then after being called by the PTB's didn't do it a couple of weeks later in their official statement under great pressure. One of the main esteemed primary care journals also put HCQ in it's recommended treatment algorithm for niche situations and gave study support back in Jan 2021 or so....and was later lambasted by the PTB's so that they took it back later without any explanation as to why.
HCQ is extremely safe and known. It is cheap. I posted on it before it was even in the news because of the results of a colleagues initial RCT in Detroit. It was not yet clear if it would be an effective option, but it was as innocuous as many OTC drugs, and it appeared to be helpful in specific settings.
It was being used as an off-label med since there were no other options at the time, and when the FDA responded to the political pressure and banned it, I could not believe it. Off label options are low risk drugs (no medication is "no-risk") that may or may not work, but are given to sick patients with no other options who might other die. it is not different than happens in cancer patient care even to this very day. But as you say, it was cheap and worked against Big Pharma. and it offered hope and an end to an early Shut Down pre-election. Since that time, and after many patients were deprived of a potential cure (those in the niche I mentioned), better meds have come along.
The studies that I have seen in the British Journal did not find a significant benefit outside of the niche I mentioned (trying to recall....I believe it was for patients with subacute COVID to prevent re-admission to the hospital - can't recall for sure atm)....but at the same time, the political pressure was applied to journals as well as professional specialty boards. Nobody wanted to lose their grants or their prestige. Nobody in the Ivory Towers filled with liberal academia wanted to fall on the wrong side....you may recall some liberal state officials even hunted people's doctor's licenses for those who dared not to fall in line and spout the party line. I say all of this because I have to say that much of the data in that time period has to be looked at carefully since there were cases of fraudulent publications pushing the desired COVID narrative and later retractions. Publication and grant money was waiting for those who played ball. It was a sad time in medicine - the day we knew for sure that our government controlled it and it's recommendations and treatment options.
Regardless, I respect and compliment your efforts to honestly educate yourself. Unlike many of the Cliff Clavin types here, you actually do know a lot. Dr Risch is brilliant, and he absolutely caught the medical community with its' pants down. I have never been a HCQ advocate beyond the time when it was an off-label option when nothing else was available, I do believe that several things you mention do carry some water. I would not engage any Google Docs - even now with Fauci admitting his duplicity, the will not admit that they were wrong. As liberals, they are simply unable to do so.