The Courage to Face Covid-19:  Preventing Hospitalization and Death While Battling the Bio-Pharmaceutical Complex, by John Leake and Peter A. McCullough MD MPH is tale of the 2- year- plus effort, accomplishments and travails of a remarkably prominent and successful physician.  Dr. McCullough  decided to push back on the establishment in the face of a global epidemic of a respiratory virus, COVID 19 (SARS COV 2) , risking everything in today’s cancel culture.  He pushed for sensible early treatment, when the establishment had another agenda—don’t treat or treat with worthless drugs until we get our “vaccine” (it’s not a vaccine at all) out.  The opportunity to make billions from scared populations, nations, politicians and create worldwide chaos and even reorder societies was at stake for them.  As the progressives say, never let a good crisis go to waste if there is an opportunity for a power grab and profits.

I was impressed with the medical advocacy of Dr. Peter McCullough during 2020 as he became a leading voice in a worldwide effort by many medical experts to promote early ambulatory treatments with Hydroxychloroquine and Azithromycin, with special attention to anti-inflammatory and supplemental adjuvants and blood thinners to reduce the complications of clotting.  He was always on top of the literature and promoted the positions of the early COVID treaters around the world.

Dr. McCullough rejected the nihilist approach protocol of Fauci: just send them home and to come back if they really get sick, then we’ll hospitalize them.  He pointed out the ridiculous Fauci promotion of the nasty and ineffective Gilead drug Remdesivir, and he also rejected the shutdowns, school closures, masking and social distancing and quarantine measures widely promoted.  As he put it so well, physicians need to treat the patients with effective regimens, not just sit around waiting for the magic vaccines.  It is not good medical practice to ignore preventive and early treatment measures that work and reduce mortalities.   

Dr. Peter McCullough is a Dallas, Texas Internist/ Cardiologist/epidemiologist (population health studies), and a former editor of medical journals/ consultant to pharmaceutical companies and research programs. He is an extraordinarily qualified individual, not just a prominent expert, but remarkable and extraordinary as well as courageous in discussing the epidemic of the Wuhan Lab engineered Coronavirus, that killed millions and disrupted the whole world.

John Leake is a professional writer and explains in the preface to the book how he became a coauthor with Dr. McCullough.  He was impressed with his performance in the fall of 2020 and spring of 2021 in US Senate Hearings chaired by Senator Ron Johnson and a Texas Senate hearing chaired by Senator Hall and a follow up interview in May of 2021 with Tucker Carlson. 

He met with Dr McCullough for an interview in his Dallas studio for a film/video session and described that interview:

He spoke so eloquently with such encyclopedic knowledge that his interview required no editing.  The astonished video director recommended it uncut for the world to see.

Mr. Leake’s experience describes how I reacted to McCullough’s testimony and interviews: he is a genius with a remarkable grasp of the medical research and science pertinent to the COVID 19 issues.  But that is no surprise considering his remarkable career and stature in the medical profession.  I watched him many times and never did he fail to impress me with his eloquence and erudition. He is one smart man with a knack for being a good educator and analyst, an ideal person to provide good advice and counsel, perfect choice for a Dr. Welby type impression in a hearing.  I reviewed here at American Thinker his Joe Rogan interview that set all viewer/listener records for the popular podcast, a 2:45 hour tour de force.  The man is amazing.

Mr. Leake also made a comment that rings true, “I got to know him not only as a compassionate doctor but also a devoted family man and loyal friend.”  I must say that is the persona I saw on display when I watched Dr. McCullough and met him: his belief and commitment to the role of a physician, to treat the patient and do everything you can to help relieve suffering and promote healing.  Nihilism has no place in professional conduct—as stated by the Hippocratic Oath, traditionally taken by medical graduates:

“I will follow that method of treatment which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous.”

In the prologue, the book addresses what appears to be a troublesome rehearsal of a pandemic sponsored by Johns Hopkins and funded by Gates Foundation money and the World Economic Forum in 2019.  One cannot help but be concerned that Gates money founded the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness’ Innovations (CEPI) in 2017 and by 2019 CEPI was already developing “vaccines” for coronaviruses although even the public agencies admit mRNA spike protein stimulators are not vaccines at all.

The first section of the book is a fast-moving story of the spring and summer of 2020.  Fraudulent propaganda on HCQ developed with Fauci in the lead.  There were some badly designed studies for HCQ, defective because HCQ was always promoted for early treatment, not after hospitalization.  Discovery of other treatments came, particularly steroids for inflammation and anti-coagulants for clotting.

Ivermectin became an issue and was condemned, just like HCQ, after some flawed studies.  Fauci promoted Remdesivir despite the WHO warning not to use it on hospitalized patients.  But it was produced by Gilead, one of Fauci’s favorite companies. 

Lo and behold, the vaccine development seemed to be extraordinarily rapid with the vaccines’ magic promoted by Fauci. All these events are described in detail in the Leake and McCullough book, with the players named and the sequence of events.

Harvey Risch, an extraordinary epidemiologist and advocate, became engaged and supportive of the group effort to oppose Fauci and his minions in 2020.  Dr. McCullough and Dr. Littell Lozano proposed an early treatment protocol paper for the journals, and the Henry Ford Hospitals and an Eastern Virginia medical group headed by Dr. Paul Marik also advocated early ambulatory treatment with HCQ and Ivermectin.

On the West Coast and across the country treatment programs developed that are described. Dr. George Fareed, a general practitioner, previously a virologist and Brian Tyson, MD, declared their commitment to early ambulatory treatment and reported their great success.

In August of 2020 the American Journal of Medicine published Dr. Harvey Risch and Dr. Peter McCullough’s paper on early treatment, but in the meantime Fauci and organized public health officials and medical societies lined up with the establishment position opposing Ivermectin, HCQ, and early treatment in favor of continuing the silly Remdesivir and allowing some anticoagulant and anti-inflammatory treatments. Dr. McCullough also found that colchicine (an anti-inflammatory used for gout mostly) was beneficial and planned to update the outpatient treatment protocol in the Proceedings of the Baylor University Medical Center.  But the paper was retracted by the publisher after fully making it through peer review.  Ultimately the followup protocol was published in Reviews in Cardiovascular Medicine. The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons published information and treatment protocols provided by Dr. Marik.

These developments led to a hearing chaired by Senator Ron Johnson attended by Drs. Peter McCullough, Pierre Kory, George Fareed and Harvey Risch with one opposing expert, Dr. Jha, dean at Brown Univ School of Public Health.  Probably the most telling episode in the hearing was Dr. Jha’s admission that he had never treated a COVID 19 patient after advising the country for more than two hours. Recently, the Biden administration has appointed him the COVID Czar as a reward for his mendacious advocacy and toeing the line on the Fauci tyranny.

Sprinkled through the book are tales of episodes of legal fights with hospitals about treatments and patient family advocacy -- some triumphs with dramatic survivals, some disappointments that led to deaths from neglectful treatment that complied with the Fauci establishment rules.  There is also plenty of evidence provided to show that pharma companies were involved in misconduct that was motivated by hopes of financial rewards.

A chapter is provided by Mr. Leake about the storied career of Dr. Peter Breggin, a psychiatrist who worked to reduce pharma influence and exposed big pharma misconduct in matters of psychiatric medications.  Dr. Breggin and his wife Ginger also recently published an expose of the COVID 19 affair with a focus on Gates, the WEF, and pharma company misconduct COVID-19 and the Global Predators: We Are the Prey.  I recommend it without reservation.

The last segments of the book describe the corruption in the healthcare establishment, compromising integrity in practice, research, policy making.  Consider what Robert F. Kennedy Jr. discussed in his book that I reviewed here, a problem he labels regulatory capture, meaning that the regulated parties corrupt the regulators.  The collusion of organized medicine, academic medicine and the hospital industry with government agencies and their apparatchiks along with cover by the media is cemented with money.  Pharma companies like Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson and Johnson, and Astra Zenica make and dole out influence money for sure.  NIH officials, academic physicians, medical schools all pocket millions in donations for research or in royalties for sales of drugs they research and test for efficacy and risk and then approve.  That’s a serious conflict and modifies behavior.   Dr. Tony Fauci, for example reportedly is worth $10 million or more to include royalties.

The bio-pharma cabal mentioned in the title of the book certainly impacted the management of the COVID 19 epidemic and the attitudes about acceptable mitigation and treatments—Gates money greased some wheels in the public and private sector for many reasons, particularly for money and power.

The result of these collusive arrangements contributes to the cancel culture that has seen many prominent and accomplished physicians have been harmed -- physicians who departed from the Fauci canon, hymnal and diktats.  All the major players in the group that I support have been censored, censured and persecuted, across the country.  The story of the big stars in the anti-Fauci group is particularly appalling—extraordinary physicians who were fired and punished in a Stalinesque manner, physicians exercising their best judgment as advocated in the Hippocratic Oath quoted above.

Here in Texas, my home, Dr. Peter McCullough was persecuted and cancelled in cruel and unjust ways by the hospital/pharma/medical organization/academic/medical journal community. Baylor University Medical Center, a Baptist founded and supported organization, was particularly despicable, but no doubt Baylor has wandered into the bright lights and power business of healthcare and shed any pretense of being a Christian moral organization in my opinion.  

I would suggest thst any moral compass at Baylor has been demagnetized by our old nemesis, greed, ambition, and a desire for power.  However, I met Dr. McCullough recently and watched him at a meeting.  He remains the same quietly confident decent man I saw when this ordeal began.  It is no wonder that Mr. Leake, his co-author, admires him. he is a man of extraordinary intellect, combined with discipline, humility, wisdom and fortitude, the stoic ideal.  (He looks and acts like he came out of a factory that makes the perfect model of a great physician.)  He makes his momma and fellow physicians proud.  I wish him well and thank him for what he has done this past 2 years.

John Dale Dunn MD JD is a retired emergency physician and inactive attorney in Brownwood, Texas

Photo credit: YouTube screengrab