Twitter on Sunday permanently suspended the account of Dr. Zev Zelenko, the creator of the Zelenko HCQ protocol, saying that the decision came as the account was disseminating medical misinformation.
But in announcing the ban, Tea Party Patriots co-founder Jenny Beth Martin called the move “outrageous” while describing Dr. Zelenko’s protocol as having saved thousands of lives.
It’s unclear from the tweet if the New York-based physician’s general stance on the coronavirus pandemic, available treatment and its efficiency, or a specific set of posts was what made Twitter decide to ban him from the platform.
Back in July, Zelenko published a study focusing on Covid 19 outpatients and what effect early risk stratified treatment using zinc and low doses of Hydroxychloroquine and Azithromycin had in reducing these patients’ hospitalizations, and fatal outcomes.
The protocol, published online, is a retrospective study relying on outpatient data. What sets this analysis apart is that it followed the progress in 5-day treatment of patients after their first visit and outside the hospital setting, while most other studies dealt with the effectiveness of treatment with drugs of those patients whose condition had already severely deteriorated and who were hospitalized.
The result of Zelenko’s study – done in collaboration with two Germany-based scientists, Dr. Roland Derwand and Professor Martin Scholz of Heinrich Heine University in Dusseldorf – were encouraging. The conclusion of the paper that was offered for peer review was that this type of treatment of those treated outside of hospitals resulted in five time less need for hospitalization, and deaths.
The study showed that only 4 out of 141 (2.8%) of patients who received the therapy consisting of zinc and low doses of the two drugs needed to be hospitalized, against 58 out of an untreated control group of 377 people (15.4%). Zelenko spoke in favor of treating patients as early as possible for best results, just like with any other infectious disease.
He also concluded that the 5-day triple treatment was affordable and easy to administer, and expressed regret that media coverage of Hydroxychloroquine had been negative.
So negative, in fact, that it’s not out of the realm of possibility that it was Zelenko’s arguments in favor of using Hydroxychloroquine that got him banned on Twitter.
