Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

We are rightly proud in this country that, through the encouragement of risk taking and wealth creation, we are able to afford to list life-saving drugs on the PBS, enabling Australian citizens to access medicines that would otherwise be unaffordable. However, we currently have in our nation the obscenity that Australians are being access to a medicine, and a medical treatment, that the overwhelming evidence shows is saving lives around the world. And, yes, the medicine I am talking about is hydroxychloroquine, a drug approved in 1955, which has used by hundreds of millions of people worldwide since then and is sold over the counter in many countries today. Sadly, as we witnessed in this chamber today, some members of this House are so completely brainwashed, ill informed and ignorant that they start foaming at the mouth at the mere mention of the word 'hydroxychloroquine'.

Where hydroxychloroquine deniers fall into error is that they fail to distinguish between early treatment and late treatment. The brainwashed hydroxychloroquine deniers may do well to look at the recent outpatient medical treatment protocol for COVID-19 patients that was recently detailed in a peer-reviewed papers authored by over 20 medical doctors, including five PhDs, and published in no less a journal than the highly respected American Journal of Medicine. This treatment protocol recommends that COVID outpatients over 50 years of age or those with a single comorbidity be immediately treated with a combination of drugs including zinc, hydroxychloroquine and an antibiotic. Importantly, this paper notes: 'When started late in the hospital course and for short durations of time, antimalarials such as hydroxychloroquine appear to be ineffective'. However, the paper also notes: 'When started early in the hospital course and in outpatients, antimalarials may reduce the progression of the disease, prevent hospitalisation and are associated with reduced mortality.' And here are the words from this peer-reviewed study by the lead author, Dr Peter McLeod, a Master of Public Health: 'We treat serious viral infections always with multiple drugs. Not a single drug can carry the day. Hydroxychloroquine is the most proven of the approaches. In preclinical trials, hydroxychloroquine, when utilised, is very effective. In retrospective trials and clinical studies, when employed early, 100 per cent of those studies have demonstrated a positive result. I am confident that hydroxychloroquine is safe and effective.' And the legendary Dr Zelenko recently wrote:

The rationale for immediate treatment is because the viral load in a patient remains relatively constant during the first few days of the infection. This is when a patient has mild-flu like symptoms.

After five days of having symptoms, however, the Covid-19 virus begins to replicate at an exponential rate. Based on my team’s and my treatment of thousands of patients, it is clear that after five days of symptoms most high-risk patients begin to develop devastating complications such as catastrophic lung injury and blood clots. Therefore, high-risk patients must be treated … based on clinical suspicion of Covid-19.

Therefore, all the studies related to the efficacy of HCQ that were performed on hospitalized and critically-ill patients either missed the boat or were designed to fail.

And yet we currently have a situation in this nation where Australians are being denied access to this potentially life-saving medicine and this potentially life-saving medical treatment, a treatment not made up by kooks and crazies but a treatment that is recommended in a peer-reviewed paper authored by 20 medical doctors, including five PhDs, and published in no less a publication than the highly respected American Journal of Medicine. This ban must end. It is contrary to the peer-reviewed evidence, and Australians should no longer be denied access to a drug and a medical treatment that have been shown to save lives.

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