Three great forces rule the world: stupidity, fear and greed.
-Albert Einstein
Everyday afternoon, me and my mom have lunch together. My dad usually has his lunch earlier and is at work at our lunch time. So as everyday, when I went for lunch, my mom said to me, your uncle (her brother) is really sick. You should talk to him. I knew he had fever for a 3-4 days. I asked mom what happened, and she said she isn't sure. Just that my dad had called her earlier and said uncle is very sick. She was scared and her face was pale, she was almost sure uncle was dying from the Coronavirus!
I told her to relax and called uncle immediately. So what I gathered is, besides having fever, he has been having severe vomiting and nausea for a couple of days, to the extent that he is afraid to eat anything. On further exploring his history, he revealed he has started taking Doxycycline for the last few days as someone said this will cure him in case he has coronavirus! No, that someone was not a doctor!
Yes, two of the recognized side effects of doxycycline are nausea and vomiting. But I'm not going to go further into this anymore, it's just plain stupid and anyone who keeps any idea of what's happening knows doxycycline is NOT a drug that will cure Coronavirus. In fact I'm extremely pissed to talk medical details about this.
But what I found interesting from this is,
Number 1, the belief people has that Doxycycline is actually the drug for coronavirus. Where did this belief come from?
Number 2, people are so scared of the coronavirus that they don't even wait for taking the test. Any doubt in their mind that they may have been infected by the SARS-CoV 2, they're ready to take action, albeit, an extremely stupid and futile one.
Number 3, Doxycycline, a drug that had an extremely limited and very specific use case in our daily clinical practice, has now become the new Napa (paracetamol)! Anyone who is having fever is taking Doxy, just in case! Just in case what?! Whose pockets are getting heavier, any guesses? I'll give you a hint! I know a few Representatives of pharmaceutical companies, who has degrees in business or commerce, sending mass text messages to people with the doses they are supposed to take Doxycycline (and now Remdisivir, LMAO) for curing coronavirus! Alas, only if I knew a business degree would make me a doctor!
For my readers outside Bangladesh, Napa is a drug that people here take as often as their morning tea!
So is Doxycycline merely a Myth?
I don't believe a Myth just arises out of thin air. At least not the medical myths. I believe there are much larger agendas at play here. Agendas designed to capitalize on peoples' fears about certain diseases, CoViD 19 pandemic right now for example. It just takes one small nudge in the right direction to instill the idea in people that Drug X miiiiight just work. No need for any further evidence or anything. Just the inception of the idea that it might work is enough and we could have hundreds of actually qualified people, aka doctors to tell you that this is in fact false, but people will continue to believe Pharmaceutical Representatives, who has nowhere the knowledge of a doctor on disease treatment. I mean this should be just commonsense, no? That doctors are supposed to tell you what drugs work, nor pharma reps! But alas, that's the world we live in.
What should have been the logical course of action has no further impact on people once the inception has happened. Because the fear is too strong and they will go to all lengths and beyond to just deny the fearful truth that nothing is actually going to cure it. Or maybe just cling on to any bit of hope, however misplaced that may be, that a certain drug miiiight just work!
End result : Financial agenda of pharmaceutical companies served!
Takes us back to the quote by Albert Einstein,
Three great forces rule the world: stupidity, fear and greed.
BDCommunity Witness
