você e à outras pessoas. Grande abraço, gratidão e volte sempre!

Leben als Mensch

Willkommen auf Elke´s Glücks-Blog

Sharpshot Nature .Com

- Specializing in the great outdoors, capturing nature at its finest!

Diane Ravitch's blog

A site to discuss education and democracy

Expansão e Percepção

Seu Guia de Inspirações e Reflexões Diárias

noga noga.

my-health-and-beauty.com/

Uğurcan'ın Ütopyası

Benim Gezegenime Hoş geldiniz !!!

AKILS

Blog de viajes y lugares

Ed Mooney Photography

The official blog of Ed Mooney Photography. Dad of 3, Photographer, Blogger, Powerlifter. Exploring the historical sites of Ireland.

everything Explored on the earth

It has new aidias,news, about education , motivation, social, historical, culture, marketing creation new aidias education of language science culture and history

Born to die

L'unico modo sensato di vivere è senza regole

Early Morning Memories

by Anuran (A) & Sayoni (S)

My thoughts

Fun for the Brain

Neo Vision College

An exemplary learning community.

Anthony’s Crazy Love and Life Lessons in Empathy

Loves, lamentation, and life through prose, stories, passions, and essays.

Episodic Squalid Rants

public tantrums by a non-two-year-old

The Street Art Directory

Public, street and urban art worldwide

Artie & Stu

all the rules of free form

Everyone read that they fell in love first

<script async src="https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-2937106805202763" crossorigin="anonymous"></script>

davidscottmoyer

Lapsed Painter, Occasional Photographer, Compulsive Writer

Health & Fitness

Health Blogs

Buildings Tell Tales

Exploring the hidden architectural heritage of Budapest

Divit kalem

Yaşamdan

Roy's Weblog

The third incarnation...

Thought Pukes

More than a thought less than a question

"بوصلة الحياة"

"بوصلة الحياة: مدونة متعددة المجالات، من السياسة إلى الرومانسية، ومن تطوير الذات إلى الأدب وأكثر!" بقلم مشاعر بنت عبدالرحمن

parallax

The view from here ... Or here!

ClearingSpace4Joy

Bringer and seeker of joy

Belladonna’s Flashlight

The One Where She Stumbled Through Her 40's and Faced Her Demons

~ Trivial Music Silliness ~

Baw wit da baw. Just sayin'.

mo mnsoor blog

Website storys

Chronicles of an Anglo Swiss

Welcome to the Anglo Swiss World

gnaddrig ad libitum

Querbeet und ohne Gewähr

Peace & Truth

KINDNESS IS FREE, sprinkle it all over the world, and 😁 smile

Ética de la vida diaria

Nuestra ética de todos los días...

Elizabeth Gauffreau

Fiction Writer in Poet's Clothing