"No one needs to die from COVID-19" is the ringing message of Dr. George Fareed, a 76-year-old medical practitioner in Brawley, California, a rural community near the Mexican border which became the epicenter of COVID-19 in that state.
Speaking before the Italian Senate in Rome at the International COVID Summit on September 13, Fareed in his folksy ways related his and his colleagues’ simple formula in battling the dreaded disease.
He noted that the said formula – early detection coupled with an affordable and accessible homecare treatment menu – can reduce if not completely eliminate the occurrence of COVID-19 deaths. It is a take, if you may, from that age old paradigm: An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure. His experience and formula in treating COVID-19 gained such respect from the members of the Italian Senate and the participants at the World Summit itself that his story has gone viral internationally.
Given the potency of this treatment protocol, it is good for everyone to be properly advised and educated about it and other means to contain COVID-19 aside from ramping up vaccination to achieve herd immunity which may take another two or three years given the global supply situation not to mention the increasingly problematic menu of lockdowns, pricey drugs and hospitalization.
COVID-19, Dr. Fareed advised, is a disease that can be easily treated in its early stage, but becomes very difficult to treat as the disease progresses. He noted the first stage of COVID involves viral replication resulting in flu-like symptoms of cough, fever, malaise, headache, and perhaps a loss of taste and smell – things which any person can easily feel or detect. These symptoms should alert anybody to consult with a doctor and begin the process of early treatment to ensure that the same does not progress into a “cytokine storm” where oxygen saturation drops. At this point, the treatment becomes more complicated especially with those having co-morbidities, so intubation becomes necessary.
As Dr. Fareed noted, left untreated or undeterred, that kind of progression can rapidly graduate into a thromboembolic stage where blood clots occur. This can be fatal.
Trained in biochemistry and virology with a degree from Harvard Medical School, Fareed and his colleagues, many of whom are public health practitioners, have always been advocates of early detection and treatment — which is the basis of curing any illness anyway. That is the science, if you ask me. For how can one start any kind of treatment if there is no determination of what really the disease is all about?
Fareed’s background in biochemistry and virology became so handy when he was confronted with COVID-19 patients in Brawley as well as the communities on the Mexican side of the border. Sad to say, most other practitioners have been so engaged with hospitalizations and pricey care that they have neglected this simple scientific norm.
Said Dr. Fareed: " I've treated patients in all three stages – delaying treatment in an elderly or high risk patient, those with co-morbidities such as asthma or diabetes, is nothing short of cruel as the disease predictably progresses – many then die. The standard wait-and-see approach to Covid 19 has been the greatest medical failure
in my long career because deaths are preventable – but you must treat early!!"
So, as early as March 2020, immediately after the US and other countries imposed strict quarantines and banned travel almost globally, Dr. Fareed and his colleagues tried treating COVID-19 patients with a combination of medications, primarily zinc, vitamin D and C, hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) and azithromycin or doxycycline, and other nutraceuticals – all designed to interfere with viral replication which can cause unwarranted disease progression. Eventually, they added other drugs such as ivermectin, fluvoxamine, monoclonal antibodies, aspirin and budesonide as a means to treat the other aspects of the disease – all of which form part of the early treatment menu.
In time, Dr. Fareed’s early treatment protocol got to be included in those prescribed by other physicians belonging to the American Association of Physicians as well as those associated with various European medical aggrupations with very positive results. In his case, Dr. Fareed reported that out of 7000 patients with various clinical status from those with multiple co-morbidities and old age issues (some in their ‘90s) who were treated within the first five to seven days of the onset of symptoms, not a single death has been recorded.
Ever the early treatment advocate, Dr. Fareed noted that his treatment protocol has saved more lives than those treated in some other ways in Brawley country. With his protocol, he has treated 7000 or 20 percent of the 300000 Covid cases with nary a death and none if treated early against those of other practitioners using other protocols compared with the 750 deaths using other protocols.
So, with all these results and validation studies undertaken by other experts advocating early detection and treatment such as Dr. McCullough and the Association of American Physicians, to name just two, why are COVID-19 patients not given a tried and tested treatment protocol such as that of Dr. Fareed and his colleagues?
Perhaps, Dr. Fareed decried, the major reason is that our own health agencies such as FDA and CDC have come out against these medications – even making false claims that they are dangerous. First, he noted that early on HCQ was described as cardiotoxic – based on sham study in the Lancet that was eventually retracted. Then, there is this continuing disinformation that Ivermectin is a " horse medication" even as the WHO itself has recommended the same as an anti-parasitic drug and millions have been given to humans to precisely treat parasitic infections.
Finally, and this is where it hurts the most, Dr. Fareed advised that he and others who treat COVID-19 early have come under attack from the bureaucrats in the local health departments, hospitals, and even state licensing boards while his prescriptions have been denied with “increasing frequency” by pharmacists. Moreover, his YouTube videos about early treatment have been taken down and labeled as misinformation.
This kind of censorship does not have any place in a free society and especially so in the exchange of ideas by and between medical practitioners, all of whom are desperately seeking ways to deter the spread of this pandemic. This will get the whole world to a soft landing, so to speak, as we slowly but surely get back on track and move on under a new environment of transparency, sharing, and people empowerment.
In the end, it is people-helping-other-people which will get all of us out of this deepening abyss we are presently in.
Even as it becomes more evident, Dr. Fareed advised that vaccines can somehow mitigate the problems wrought by this disease. Patients are still finding it increasingly difficult to get treatment and given his firsthand experience how early treatment saves lives, he believes it is his ethical and moral obligation to speak out and fight not only for his patients, but for the many around the world who continue to die unnecessarily. To this end, Dr. Fareed appeals for increased cooperation, understanding and courage to speak out and engage any and all groups and persons to find ways to treat and live with this virus.
As he pointed out: “Everyone must understand that we are in the greatest fight of our lives – when doctors are prevented from treating patients with life saving medicine, we know that something sinister is going on…so we must all stand up and fight to ensure that as much as possible No One Needs To Die From COVID-19."