When US president Donald Trump mentioned that he’s taking hydroxychloroquine, he immediately got an extra dose of flak from both the mainstream media and noted medical experts such as US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).

Trump has been using the drug prophylactically versus COVID-19 — which he’s likely been exposed to via a personal valet —  with the concurrence of his physician.

Pelosi chided Trump for taking “something that has not been approved by the scientists” (it has been) and worried that he’s at risk of side effects because he’s “morbidly obese” (he’s not).

A Bing search on the terms “hydroxychloroquine” and “unproven” returns nearly 28,000 results for the 24 hours following Trump’s statement. The media apparently want us to believe that there’s something sketchy and experimental about hydroxychloroquine.

Contra Pelosi, hydroxychloroquine was “approved by the scientists” at the US Food and Drug Administration in 1955.

Those scientists deemed it both “safe” in general and “effective” for certain disorders (obviously not including a virus which they couldn’t even know existed for anther 65 years), with doctors permitted to prescribe it “off-label” for other maladies.

As of 2017, hydroxychloroquine was the 128th most prescribed drug in the United States, at more than 5 million prescriptions. It appears on the World Health Organization’s List of Essential Medicines. Nobody was calling it “unproven” in any way until Donald Trump mentioned it, and nobody would be calling it that now if he HADN’T mentioned it.

Is hydroxychloroquine effective either as a treatment for, or protector against, COVID-19? Various juries are likely to be out on that question for a long time.

Are there known side effects associated with the drug’s use? Sure. Find a drug with no side effects and you’ve probably found a drug with no effects at all.

Do any of the facts above really matter? No.

It’s none of the FDA’s business what drugs Donald Trump decides to take.

It’s none of Nancy Pelosi’s business, either, unless he feels like discussing it with her.

It’s only the media’s business because he decided to tell them about it.

And if you decide to take hydroxychloroquine, or any other drug, it’s nobody else’s business either.

It’s probably a good idea to consult your doctor before taking just about any medication, but that’s YOUR call, not anyone else’s, to make.

It’s YOUR body.

It’s YOUR life.

It’s YOUR decision.

Don’t let Nancy Pelosi, the media, or anyone else tell you otherwise.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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On May 15, city officials declared Atwater, California a “sanctuary city.” Not for undocumented immigrants, but for businesses and churches who choose to ignore governor Gavin Newsom’s COVID-19-related shutdown orders. The city won’t be enforcing the governor’s edicts. Those edicts, mayor Paul Creighton told local businesses, are “between you and the state of California.”

“We’re not going to tolerate people starting to congregate,” mayor Bill de Blasio whined all the way across the country in New York City, center of the country’s deadliest COVID-19 outbreak so far. Even as he spoke, crowds descended on area beaches and congregated for sidewalk soirees outside bars forbidden to do sit-down business but selling cocktails to go.

About the same time, I heard a store owner in my part of Florida explain to a customer that while there is in fact a county order (posted on every business enterprise’s door) requiring customers to wear masks inside stores, “I’m not a county enforcer.” Some customers wore masks. Some didn’t. Most stores I visited obviously had the same policy, whether they announced it quite so brazenly or not.

Americans, it seems, are collectively deciding amongst ourselves that COVID-19 lockdown time is over. Our  decision isn’t up for debate or subject to appeal. Politicians and their pet “experts”  are fresh out of veto power. For better or worse — almost certainly some of both — America is opening back up.

On the plus side, the economy, although taking a hit, may be cranking back up in time to avert severe food shortages and other potentially deadly supply chain problems this coming fall and winter.

On the minus side, the virus is still out there. We’re almost certainly going to see new outbreaks and spikes in old outbreak centers as time goes on.

A side effect of those outbreaks and spikes will be calls for renewed lockdowns. Those may even happen in a scattered way at the local level.

But America’s  Andrew Cuomos and Gretchen Whitmers and Gavin Newsoms presumably know that their political futures — and maybe even their physical safety — are on the line here and that they’re fresh out of shenanigans passes. There won’t be any more state-level Mussolini cosplay.

The Iron Curtain was drawn tightly shut for 45 years.

The Berlin Wall stood for three decades.

Lockdown America didn’t even make it to the three-month mark.

That’s a good thing. It’s a harbinger of hope for a freer future.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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“I fear that many Americans will resist getting vaccinated against the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus,” Dr. Lauren S. Grossman writes at Stat. “To put this scourge behind us, I believe that our nation should, for the first time ever, require all Americans — or at least schoolchildren and workers in direct-contact jobs — to be vaccinated against this coronavirus.”

Grossman’s prescription flies in the face of the World Medical Association’s International Code of Medical Ethics: “A Physician shall respect a competent patient’s right to accept or refuse treatment.”

It would also violate the American Medical Association’s Code of Medical Ethics. For example,  “Informed consent to medical treatment is fundamental in both ethics and law” (Code of Medical Ethics Opinion 2.1.1) and  “[r]espect for patient autonomy is central to professional ethics …” (Code of Medical Ethics Opinion 2.1.2).

And canons of medical ethics aside, it’s just plain wrong.

If you’re muttering under your breath that I’m an “anti-vaxxer,” you’re wrong. I’m pro-vaccine. I’m glad I didn’t face the risks of measles, mumps, polio, etc. that previous generations (and my older siblings) faced. I get my flu shot every year.  I’ve had my pneumonia vaccine. I’ll be getting my shingles vaccine Real Soon Now (I had chickenpox before THAT vaccine became available). If there’s a reasonably safe and effective vaccine for something I’m vulnerable to, I want it.

In fact, I’ve probably had more vaccinations than you, if for no other reason than that my shot record got lost between overseas military deployments and I had to get a bunch of them an extra time.

I even got an anthrax vaccine right out of a tube marked EXPERIMENTAL: DO NOT USE ON HUMANS in Saudi Arabia in 1991. I objected to that one. I “consented” to the shot only after being threatened with court-martial if I didn’t.

Which brings me to my point:

Forcing a needle or a pill into someone’s body without that person’s consent is no different in principle than forcing a penis into someone’s body without that person’s consent.

It doesn’t matter how much more you think you know than the person whose consent you require, or how much more important you think your goals and priorities are than the goals and priorities of the person whose consent you require.

If you don’t have consent, you’re committing assault. And the medical version of assault should trigger the same social, civil, and legal penalties as the sexual version.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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