HJNO Nov/Dec 2024

HEALTHCARE JOURNAL OF NEW ORLEANS I  NOV / DEC 2024 21 THE PROMPT heard for two days now, but I want to thank you for all that you’re doing. And I want to thank you both for your honesty and for everything that you’ve enlightened us on so many levels. And thank you for your time for being here today as well. Rep. Gallé Dr. Abraham or Dr. Coleman, at what point in the pandemic did you real- ize that you had an early treatment that worked? Abraham Early. Rep. Gallé May of 2020? Abraham Before that. We were seeing active Delta patients in early 21, January. We know the virus was probably in country October, maybe even before that. But when the pan- demic hit, when so many people started get- ting so sick, my responsibility tomy patients was to do what I thought was medically best, so we started with those treatments very early in the pandemic and saw results. Rep. Gallé And just for clarity, 2020 or 2021? Abraham 2020. Rep. Gallé 2020? Say springtime of 2020? You had realized you had… Abraham Before that. Rep. Gallé Even before that? Abraham Yes, absolutely Rep . Gallé So, you’re going back to 2019? Abraham Well, late December 2019 and then into January, of course, 2020 and then pro- gressively forward from that. Rep. Gallé So, based on your experience with your patients, by late 2019, early 2020 you had discovered or had figured out an early treatment remedy for COVID-19. Rep. Owen: Dr. Abraham, I’m not looking for an answer, but I just want to make sure that you’re aware [of] something Dr. Ladapo has done in Florida on his recommenda- tion about not recommending the COVID vaccines this winter. I would ask that you review that and I’m just making sure that you’re aware of that. Abraham I am aware, and I’ll tell you straight up, Rep. Owens, at this point, I’mnot recom- mending the COVID vaccine for my patients either. Now, that goes back to that patient doctor relationship. If that doctor and that patient want a COVID vaccine, that’s fine. I’m just not recommended for my patients, specifically. Rep. Kellee Hennessy Dickerson Dr. Abra- ham, for those who’ve had blood transfu- sions, who have not been vaccinated and have had to have emergency transfusions, they’re wanting to know if they get blood from someone who has been vaccinated, are they going to automatically possibly have problems in the future? Abraham We don’t know. The jury is still out. This is still a very new disease in the his- tory of diseases. Let’s go back to the flu that’s been around for centuries. So, we have data, but we continue to learn things on flu. This being only a four-year problem, we hon- estly don’t know what’s in store, and that’s very scary at this point, to not know 10 years from now, what, if anything, we may see. Rep. Dickerson Especially some of these young women who have had multiple mis- carriages. The jury is still out. Abraham Yeah, we hope and pray that’s not going to be an issue. I’m skeptical that it’s not going to be an issue, simply from what I’ve seen in these last two years on this vac- cine injury issue. I hope I am wrong. We’ll see. Rep. Dickerson It’s been amazing what we’ve Abraham I can take a guess but I don’t know specifically, so I won’t let conjecture enter into the discussion. Rep. Egan We would probably arrive at the same conclusion with that, but I think it may have had some influence on what happened with this whole thing. So, I will leave it at that. Rep. Edmonston: I just wanted for the record, Mr. Chairman, to offer that we do have a res- olution on studying autism that I have dis- cussed at length with Dr. Coleman, just for Rep. McCormick, and for the public to know that we are, we are looking at that. I’ve got a commitment fromDr. Coleman that we’re going to do what we can do. We may not have the report at the time that we want, but I have all confidence that y’all are working hard to get the data, like you said, and what we need to complete that report. Coleman And I think that one’s a real tough question to answer. It’s not a defined end- point. I think that there’s just so much sub- jectivity to the diagnosis there. I think there’s evidence that has said vaccines don’t cause it in the past. I think that the driving force to relook at it is that, even though there’s a lot of studies that have seemed defini- tive to me, prior to four years ago, when I had to requestion whether maybe every- thing I’ve been told to in med school was a lie. You could probably fill Tiger Stadium with moms who have kids that were normal one day, and got a vaccine, and were then autistic after that, and somebody should at least listen to them. And not dismiss them, and look at the real data. Because, I think it’s important for public health. Let’s say that there is no, absolutely no correlation. You can slam dunk that. Well, that’s a good thing to know. With confidence one way or the other. Rep. Edmonston Absolutely, one way or the other.