Breakthroughs

"Some good news, for a change"

Here is some good news in the global fight against the deadly COVID-19 virus: the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) has upgraded its recommendation on the use of the “miracle drug” ivermectin. From its original position of “against or non-use of the drug,” the NIH has now advised that it is “neither for nor against” its use as an option for the treatment of COVID-19 within the United States. 

This is the same recommendation given to “monoclonal antibodies and convalescence plasma,” both of which have been widely used not only in the United States but in most countries worldwide. If we go by this latest advisory, ivermectin is in fact a better option than the very expensive drug remdesivir which our very own FDA and the DOH have practically given carte blanche to be used as the “drug-of-record” against COVID-19.  

With this development, there is no more reason for FDA Director General Eric Domingo and his boss, Health Secretary Francisco Duque III, to hem and haw about the use of ivermectin. In fact, they should now gather all the materials presented by the original proponents of the drug’s use and, if needed, consult with their counterparts in the US NIH, notably its head, Dr. Anthony Fauci to fast track the “studies” they have been ordered to undertake by no less than President Duterte some months ago.

As reported by Patrick Delaney in LifeSiteNews, the NIH advisory was issued a week after the convenors of the medical practitioners and health advocates group Front Line Covid 19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCC), Doctors Paul Marik and Pierre Kory, together with Dr. Andrew Hill, researcher and consultant to the World Health organization (WHO), presented their data before the NIH Treatment Guidelines Panel.

The FLCC said that with this issuance, medical practitioners should now “feel more open in prescribing ivermectin as another therapeutic option for the treatment of COVID-19”without fear of any legal problems or even societal pushbacks. Of course, our FDA has issued a similar guidance a month or so ago but only after being deluged with loads of criticisms and push backs for the inexcusable display of bureaucratic inertia with which it first approached “requests” for the use of the drug against COVID-19.               

Not only did the FDA and the DOH sit on the standing applications for the use of ivermectin for months. These agencies actually warned the public against its use, going to the extent even of insisting that the same was good only for “animal use.” Duque and Domingo were even quoted as having said that there have been no known “human use applications” in their files which is simply dishonest since the drug has been in use in the country for deworming during the Marcos years and even during the stint of then Senator Juan Flavier as DOH Secretary.      

In any event, we are heartened by this breakthrough in the continuing global effort against COVID-19 given the fact that in tons and tons of studies and hundreds of clinical trials IVERMECTIN has proven to be “one of the safest, cheapest and most widely available drugs.” As Dr. Kory himself explained, “the studies presented to the NIH revealed high levels of statistical significance showing large magnitude benefit in transmission rates, need for hospitalization and death…the totality of trials data supporting ivermectin is without precedent.”

So, what are we waiting for? With this development, the use of the drug should now be encouraged and, if needed, made widely available by government especially at this time when we are faced and will continue to be faced with supply disruptions. This, as countries ramp up their vaccination rollout and bid for all available supplies even those still to be manufactured months or maybe a year or two from now.

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Still on another breakthrough. A number of research organizations have now completed trials and studies showing that sugar consumption plays a greater role in heart disease than saturated fat. For years, the medical community, principally the American Heart Association, imposed food safety and dietary guidelines issued by the US government, embraced the theory that dietary saturated fats is the principal promoter of elevated serum cholesterol and heart disease.” That proposition stemmed from research beginning in the 1950s by the American scientist Ancel Keys.

There were other studies advising prudence insofar as attaching this theory to the intake and manufacture of food items. One such study done almost at the same time as Keys research by the British physiologist John Yudkin argued that “sugar intake was more closely related to incidence of and mortality from CHD than dietary saturated fats.”

Now, after half a century of being guided by the Keys theory, latest studies indicate that sugar has more negative impact on coronary diseases than dietary saturated fat. The cardiovascular research scientist James DiNicolantonio and Dr. James O’Keefe along with Dr. Sean Lucan of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, have concluded that indeed sugar rather than dietary fat is more of the culprit.

Said the trio: "After a thorough analysis of the evidence it seems appropriate to recommend dietary guidelines shift focus away from recommendations to reduce saturated fat and towards recommendations to avoid added sugars …most importantly recommendations should support the eating of whole foods whenever possible and the avoidance of ultra-processed food."

With this development, can we now expect the FDA and the DOH to get together with the DOST to start the process of collating all available data and issue the necessary dietary guidelines to ensure that our people eat healthier and decidedly  more nutritious food from hereon?