America's Dope Takes Dope : Keeping Your Distance 26

Tom!  This is such a misleading headline!

Hydroxychloroquine is not dope.  It's legitimate medicine!

Yes.  When properly prescribed for certain conditions, where the doctor knows the patient and can watch for side effects, it CAN have its proper uses. 

But when misprescribed for DOPEY reasons for someone who is a DOPE - well, that's something else.

There is no proof that this medication has any effect on coronavirus.  Indeed, some studies have shown adverse effects, with a more significant death rate among those taking it than in the control group.

The medicine does have other side effects and risks, including potential heart damage up to and including heart attacks.

So..so what?  He's an adult (?), and he found a doctor that prescribed it (we'll pretend for a moment that he couldn't get prescribed whatever the heck he wanted) so, more power to him.

Why the problem?

Because he's the President of the United States, doing something foolish, stupid, and DOPEY.  And others may decide to go off the cliff with him.

We have gone full snake oil salesman.  And I am disgusted.


The risks are not just that he'll hurt himself.  As Nancy Pelosi says, he's not without risk - he is morbidly obese and has the diet of a teenage gamer.  Some of his medical exams have indicated the presence of some heart disease. 

As risky as this is, other elements to it are just as dangerous.

Let's say that he takes it and he doesn't get coronavirus.  He's going to falsely attribute it to the drug, encouraging other Americans to take the drug, and putting them at risk.  And if he doesn't develop side effects, it's going to make it look to others like the side effect concern is overblown.

He encourages other dopes to think they're immortal and immune.  Especially with the way that Trump refuses to wear a mask or distance himself, he promotes that behavior in others.

A reporter trying to safely interview protestors in upstate New York was confronted by an unmasked man who was getting too close.  The reporter asked the man to distance himself, and he refused.  The man said, "I don't have the virus.  I'm taking hydroxychloroquine!"

Oh, geez!

The doping of America is in full swing.


Addendum:

The panel on Morning Joe seemed to be convinced that he wasn't really taking it, that he was just lying for whatever twisted purposes he has.   Maybe.  If so, it just makes things worse.