On March 30th, in plenty of time to avoid being taken for an April Fool’s joke, California Governor Gavin Newsome issued executive order N-39-20 https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/3.30.20-EO-N-39-20-text.pdf giving the Director of the Department of Consumer Affairs (DCA) the authority to waive professional licensing requirements for the healing arts boards under DCA during the COVID-19 State of Emergency. AnyContinue reading “Come back West, old man?”
Author Archives: rike52
Want a Z-Pac with that Plaquenil?
An article in the New York Times yesterday gave a face to a controversial treatment for COVID-19 that’s been the stuff of rumors for weeks https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/02/technology/doctor-zelenko-coronavirus-drugs.html. Dr. Zev Zelenko, primary care doctor to his community of 35,000 Hadassic Jews in Kiryas Joel, about an hour’s drive from Manhattan, has been treating even mild cases withContinue reading “Want a Z-Pac with that Plaquenil?”
Hello Plaquenil! You too, Aralen
On Sunday, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) to the Health and Human Services’(HHS) Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (ASPAR’s BARDA) for hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine for coronavirus treatment. The agency allowed for the drugs to be “donated to the StrategicContinue reading “Hello Plaquenil! You too, Aralen”
why rheumatology and, um, death?
I thought after all this coronavirus stuff, we needed a light break. As is often the case these days, this one was inspired by my high school English teacher Mrs. Pharriss. Towards the end of a long e-mail, she asked me: “Did you have to deal with deaths of patients very often during your medicalContinue reading “why rheumatology and, um, death?”
Michigan COVID-19 Update
The Department of Internal Medicine (my home) at the University of Michigan Medical Center devoted its weekly Grand Rounds to a discussion of the first 30 days of COVID-19 here. Just last week, the hospital opened a new ward – the 32 bed RICU (Regional Infectious Containment Unit) – devoted to the care of COVID-19Continue reading “Michigan COVID-19 Update”
drugs
actually, those 95 authors did provide a table of the drugs they’ve tested which show promise against coronavirus. Here it is. I fear the structure of the table has not survived the paste. I refer the interested reader back to the URL in my last blog post. Take it as a demonstration of the amazingContinue reading “drugs”
Look out Mr. Corona, here comes Science
The latest piece of COVID-19 information circulating in my Division Monday was a pre-print of a manuscript submitted to Nature (perhaps the world’s most highly regarded scientific journal) regarding the results of a molecular tour de force investigation of COVID-19’s protein components and the human proteins with which they interact, examining properties of existing drugsContinue reading “Look out Mr. Corona, here comes Science”
Hands off My Plaquenil?
My young friend Jason, research superstar and damn fine doctor to boot (see “shameless plugs” 2/22/20), is married to Sara, a science writer. Sara has spent the last little while researching how the patients Jason and I look after see the new interest in one of their mainstay drugs – Plaquenil (hydroxychloroquine) – as aContinue reading “Hands off My Plaquenil?”
Treating COVID-19
On March 4th, in a 9 page (once translated) document, the Chinese Health and Public Health Ministry put out their 6th revision of its Guideline on Novel Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) Diagnosis and Treatment. I put the full guidelines on my blog Thursday. Only 2 small sections mentioned anything about drug treatment. But they have foundContinue reading “Treating COVID-19”
How Plaquenil May Work
I struggled for 36 years in Rheumatology to figure out how Plaquenil works in our diseases, and never did. But I think I might understand, at least in part, how it’s working in its new role as our savior from Mr. coronavirus. It’s just a matter of simple chemistry. OHC (hydroxychloroquine: Plaquenil) accumulates in acidic intracellular organelles,Continue reading “How Plaquenil May Work”
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