Sarnia-Lambton MP Marilyn Gladu speaks during Question Period at the House of Commons. December 11, 2019. (Screenshot from video of Question Period)

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Sarnia-Lambton’s MP wants Canada to implement COVID-19 cures she claims have been proven in the United States, but are opposed by Canadian health experts.

Marilyn Gladu, the former Conservative health critic, said the Liberals are talking about waiting for a vaccine — but that could take years.

“In the United States, they’ve been successful with the treatment of hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin and zinc sulphate,” said Gladu. “They’ve tried this on thousands of COVID patients, with nearly 100 per cent recovery rate, and so the FDA has approved this as an emergency measure, but Canada has not.”

Gladu said the prudent thing is to start taking advantage of medication options like the U.S. is.

“So, while our government continues to have, what I would call, ineffective programs to get money to people and businesses that are struggling, I think the real answer is for people that are seniors, for people that have underlying medical issues, yes, they need to be isolating themselves and protecting themselves, but for the rest of the public, we need to get back to work.”

Gladu said she recognizes that people are struggling.

“Every [COVID-19] death is tragic. But, the reality is more people are dying of suicide, more people are dying from cancer and smoking and we don’t shut the economy down for that. So, where we see that there’s a remedy available and we see that for most of the population this is not a concern, people are losing their businesses in Sarnia-Lambton, they’re losing their livelihoods and there’s no end in sight.”

Despite Gladu’s claims, Bluewater Health Chief of Staff Dr. Michel Haddad said there hasn’t been any evidence to show that hydroxychloroquine has been helpful in the prevention or treatment of COVID-19.

“There’s a lot of talk out there about different treatments,” said Haddad. “There’s no single agent that actually kills this virus. The Tamiflu we use for influenza is non-effective. We have been using cocktails of antibiotics, without real evidence to be honest with you.”

Haddad said he’s seen patients die and survive after using hydroxychloroquine.

“The most effective way to control this [COVID-19] is having a vaccine. Then we can control the spread and have hard immunity, but we’re not there yet and that’s going to be months away. So the first step is physical distancing, slow things down, stay away, washing hands, you can’t just stay in for a year of course, but at some point, as we loosen up, we have to be careful how we go back to work again once the government says it’s safe to do so.”

Haddad said he’s very encouraged by the province’s decision to delay things for four more weeks. He said it will give a sense of how many cases we have, if they’re still dropping and if we’re on the other side of the curve locally.

-With files from Stephanie Chaves

*The full interview between Melanie Irwin and Marilyn Gladu done April 14, 2020 at 5 p.m. can be heard here.