Nuclear Medicine: An Old Therapy Can Save COVID-19 Patients’ Lives

Can a physical therapy which has been abandoned in favor of drugs be quickly revived to change the mortality statistics for COVID-19?

Nuclear scientists believe it can, according to Llewellyn King, a nationally syndicated columnist and executive producer and  host of “White House Chronicle” on PBS, SiriusXM Radio and other broadcast outlets.

King argues in a column for InsideSources that an extremely low dose of radiation — about one hundredth of the treatment given to cancer patients — might save the lives of nearly all COVID-19 patients, depending on when certain symptoms emerge.

More than 70 years ago, radiation was used with great success in treating pneumonia. James Conca, a respected nuclear scientist from Richland, Washington, told King that 80 percent of pneumonia patients were saved with this therapy. However, it fell into disuse with the development of powerful antibiotics and public apprehension about radiation.

The beauty of the treatment, according to King, is that most hospitals have radiation departments and radiologists trained in treating cancer.

“According to my reporting,” King says, “the moment patients have difficulty breathing, they could be wheeled into radiology and given a low radiation dose to the chest for about 15 minutes. That will stop the ‘cytokine storm,’ the inflammation which is a feature of COVID-19 and pneumonia, which kills you.”

Conca told King that the treated patients can go home after a few days in the hospital — no ICU, no ventilators, and no lung damage.

The radiology departments of three major hospitals — Emory in Atlanta, Loyola near Chicago, and Massachusetts General in Boston — are conducting experiments, King reports.

“Radiation won’t prevent you from getting the disease, but it will dramatically improve your chances of living,” King says, adding, “Conca, whose wife has tested positive for the virus, as made arrangements with his local hospital for her to get radiation right away if she develops breathing difficulty.”

For more information, contact Llewellyn King at llewellynking1@gmail.com.