Candid Discussion on COVID Treatments, Vaccines and Research

COVID Conundrum

Dr. Sabine Hazan, a specialist in gastroenterology, internal medicine, and hepatology, as well as the founder and CEO of Progenabiome, a genetic sequencing research laboratory, who leads 35+ studies investigating the role of the gut flora in various diseases, has a particular take on COVID-19. Since March 2020, she has been at the forefront of COVID-19 research, leading ongoing FDA-approved clinical trials for treatment and prophylaxis.

In a conversation with Dan Sfera, Clinical Trials Guru, Dr. Hazan related some of her concerns about COVID-19. She also talked about her research.

Hazan, a gastroenterologist, has been sequencing the human microbiome looking for microbial answers to digestive and other disorders. When the COVID-19 outbreak began, Hazan decided to use her resources to seek a remedy. "We found 4 unique variants in eight patients very quickly and 33 mutations across all patients. We began trials to see if was possible that some people might respond to simple treatments or avoid the infection altogether."

In a paper published by Gut Pathogens, "Detection of SARS-CoV-2 from patient fecal samples by whole genome sequencing," Hazan's team discovered the virus in stool samples taken 45 days after some patients tested positive for COVID. "The virus lingers in some people much longer than we originally thought. The chance for contagion by these people is still high over a month later."

Ivermectin has all but eliminated parasitic diseases like river blindness and elephantiasis, helping discoverer Satoshi Ōmura win the Nobel Prize in 2015. In January of 2021, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) reconsidered the anti-parasitic drug Ivermectin as a possible treatment for COVID-19. Ventura Clinical Trials, owned and operated by Dr. Hazan, was one of the institutions researching Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine.

“I’m a doctor. My job isn’t to do nothing,” Hazan said. When patients got really sick, she tried everything, treating off-label with a number of drugs in combination, including ivermectin. Eventually, she ended up taking it upon herself to run clinical trials with repurposed, off-patent drugs like ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, fearing that the lack of a profit angle would prevent a major corporate effort in that direction.

“I felt, no one is going to be investigating a cheap solution, so I did it myself,” she said.

Dr. Stanley Frochtzwajg, the chief medical officer with Community Memorial Health System that operates Community Memorial Hospital in Ventura, Ojai Valley Hospital and numerous clinics across the California county is one of Dr. Hazan's patients. He tested positive for COVID-19. Following Hazan's protocol which includes a combination therapy and formulated (made in America) vitamins, Frochtzwajg, "definitely started to show improvements in my fatigue, my fever resolved . . . taste and smell returned about a week after starting treatment." Hazan has treated hundreds of patients from across the U.S.  who tested positive for COVID-19. 

In a 2021 paper called “Effectiveness of Ivermectin-Based Multidrug Therapy in Severe Hypoxic Ambulatory COVID-19 Patients,” Dr. Hazan and her co-authors revealed, “Ivermectin is a safe, inexpensive and effective early COVID-19 treatment validated in 20+ RCTs. Having developed combination therapies for Helicobacter pylori, we tested various COVID-19 combinations and describe the most effective. In 24 consecutive COVID-19 subjects with high risk features, hypoxia and untreated moderate-severe symptoms averaging 9 days, we trialed this novel combination comprising ivermectin, doxycycline, zinc, and Vitamins D and C. It was highly effective. All subjects resolved symptoms in 11 days on average, and oxygen saturation improved in 24hrs (87.4% to 93.1%, p=0.001). Hospitalizations and deaths were significantly fewer (p<0.002 or 0.05, respectively) than in background-matched controls from the CDC database. Triple combination therapy is safe and effective even in moderate-severe patients with hypoxia treated in the outpatient setting.” (doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.07.06.21259924). 

Dr. Hazan is very concerned about vaccine mandates without further research of mRNA vaccines. She revealed that there was a case of a 19-year-old boy who had two vaccines and a booster. He contracted sepsis, then a blood clot and then multiorgan shutdown. He died, and there was nothing om the news, she said. 

“There are potential long-term issues with mRNA vaccines,” Dr. Hazan explained. “They could make people more susceptible to getting new strains of COOVID, because the body gets used to a pill or a vaccine that does the work for the body, and the body stops doing it.”

Instead, she said, the body needs for build up tolerance. People should let the body build up immunity.

“What do you do to your body when you train your body not to do it on its own?” Dr. Hazan asked rhetorically. She added that the H1N1 virus lasted 15 years, and she wondered whether the government was going to keep requiring more booster shots until COVID runs its course.

“There are treatments out there, and we need to treat, prevent and quarantine,” she said. “People are self-centered about quarantining, and that keeps us in the pandemic. Meanwhile, it is important to know the risks of the various vaccines and ivermectin.”

She concluded, “It’s also important to understand the role of microbiomes. We come from dirt, and we go back to dirt. We are bacteria.”

Dr. Hazan's recent book on gut health, Let's Talk Sh!t: Disease, Digestion and Fecal Transplants is available on Amazon. The book is a humorous, easy to digest explanation of gastrointestinal disorders, their current treatments, as well as next generation hope for heart disease, obesity, autism, Alzheimer’s and more. From constipation to cancer, research indicates that our unique microbiomes may be the basis for future advances in health and wellness. Let’s Talk Shit examines the human microbiome — the dynamic world of bacteria, fungus and viruses that make up more than 50 percent of our mortal selves. Dr. Hazan and Dr. Thomas Borody, leaders in microbiome research, explore the reason therapies may not be working for many and why fecal transplants may be part of the solution. They also share nutritional tips to avoid illness, improve digestion and support our own microbiomes.

Dr. Hazan, who opened a genetic engineering laboratory in order to understand the microbiome believes that “we are what we eat and digest.” As a specialist in clostridium difficile infection and Crohn’s disease, she started clinical trials to give patients other options than surgery and antibiotics.