Opinion by Alan Chwick & Joanne D Eisen
USA – -(AmmoLand.com)- We gun owners quickly know truth from lies. If we miss our target, the truth is, we did something wrong. Gun owners are also good at smelling the BS as in bogus science as we have seen it time and again in “gun violence’ research.
It has now become more than evident that one of our major parties has broken with the tradition of the peaceful transfer of presidential power as is slowly being revealed in the Michael Flynn case. The Democrat lust for power has destroyed the rules by which we live, with the enthusiastic help of the Main Street Media (MSM), and a few Rhino-Republicans, cheering them on.
Democrats, and the MSM, are using lies as their chosen weapon. So recognizing the lies from truths is an important matter. We make serious life decisions, daily, based upon what we think of as truthful information. But it can be challenging to determine the truths from the lies.
We have lived through several years of huge lies. The Democrats, and the MSM, are now pushing another lie designed to cause the kind of fear that will delay and further damage our economy, and get rid of a duly elected President whom they hate.
Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ)
We know that the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) has, for decades, been spreading lies about guns and gun owners that harm the Second Amendment of our Constitution. The famous and highly respected NEJM cares more about financial gains, and the leftist politics of its editors, than the truth.
And now the NEJM appears to be colluding with Democrats and the MSM to boost fear of COVID-19, by minimizing the possible beneficial effects of HCQ.
The MSM are shamelessly and hysterically, claiming that HCQ is a killer.
The problem is that, if people fear HCQ, or have no access to it, some might needlessly die. Alternatively, people will fear quickly getting back to normal because there will be no easy fix if they become ill, and so the economy will fall a little deeper into recession. Ignorant folks who easily accept lies might look upon Democrats and Socialism more favorably.
The inexpensive and decades-old HCQ has become highly politicized by the Fake-News and the Get-Trump crowd.
If HCQ helps to avoid illness and death as the real science seems to verify, the presence of COVID-19 would only be as annoying as common influenza. But there are questions about the benefits of using HCQ at the end stages of the disease after the lungs are already damaged. It appears that there might be a need for it to be administered as soon as possible.
It helps to know the origins of ‘facts.’ Who said what? Have they told the truth in the past? This is what we found.
On May 7, 2020, the NEJM published a study about the use of HCQ to treat patients with COVID-19. Every word is accurate. But the researchers used people who went to emergency rooms and were then admitted to the hospital. So right from the beginning, selection bias was introduced into the research results because of the advanced stage of the disease in these patients.
The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) published a similar study, also using hospitalized patients, and also concluding that HCQ is not effective for treating COVID-19. And The Lancet, a respected British journal also using hospitalized patients, found that HCQ was not effective and was associated with potential heart problems.
Because pharmaceutical companies and medical researchers find it convenient to use hospital settings, we can expect that this kind of study outcome will be repeated.
These studies are being used politically to drive the latest MSM narrative that tells Americans that HCQ is dangerous to take and that it doesn’t work against COVID-19. Gov. Phil Murphy has virtually banned the drug in N.J. Many hospitals and physicians are no longer recommending it. And the World Health Organization, which covered up for China, is no longer researching HCQ as a treatment for COVID-19.
We can compare the NEJM and JAMA studies to research by the French doctor, Phillippe Gautret. Gautret is attempting to evaluate the effectiveness of HCQ, “at an early stage before irreversible respiratory complications take hold…” He reports positive results with HCQ use.
In order to know who is willing to ignore politics, give up some financial gain, and tell us the whole truth, we should look at the biased way NEJM has treated research in the past.
Now we switch to how they treated firearms research, similarly.
On firearms, Dr. Miguel Faria, surgeon and author, explained that the medical literature is biased, “riddled with serious errors in facts, logic, and methodology, and thus utterly unreliable.” He relates how, in 1988, that NEJM published a paper by Dr. John Sloan, purporting to show that stronger gun control in Vancouver, Canada, was responsible for a lower homicide rate when compared to Seattle, Washington. At the same time, the NEJM refused to publish Dr. Brandon Centerwall’s study, which overturned the Sloan results.
Dr. Faria’s latest book, America, Guns, and Freedom #ad, tells the story of his fight against the junk science of guns, and how the public health establishment has been bent on moving society in an authoritarian, collectivist, and disarmed direction.
Dr. Faria, whose family fled the communist regime in Cuba, was one of the original leaders in the fight against fake firearms science. His book documents the medical establishment’s tactical use of “tainted research with preordained results” in their war against firearms and our freedoms.
Politicians and our MSM flagrantly use these outright lies. The late civil rights attorney, Don Kates, described medical anti-gun researchers who, “all too often feel no compunction about asserting falsehoods, fabricating statistics, and falsifying references…”
Here is a sprinkling of the firearms phobic articles published by NEJM after the 1988 Sloan/Centerwall controversy was exposed.
In 1993, NEJM published the infamous Dr. Arthur Kellermann’s article telling us that it was more dangerous than useful to keep guns in the home. Among the many statistical errors, Kellermann flagrantly tells us that he mixed up his felons with his victims. He wrote, “Fifteen victims were killed under legally excusable circumstances. Four were shot by police acting in the line of duty. The rest were killed by another member of the household or a private citizen acting in self-defense.”
How could NEJM publish such obvious drivel? They wanted to frighten us into changing the way we vote, even if it costs American lives.
In October 2017, after the mass shooting in Las Vegas, NEJM published a rant about the easy availability of semiautomatic firearms. Later that same month, they published another rant, urging their readers to “Join, volunteer for, or donate to organizations fighting for sensible firearm legislation.”
In September 2018, NEJM published Dr. Garen Wintemute’s How To Stop Mass Shootings. Wintemute described the need for more comprehensive background checks and Red Flag Laws for those not stopped by the background checks.
We all know that gun control does not lead to a safer society as promised, and promised, and yet again and again. We all know that ultra, restrictive gun laws only lead to a more robust firearms black market.
Our Founding Fathers wrote a document that attempted to ensure peaceful transfers of power by responsible citizens. There would be no Kings and no Tyrants to choose our path into the future. We, American citizens, decide for ourselves, and that should extend to our medical decisions.
We choose our leaders, and we, alone, change them. Make sure you do just that this November of 2020?
About The Authors
Alan J Chwick has been involved with firearms much of his life and is the Retired Managing Coach of the Freeport NY Junior Marksmanship Club. He has escaped from New York State to South Carolina and is an SC FFL (Everything22andMore.com). AJChwick@iNCNF.org | TWITTER: @iNCNF
Joanne D Eisen, DDS (Ret.) practiced dentistry on Long Island, NY. She has collaborated and written on firearm politics for the past 30+ years. She has also escaped New York State but to Virginia. JoanneDEisen@cs.com