April 13, 2020 Show with Bhanu Gadde, Pharm.D. on “A Pharmacist’s Counsel on the Coronavirus”

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Intro and Resurrection Day Greeting

Live from the historic parsonage of the 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors, Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the Church and the world today.

Proverbs 27, verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have in view in conversation, to make one another wiser and better.

It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions. And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen.

Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth, who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com. This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Monday on this 13th day of April, 2020.

I trust you all had a blessed Resurrection Day celebration yesterday, even if you were alone as I was, due to this quarantine that's going on globally. And I know some of you had the privilege and blessing of being with family, because they live with you anyway.

But I hope no matter how you celebrated or where you celebrated, the Holy Spirit gave you the joy of celebrating the resurrection of Christ our King and the celebration of the empty tomb. So I trust that you are refreshed and eager to hear a very important program today.

Introducing Bhanu Gadde and His Pharmacies

I have a guest on today that I have known for quite a while, but I've never had him on the program before. I'm so excited to have him on for the very first time. His name is Banu Gadi. He has a doctorate in pharmacy degree, and he owns and operates Lee's Drugs of Floral Park, Long Beach Chemists and Prescription Center of Long Island in Hempstead.

And he's also an elder at New Hyde Park Baptist Church on Long Island, a church that is a very prominent place in my own life. In fact, when I was a brand new Christian in the 1980s, I frequented a singles Bible study that was hosted by New Hyde Park Baptist Church, and I've maintained friendships there ever since.

Yes.

And today we are going to be addressing a pharmacist's counsel on the coronavirus. And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time ever to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Dr. Banu Gadi.

Thank you so much, Chris. Glad to be on with you. That is, that was, you're so generous in saying what you said about me.

Oh, my pleasure, brother. And I'm still waiting to be invited over your home to have the best lamb vindaloo that has ever been cooked on an Indian oven.

You got it. You got it. Anytime. You pass by this way, you stop by. You don't even need to knock on our door.

And you better have the samosa and the chicken pakora and the raita and the naan and all.

Those other things.

Well, you know what? Then if that is the case, you need to plan on spending one week here.

Yes, anybody who knows me knows I love my Indian food. And before we go into your personal testimony of salvation, a brief summary of it, because that is a tradition we have here on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

Whenever we have a Christian guest on the program, since this is a Christian program, I like to have that first-time guest give a summary of their salvation story. But why don't you just briefly give a plug to the three pharmacies that you own on Long Island, New York?

Yeah.

Well, we are Long Beach Chemists, as you said, and Lee's Drugs is in Floral Park. And here, our passion is people's health, not just giving them medication. But there is a lot that goes on when you take the medication.

And there are a lot of aspects which control how that medication works. So we are aware of the totality of our work in our specialty.

Great. Well, if anybody wants more information about those pharmacies, you can go to Lee's Drugs Rx .com. Lee's L-E-E-S Drugs Rx .com. And you could ask them for the other locations of pharmacies owned by Bhanu Gadi when you contact them if that is not the one that is in your area.

Salvation Testimony from a Hindu Background

Well, as I said before, I would love to hear your personal salvation testimony, including what religion you were raised in and how our Sovereign Lord providentially raised up circumstances in your life that drew you to Himself and saved you.

Well, obviously, if my accent didn't...

I thought you were from Hoboken, New Jersey. I'm sorry.

That could be true, too, nowadays, you see. And my...our family's introduction to Christ, we are from a Hindu background. And my maternal grandfather, he was suffering from an unknown illness. And he was...he received miraculous healing.

And that is how...and she became a believer.

Wow.

And when... My...

And this is coming from an elder at a Calvinist Baptist church. He's not charismatic nor Pentecostal.

Yes.

And also, one more thing is, when my parents got married, my dad was still between a Hindu and She did not complain to anyone other than just spend hours and hours and what you have. And that is how he got saved.

Praise God.

Yes.

Praise God indeed, brother. And that is around when I was...open-air meetings were conducted. And I was so...and I...my need for a Savior. And that night, I gave my...I just...I came and saved my...

Wow.

So that was about three years ago?

Yes.

I'd like to think so, but...

And so, when did this interest in becoming a pharmacist, in fact, even earning a doctorate in pharmacy, come about in your life?

How did those...

Well...

How did that occur?

That is a long road. I was in India and I got my...come to the U .S. in 1991. 1991, August. I stopped the Ph .D. program and I stepped foot on the U .S. in August...in August of 1991. And then, I went to...

In 1992, we got married. In 1994, there was a job opening. End of 1994, there was... I did not... I took electrical engineering for several companies in the South. One...one I took for DSC Communications and Telecom.

So that is when there was a pharmacy that came up for sale in that. And that is when... Since then, I got the pharmacy. Thinking about it, I know, why pharmacy school? I've always been... We purchased in three.

New Hyde Park Baptist Church and Reformed Evangelical Convictions

Praise God. And how did you discover and eventually join, and then even subsequent to that, become an elder at New Hyde Park Baptist Church?

Well, coming from Texas, one of our major concerns was finding a good, well-balanced. They lived in... One Sunday, when... Word of God and exposition... That is when we knew that the God is leading us to...

Praise God. And that was two pastors ago.

Yes.

In fact, the Lord had me and His Providence spoke in the wheel of all of your pastors since Gary Scott coming to be given the call to pastor there. Gary Scott and Fred Zaspel, and now Doug McMasters, who is a dear friend of mine and a mutual friend of Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries.

And it's such a blessing to know him and my dear friend, Brian McLaughlin, who I have known for quite a long time. Since 1995, he began attending the debates that I began orchestrating on Long Island in 1995 between Dr. James White and Roman Catholic apologists.

And Brian, from what I remember, was... He was already an evangelical and attending a Pentecostal church, but he was still open to be convinced by Roman Catholics. And he was, I think, on the edge. And the debate that he had, that Dr. White had with Jerry Matitox, I think really blew him way into the Protestant side of the Tiber River.

That's wonderful, yeah.

And so if anybody, by the way, wants to learn more about New High Park Baptist Church, I'm always happy to plug a fine congregation like that. The website is nhpbc .com. N-H-P, standing for New High Park, B-C for baptistchurch .com.

And hopefully I'll remember to repeat that information later on in the broadcast. Well, this is a very bizarre day that we are living in. A very strange day, a very frightening day for some, some more so than others.

And even those that are still strong and healthy physically, many of them either have already lost their livelihoods or at least they have been put on hold, which has damaged their lives in many ways, especially financially.

And as I have even told you off the air, this radio program has been negatively affected financially because two of our largest advertisers are on hiatus because their businesses have been so negatively affected due to the coronavirus scare.

Tell me right off the bat, when you started hearing about the coronavirus, I'm assuming on the news, unless it was through patients coming into the pharmacies, but tell us what immediately began to turn as far as the gears and wheels in your brain.

What were you thinking when you started hearing about these reports about this disease which started in Wuhan, China?

Vitamin D as Prevention and Treatment for Coronavirus

Well, I have a Middle Eastern vitamin D. By the fact that we are coming out of the winter months and the vitamin D deficiency is a pandemic and it went through my mind.

Did you say that the vitamin D deficiency is a pandemic throughout the world, is that what you said?

Absolutely. Vitamin D deficiency is almost insufficient in vitamin D.

Now, could you briefly explain why that is?

Yes.

The vitamin D is our exposure to sunlight. And in the U .S. latitude, more vitamin D until...

So it's kind of like a gamble, do I get skin cancer or do I get vitamin D deficiency, right?

Well, there is a lot of debate there and I don't want to go into that aspect now, but vitamin D deficiency, it is this. In January itself, I started telling all my employees to get on the high doses of vitamin D.

I'm taking vitamin D supplements. All my family, we take first and farthest data that is available. People who have a vitamin D level with 200 nanograms per ml did not get affected. It's an educated guess that vitamin D levels being high would provide...

I cannot tell you. I started digging into mechanics of...

Now, how about if you already have it? Does a vitamin D therapy, if you will, does that help cure or hasten the virus from completing its illness within the one who already has it?

See, I think we need to look at how... But virus cannot...

A virus is not a living thing.

No, it is not.

I didn't know that until just this second.

Yes.

What it is, is virus has to... It has to get into the cell. It has to gain entry into the cell. And then, the cellular transcript that we need, our body needs, what it does is it injects its RNA, that's the imprint into the nucleus.

And once all these viral... The process starts... See, even though Mers and SARS were... The previous was not as virulent in the... Even though they did not have the active disease or active viral counts were almost four orders of magnitude higher.

Speaking to somebody who can be communicated. And that is the way it could happen in the U .S. And since then, we all see how...

I'm going to give our listeners our email address if you have questions of your own that you'd like to ask Bhanu Gadi. Our email address is Please, as always, at least give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the USA and only remain anonymous if it is a personal and private matter over which you are asking.

I completely understand if anybody listening has the coronavirus or has a loved one with the coronavirus that you may not want to identify yourself. Things like that, I can understand you wanting to remain anonymous.

But if it's just a general question, please at least give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence. We have already a listener in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, Susan Margaret. And Susan Margaret asks,.

I have been listening to hours and hours and hours and hours of television broadcasts explaining in full detail what the coronavirus is, how it spreads, and of course, very often, the information that you hear the very next day is outdated and sometimes contradicted 180 degrees.

But one thing that I cannot remember anyone ever mentioning is the positive results in preventing this virus through vitamin D. Am I missing something? And why would they omit this in these televised broadcasts, especially when they have scientists and doctors being interviewed?

The problem is, I think this is a thunder belly. And I do not know, perhaps we are used to that the solution could not vitamin D in high doses and they have completely recovered from this.

Yes. Yeah.

So it does have positive results on occasion with people who already have it?

Oh yeah,.

Not on occasion. We have primary care physicians around this area who are using this and they are seeing.

And the other day.

One doctor called with a high that is breaking these compounds into the bloodstream more and more. This is a mystery illness something called hemoglobin which carries oxygen to the cells and to various systems.

This is what is happening is cannot carry oxygen. Mostly initially we thought it was and you know just like ventilators to and that is what is showing up in the D-dimer test. And this one patient whose D-dimer level and hemodynamic parameters he is completely.

Praise God.

Praise God indeed brother.

Have you heard about.

Or experienced.

Or witnessed anybody who had no positive results from a good vitamin D protocol?

Everybody.

Who is on this.

Have improved.

Wow. Everyone.

And also let me tell you okay we have this.

Pharmacy.

Everybody comes into the pharmacy and all my employees have been on and everybody is working.

Listener Questions on Hydroxychloroquine, Quinine, and Vitamin D Protocols

Well we have to go to our first break and we ask of those of you who are waiting to have your questions asked and answered to be patient but if you would like to get in line to ask your own question of Dr. Banugati our email address is chrisarnson at gmail dot com C-H-R-I-S-A-R-N-Z-E-N at gmail dot com and as always give us your first name city and state and country of residence if you live outside the U .S .A. only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

Don't go away.

We will be right back with Dr. Banugati.

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More Listener Questions and the Role of Vitamin D3

Welcome back. This is Chris Arnzen. If you just tuned us in our guest today for the full two hours with a little less than 90 minutes to go is a doctor Banu Gadi. He is a New York pharmacist who has earned a Farm D which is a doctorate in pharmacy and he owns and operates Lee's Drugs of Floral Park Long Beach Chemists.

And.

Prescription Center of Long Island in Hempstead. He's also an elder at New Hyde Park Baptist Church Long Island New York. And today we are addressing the theme a pharmacist's counsel on the coronavirus.

And as we've discovered Dr. Gadi has a lot to say about his enthusiasm and excitement over the wonderful results he is witnessing firsthand when people have been using vitamin D as a preventative and even as something to get through the virus if they already have it more quickly.

Our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. Chrisarnson at gmail .com.

And.

Dr. Gadi before I go to listener questions were you finished saying what you were saying before the break or do you want to conclude in any way?

No, I said.

Exactly what I was.

Saying.

I'm muted so.

Go ahead.

Got to.

Turn down the volume a little bit here because you were over modulating a.

Little.

That's our fault on our end here. Okay, we have Tom in West Islet, Long Island, New York. He has actually three questions so I usually don't take that many questions from one listener but since it's about something as serious as this and also because they're good questions I'll ask all of them.

First, Tom wants to know about the effectiveness of the hydroxychloroquine HCQ plus Z-Pak drug combo against the virus.

Yes,.

There was a product that.

Z-Pak has to be.

Administered and they.

Have been last two days.

Now, is there.

Any.

Danger of using your.

Protocol.

With the.

Vitamin D in addition to using.

The.

Hydroxychloroquine?

No, not.

At all.

This is the thing.

I have.

Some of.

The.

Emergency serum, the vitamin D levels of people. Wow. So, it's an epidemic and which is progressing at such a rapid rate and killing people. And you know, and also, we have the.

Second question from Tom in West Islip, New York. Effectiveness of drinking tonic water has quinine, he has in parentheses, in combination with taking a high-potency multivitamin, high in A, C, D3, with zinc, the poor man's HCQ.