Early treatment with hydroxychloroquine cut the death rate significantly in sick patients hospitalized with COVID-19 – and without heart-related side-effects, according to a new study published by Henry Ford Health System.
The use of Hydroxychloroquine as a possible treatment has become the focus of emotional and political controversy. The best use or non-use should just be a medical and scientific matter based on actual medical and scientific studies and data.
In a large-scale retrospective analysis of 2,541 patients hospitalized between March 10 and May 2, 2020 across the system’s six hospitals, the study found 13% of those treated with hydroxychloroquine alone died compared to 26.4% not treated with hydroxychloroquine. None of the patients had documented serious heart abnormalities; however, patients were monitored for a heart condition routinely pointed to as a reason to avoid the drug as a treatment for COVID-19.
The study seems to say that deaths are reduced by half if patients who are given treatment early. But it has to be patients without serious heart problems. They did not completely randomize the patients. It is not for all patients. So need to randomize the subset and control for steroids.
The combination of hydroxychloroquine plus azithromycin was reserved for selected patients with severe COVID-19 and with minimal cardiac risk factors.
There were other studies that did not show benefits for hydroxychloroquine. It doesn’t make those studies wrong or definitely a conflict. Henry Ford Health System looking at the nuanced data of which patients actually benefited and when. This might be able to further unlock the code of how this disease works. Hydroxychloroquine can help interfere with the virus directly and also reduces inflammation.
Reviewers of the paper noted:Cconcomitant steroid use in patients receiving hydroxychloroquine was more than double the non-treated group. This is relevant considering the recent RECOVERY trial that showed a mortality benefit with dexamethasone (Horby et al., 2020) among individuals requiring supplemental oxygen or mechanical ventilation, potentially biasing this study’s results in favor of hydroxychloroquine.
Nextbigfuture notes that dexamethasone only reduced mortality by 33%. So any combination of treatments that reduces mortality by 50% is an improvement.
The US Food and Drug Administration withdrew its emergency use authorization for the drug earlier in June and trials around the world, including trials sponsored by the World Health Organization and the National Institutes of Health, were halted.
The Milken Institute lists hundreds of other candidate treatments and candidate vaccines.
The other major treatments that seem to be effective are a steroid (Dexamethasone), Gilead Remdesivir and blood thinners.
Authors of the Surgisphere Based Study That Reported Hydroxychloroquine Was Dangerous Was Retracted
Hydroxychloroquine is a drug that has been safely used to treat Malaria and arthritis for many years.
Here is what the authors of the Surgisphere Based Study That Reported Hydroxychloroquine said when they retracted:
After publication of our Lancet Article, several concerns were raised with respect to the veracity of the data and analyses conducted by Surgisphere Corporation and its founder and our co-author, Sapan Desai, in our publication. We launched an independent third-party peer review of Surgisphere with the consent of Sapan Desai to evaluate the origination of the database elements, to confirm the completeness of the database, and to replicate the analyses presented in the paper.
Our independent peer reviewers informed us that Surgisphere would not transfer the full dataset, client contracts, and the full ISO audit report to their servers for analysis as such transfer would violate client agreements and confidentiality requirements. As such, our reviewers were not able to conduct an independent and private peer review and therefore notified us of their withdrawal from the peer-review process.
We always aspire to perform our research in accordance with the highest ethical and professional guidelines. We can never forget the responsibility we have as researchers to scrupulously ensure that we rely on data sources that adhere to our high standards. Based on this development, we can no longer vouch for the veracity of the primary data sources. Due to this unfortunate development, the authors request that the paper be retracted.
SOURCES- International Journal for Infectious Disease
Written By Brian Wang, Nextbigfuture.com
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
Known for identifying cutting edge technologies, he is currently a Co-Founder of a startup and fundraiser for high potential early-stage companies. He is the Head of Research for Allocations for deep technology investments and an Angel Investor at Space Angels.
A frequent speaker at corporations, he has been a TEDx speaker, a Singularity University speaker and guest at numerous interviews for radio and podcasts. He is open to public speaking and advising engagements.
By the way… https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31528-2/fulltext
probably average age 64, in line with 2 of the other groups – but 7 years younger than the “neither” group, and the point about the difference in steroid treatment remains.
I already signaled it:
In the study it says: Age bracket 64-74
then Average age: 53 !!!
It’s just a typo.
The study is complete trash, there were 4 treatment groups:
Treatment ……………………..Mean age…………percent of group getting steroids
Hydroxychloroquin………..53 years…………….78.9%
HCQ + AZM…………………….62 years…………….74.3%
Azithromycin…………………..64 years…………….38.8%
Neither treatment…………..71 years……………..35.7%
Who would have dreamed that the youngest group by far, the group with, by far, more members getting steroids (given the Oxford study showing that the steroid dexamethasone greatly improves survival rates) has higher survival rates, why, it’s just uncanny. /sarc.
https://www.ijidonline.com/article/S1201-9712(20)30534-8/fulltext
When someone got worse while taking hydroxychloroquine rather than recovering, 2 things were likely to happen, they either gave them additionally a steroid, or they gave them azithromycin. But they only made the hydroxychloroquine+azithromycin a separate group. This obviously removes a lot of the critical patients from the hydroxychloroquine treatment group…patients more likely to die. And as was pointed out, steroids likely improved the odds of survival.
As a result, we have no idea if hydroxychloroquine does a thing.
All the study says is that hydroxychloroquine is probably safe at the dosage being used at these hospitals.
We are also not seeing the remdesivir results. They probably started later.
I have a feeling a lot of tests are going well with a variety of things. I suspect that is why deaths are down.
It is true that with success in reducing the contagion they lost sight of the “flatten the curve” goal. And early on they
thought a vaccine would take 18 months-2 years (I think we will beat that by a few months). But it also became apparent that the elderly and the unhealthy have a good chance of dying unless they can avoid the bug. So for them, common sense says hunker down until there are vaccines, drugs that prevent infection or this thing becomes rare.
And we haven’t just put off inevitable deaths, we are gaining time for running tests to see how we can better fight and prevent infection. Costly? Yes. A mater of values, I suppose. I tend to like the old folks I meet.
Deaths are down even as infection rises in the young. As long as it is limited to the healthy young we will be ok, I think. But we have to monitor the nursing homes carefully, and those that work there.
Reclosing? I do think that is unnecessary except for hair salons/barbershops, nail shops, tattoo parlors, Jacuzzi places, bars, coffeehouses, palm readers, waxing places, massage parlors, martial arts places, some exercise places, boxing gyms, some sports and other close/long physical contact public activities…unless they have a compelling strategy for avoiding the spread that they will stick to. I think many restaurants can be made reasonably safe with some effort.
And everyone should have the option of wearing a comfortable N95 mask. We need to engineer and manufacture them.
Yes. It looks very interesting.
There wasn’t a public policy regarding an unproved drug… That’s just the spin you’ve used for your 2 Minutes Hate… https://youtu.be/VRbMpLKjA80
A properly controlled and double blinded study will never be forthcoming. It would arrive in 2 years when COVID-19 is no longer a thing and would require serious ethics breaches and would require serious ethics breaches in order to be controlled (such as not treating with other medications that might interract badly.
Dunno.
You are the one asking for double-blind tests and discard all the other evidences-gathering methods that permitted science to progress for centuries.
As for hydroxychloroquine, it has been extensively tested on cell cultures, as well as on other similar diseases, then on patients cohortes all over the world and especially in China.
If one hospital uses HCQ and shows good results when compared to similar patients in an other hospital that doesnt use HCQ, then you dont need to wait 6 months, hundreds of millions $ and thousands of avoidable deaths for a Double Blind Study.
HCQ has been used by Billions of people for more than 50 years with little or no accidents or side-effects… And suddenly it becomes the most dangerous drug because of Orange-Man.
I know he ran to Russia. Doesn’t change that the right would rather see him in jail. Obama felt that way too, for that matter, though the rest of the left would disagree, and perhaps he would have changed his mind on the way out like he did with Manning.
So why all this fuss about hydroxochroloquine?
Ivermectin is actually much more promising as a cheap, old, FDA approved drug!
Well, I agree with that. So let each doctor prescribe it.
What you CAN NOT have is a PUBLIC policy regarding an unproved drug.
Well, in a way it is a big defeat for the West.
Science is falling back into its age-old habit: The astrologists are back, are posing as honest hero scientists and sell their “opinions” to the Prince, the Powerful or the Wealthy, whatever the consequences for us commun mortals.
We can no longer make fun of theocracies and their insane religious practices… we are just equally ridiculous.
At least half of scientific studies are un-reproductible and many of our most important policies are based on those bad/fake/corrupt studies.
The oldest the drug, the more known side-effects. Check out paracetamol, or insulin, or any old effective drug… it’s scary.
Double blind tests are fine when you are testing whether a “beauty cream” really improves the softness of your skin compared to a placebo… not when it transforms you into a lab rat with good chances of dying and contaminating people around you.
Double blind tests are a recent practice whose main effect is that only big pharmaceutical companies can afford their costs and the delays.
When people are dying (like now!), even the WHO says DBTs are unethical.
I wish people would stop repeating this religious mantra “double blind tests are the only acceptable form of science”:
It is not true and it never has been.
“Why don´t he takes homeopathy then?? It has less side effects, and until proven the contrary (and i DO HOPE hydroxichloroquine proves to he effective against Covid), it’s as much a placebo as hydroxichloroquine.”
Aside from the fact you can barely write a cogent sentence, your straw man is pathetic.
Who the heII is arguing in favor of homeopathy? No one.
globalist illuminatti, the evangelical extreme right will say!
Also Wtrmute, remember that these MASSIVE OVERDOSES you talk about in the Amazon tests, were the recommended doses from tests they had done in China with hydroxichloroquine and that Bolsonaro lovers were insisting on being used as they would prove more effective.
When such overdoses proved to be mostly fatal, goalposts were changed by the Evangelical Anti-Science Ultra-Right. Now, too much of it do harm, so give less… and if they gave too much, it was a leftist plot to disprove Hydroxichloroquine.
Never trust extreme right nor extreme left. Never trust people who have presidents as idols and saviours. Like lulistas and bolsonaristas.
And this Kehvan idiot has the audacity to tell me I am the one who doesn´t care about science!
Why don´t he takes homeopathy then?? It has less side effects, and until proven the contrary (and i DO HOPE hydroxichloroquine proves to he effective against Covid), it’s as much a placebo as hydroxichloroquine.
Dear idiot, I surely care more about science than you do.
FDA approves many drugs as safe for human use. That absolutely does not mean all FDA drugs can be used to treat any disease nor that a drug should be pushed to treat a different disease because of hearsay, anedoctal evidence or incomplete tests.
I will repeat. You are an idiot. A big one at that.
From your example.
1. Person A is being biased. There are many NON promising results for hydroxychloroquine. Using double blind tests.
So if someone is PUSHING for a medicine that was SO FAR tested in proper medical trials and has not shown to be effective, then it’s THIS person who is a partisan.
2. I am not pushing AGAINST hydroxychloroquine. It just happens that as I CARE ABOUT SCIENCE UNLESS YOU RETARD, I will wait for the proper clinical trials, including trials with DOUBLE BLIND TESTS.
3. Since you are a little idiot, why don´t you push for the use of HOMEOPATHY in treating Covid19? It’s so safe that the FDA just allows it and not even regulates it anymore (stopped regulating it in 79)
4. What is the correct dosage to treat Covid? The dosage prescribed by Chinese doctors that was tested in Manaus, Brazil, proved to be an OVERDOSAGE that made severe harm to patients.
Gee, look, an FDA approved drug can cause harm.
Given the processed Costco diet most Americans are on it would be good to add Zinc.
“Where are the double blind tests that will prove it is better than a placebo?”
Entirely immaterial to the point, because the point is the drug was approved for human use, and if a doctor wishes to prescribe it for a use for which it wasn’t initially intended, it’s perfectly legal AND ETHICAL for a doctor to prescribe it.
none of those seem to have included double blind tests.
Not approved to Covid19.
There are tons of FDA approved drugs.
You said yourself… a POTENTIAL off-label treatment.
It can´t be discarded. But it can´t be condoned yet.
Where are the double blind tests that will prove it is better than a placebo?
INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR MEANINGFUL ANSWER.
The problem so far is that it seems NONE of the published articles regarding the efficacy of Hydroxichloroquine have been DOUBLE BLIND TESTS.
So, SO FAR, we can´t say hydroxichloroquine is better than a placebo.
It may be. But we lack data.
INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR MEANINGFUL ANSWER.
“That doesn’t mean it works w/regard to coronavirus.”
Whether a drug works as a treatment for a particular ailment has no bearing on whether or not it’s safe for human use.
Yes, please avoid the drug… Leave more for everyone else.
“‘safe for human use’ in 1955”
That doesn’t mean it works w/regard to coronavirus.
numbness or tingling in the hands, feet, or lips
unconsciousness
Continuing ringing or buzzing or other unexplained noise in the ears
feeling of constant movement of self or surroundings
irritability
nausea
nervousness
nightmares
sensation of spinning
shakiness and unsteady walk
uncontrolled eye movements
unsteadiness, trembling, or other problems with muscle control or coordination
vomiting
By all means, take the drug Kehvan
Hydroxychloroquine side effects:
Blistering, peeling, loosening of the skin
blurred vision or other vision changes
chest discomfort, pain, or tightness
cough or hoarseness
dark urine
decreased urination
defective color vision
diarrhea
difficulty breathing
difficulty seeing at night
dizziness or fainting
fast, pounding, uneven heartbeat
feeling that others are watching you or controlling your behavior
feeling that others can hear your thoughts
feeling, seeing, or hearing things that are not there
fever with or without chills
general feeling of tiredness or weakness
headache
inability to move the eyes
increased blinking or spasms of the eyelid
joint or muscle pain
large, hive-like swelling on the face, eyelids, lips, tongue, throat, hands, legs, feet, and sex organs
loss of hearing
lower back or side pain
noisy breathing
painful or difficult urination
red irritated eyes
red skin lesions, often with a purple center
severe mood or mental changes
sore throat sores, ulcers, or white spots on the lips or in the mouth
sticking out of the tongue
stomach pain
swelling of the feet or lower legs
swollen or painful glands
trouble with breathing, speaking, or swallowing
uncontrolled twisting movements of the neck, trunk, arms, or legs
unusual behavior
unusual bleeding or bruising
unusual facial expressions
unusual tiredness or weakness
yellow eyes or skin
Symptoms of overdose
Drowsiness
dry mouth
increased thirst
loss of appetite
mood changes
no pulse or blood pressure
(cont’d)
Hydroxychloroquine was approved ‘safe for human use’ in 1955… Off label use doesn’t change that.
Do try to keep up.
Doesn’t matter. This is just confirmation bias fodder for those who believe this doesn’t work, because: Trump.
It’s unproven for the coronavirus. Try to keep up.
No… Snowden ran to Russia.
Obama let Manning out of jail.
COVID-1984
When ‘flatten the curve’ turned into ‘stay at home until there’s a vaccine.’
“Touting a treatment before it has been proven to be effective is very dangerous.”
You do realize that part of the reason for the test a drug undergoes is to verify that drug itself won’t kill you, and to determine the point of toxicity to an otherwise healthy individual.
Hydroxychloroquine was approved for human use in the United States in 1955 and is on the World Health Organization’s list of essential medicines.
People like you act as if Trump pulled the drug out of his butt, filled a syringe and said, “Shoot up.”
“Other studies have shown that hydroxychloroquine is not effective at all.”
Other studies? I’d love for you to cite those studies, so we can ridicule you for your political tribalism, and willingness to believe bs so long as it makes someone you hate look bad.
To wit: ALL the studies to date that have suggested hydroxychloroquine is dangerous are flawed. In fact, Lancet had to retract one such study.
“June 4, 2020 – The online medical journal The Lancet has apologized to readers after retracting a study that said the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine did not help to curb COVID-19 and might cause death in patients.” – https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20200605/lancet-retracts-hydroxychloroquine-study
The mere fact I have to reiterate this on a site like Next Big Future, which you’d think is filled with informed people, I’m very surprised I have to inform you… the studies released attacking the safety of hydroxychloroquine are political propaganda.
“The number of dislikes show how much people here care about science…”
As if you really care about the science… Not even close to the truth.
The science was settled on the drug when the FDA approved the drug as safe for human use. Regardless the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine in treating the effects of this particular virus, it IS an FDA approved drug (ie: approved by the medical establishment). Off label use of a drug is practiced widely in the medical community, and has been for the entire history of modern medicine.
“They are acting based on their party preferences and political leaning”
Yes… yes you are. In fact, the conversation around hydroxychloroquine is the perfect litmus test for determining unhinged political tribalism.
Person A: I’ve read some promising results on using a drug for another disease for treating this new disease.
Person B: How dare you push an unproven drug.
If you’re ‘Person B’ in that scenario, you’re the one who’s an unhinged political partisan.
The difference being that people do not lockdown during a flu season, therefore vastly more people would be infected with flu and the numbers completely out of whack with what you are talking about – has common sense just gone out the window?
Probably because zinc exists in many diets anyways, kind of ridiculous to include it as some anti viral regimen unless your diet has been particularly deficient of zinc at the time of infection.
Historically people that feel compelled to say that they are good people are in some personal doubt that others would perceive this to be true, usually some degree of nascent common sense prevailing where it is otherwise ignored.
Considering these only go into play once you are feeling the full whack of a nastier COVID infection, I’ll only be thankful once a proven vaccine exists.
If you’re persuaded to talk down a potential off-label treatment by an FDA approved drug, you’re not helping the conversation.
But, but… ORANGE MAN BAD!
Physician advisors?
The main advisor of Bolsonaro is a astroLOGIST who admitted Flat Earth “theory” was sound.
Not mentioning other Flattards in his ministeries.
Furthermore, his “physician advisers” advices account for absolutely nothing if not backed by research.
Bolsonaro and Trump started advising for Cloroquine before any real research… so it was based on what? A HUNCH? OPTIMISTIC WISHES that it worked?
The left and right are the same stupid shills who have presidents as “heroes”. That’s stupid. There is absolutely no different between the mindless hordes that follow Lula and defend him from anything and believe everything he says and the mindless hordes that follow Bolsonaro and defend him from anything and believe everything he says.
HORSESHOE POLITICAL THEORY is perfect…
The number of dislikes show how much people here care about science…
They are acting based on their party preferences and political leaning, just as they are accusing to left of doing.
I see no indication of politicization from scientists. It’s the right and Trump politicizing it here.
Most studies have not found Hidroxicloroquine to be helpful, but most studies were done with people with severe Covid19 cases.
However, most people getting to hospitals were already in more severe Covid19 cases. As well as people admitted to hospitals were the ones with more severe symptons because of the number of infected.
Meaning that you could not do many studies with people that were sent home (less grave cases) which are exactly the ones where Hidroxicloroquine seems to help.
Furthermore, as the article indicates, there are some biases in this study, so it’s not like a definitive answer.
Regardless of the answer, it’s idiotic that both the left and the right have played with this. Trump and Bolsonaro are not doctors and their support of Hidroxicloroquine was idiotic and purely based on emotion and disregard from medicine, without any data to validate it. It was just populism based at most on some anedoctal cases.
And the left will probably refuse to believe it works just to play opposition.
So screw both. The doctors doing the research are doing science, based on complex studies, which both left and right are trying to push hard to be released… it’s easy to forget that this whol shit started in the west some 6-5 months ago only. Science was never done so fast under so much pressure.
“Dr Todd Lee from the Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal, Canada, said the results were relevant with the use of steroid.
The widely available steroid dexamethasone was found effective to reduce the risk of death among severe COVID-19 cases in a study led by the University of Oxford, and the patients treating with hydroxychloroquine used concomitant steroid twice more than those non-treated, he told CNN.”
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-07-05/New-study-suggests-hydroxychloroquine-effective-in-treating-COVID-19-RSdSBSAlhK/index.html
I thought the smart money was buying bunkers in NZ?
No amount of gearing up can help hospitals deal with exponential explosion in cases. This whole site is about the power of exponential growth.
To all the downvoters, have the courage of your convictions to say why you disagree. Reducing proportion of hospitalizations that result in death does nothing to reduce infection rate or even hospitalizations. So quarantine and physical distancing is still necessary to prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed. It does means fewer people would die (assuming they can get care by keeping our hospitals from being overwhelmed).
Except the costs of the extreme measures taken far out way the negatives of a more open society and economy. A few weeks to help hospitals gear up, fine. Months, pure insanity driven by the Left’s desire to destroy the economy.
Maybe many years ago, but this is the Detroit area. I don’t think there is any political hanky panky going on. I did wonder if African Americans were refusing the Hydroxychloroquine on political grounds and as they are more likely to die… But I did not see any evidence of that in the paper.
“Nextbigfuture notes that dexamethasone only reduced mortality by 33%. So any combination of treatments that reduces mortality by 50% is an
improvement.”
You are forgetting that they are treating these people earlier. A lot of people will recover, treatment or not, before their case gets really bad. The worse the condition they are in before the treatment, the more likely the patient will eventually die.
It would be nice to say the evidence is sufficient, but isn’t yet. However, I am pleased that they had no heart arrhythmia issues. This suggests to me that we can resume tests at the dose they chose. I’d like to see a head to head with remdesivir…double blind and give them the steroids if they meet some objective conditions. And, if possible, also against the version of remdesivir before remdesivir: GS-441524. And we need to know if and how zinc, selenium, vitamin D and famotidine work. I am also not convinced that the only reason azithromycin worked was because it is anti-inflammatory. I think the senescent cell clearance could have been a factor.
so Trump was right??!! ahahahah…
42% of people in USA, so not true. If you have dark skin and you’re deficient you should be very concerned though as that means you have a much higher chance of VERY low levels.
Oral vitamin d isn’t as effective as UV on the skin. Get outdoors and get plenty of sunlight.
Administered early with zinc and a zpack reduces death rate by 90%.
is about 0.26% according to the CDC. This based on extrapolating antibody testing results. However recent Tcell studies have shown the number of people showing immunity to COVID19 maybe twice what was originally believed. This brings the IFR down to around the 0.1% mark, or dare I say it, inline with a bad flu season …
I’m reading reports numerous trials involving hydroxychloroquine have been cancelled. Why is that?
Most people are vitamin d deficient.
Doesn’t matter. This is just confirmation bias fodder for those who believe this works because Trump said so regardless of evidence.
Such a treatment would be a good thing. It would improve outcomes. But even if it does work, it does nothing to reduce the need for effective quarantine and physical distancing measures.
Should Trump get charged with recommending it be used? He is not a doctor and cannot give medical advice.
If you are persuaded by anecdata you’re not helping the conversation.
Most of the people who died from COVID where Vitamin D deficient. Taking a Vitamin D supplement would be more effective and less dangerous.
… and 14 more studies : https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vDD8JkHe62hmpkalx1tejkd_zDnVwJ9XXRjgXAc1qUc/edit
There was a Michigan politician who was saved—and Jim Bohannon had a former ABC news employee who improved after just an hour—and he was on death’s door.
And Snowden. Bradley Manning did go to jail.
You know, this is just one more study so I don’t want to definitely yoke myself to “HCQ definitely good now”, but I think your first sentence there is spot on and something we all need to think about more.
There is so, so much that has been hyper politicized, and all it does it make it impossible to get rational, fair judgments from experts. The more we try to accomplish things using politics, the harder it is to tell what we should accomplish.
We’ve been explicitly trying to get people more “politically engaged” and encouraging scientists to speak up on political issues for a decade, and that was a huge mistake.
No, Brennan should go to jail.
Yep, Trump Devotion Syndrome is a real problem.
Stopped watch
The right : We should embrace traitors.
Touting a treatment before it has been proven to be effective is very dangerous. This study is just one of many. Other studies have shown that hydroxychloroquine is not effective at all.
Why do they never include zinc with this course or treatment. Isnt the peimary function of the hcq to open a pathway for the zinc to enter the cell and kill the virus?
Yes it does.
TDS has very real and very deadly consequences.
There is an error in the median age of the HQC group:
It say the age group is between 64 and 74 with an average age of… 53 !!!
Some people are now saying the Hydroxychloriquine group was younger than the control group. I guess we will have to wait for a correction either way.
Check https://www.mediterranee-infection.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Arshad-IJID-2020.pdf (table 1)
Early *is* important. This is the only study I’ve seen that got that part right. The early anecdotal reports emphasized starting this treatment at the first sign of illness, before hospitalization was needed. They also emphasized including zinc in the treatment, for what seemed like very plausible reasons, yet no study I’ve seen has included zinc. I’m not surprised that the other studies were not so encouraging. Why doesn’t anyone test exactly what was reported to work? I understand that it is useful to also test with various subsets of the ingredients of what was initially reported to seem to work, but leaving out a test of all the ingredients from the initial reports seems pretty dumb to me.
I agree. I hope that is investigated once things get back closer to normal. We can’t afford to distract people now with such a spectacle while we need everyone to be looking for effective treatments.
continuation:
I guess this study had to wait for the patients to show up in the hospital, since it was being done by the hospital personnel. However, I really, really would like someone do a similar study but include zinc and start treatment at the first signs of illness, before hospitalization is needed. I guess it is harder to run a study of patients that aren’t in a hospital, but a treatment that kept most infected people out of the hospital would be very valuable, so it seems to me it would be worth some effort to give that approach a fair try.
In Brazil there was a test that was made in the Amazon a few months back and stopped early because of side effects.
Then it was discovered that the people administering the test were giving people five times the recommended dose, and no wonder people were having side effects with massive overdoses.
Of course, this was all because Brazilian President Bolsonaro was touting the drug on advice from his physician advisors. If it had been touted by Governor Doria of São Paulo State, I’m sure Brazilian newspapers would be all for it…
If it went the other way you’d be touting the defeat of the west and Trump.
It’s deplorable that hatred of an individual politician overrides the humanity and common sense of others to a degree which allows them to condemn others to death. The Left: Tolerance…BLM…global warming…and all that stuff…I am a good person!
Smart people. Should buy some Gen III NODs and thermal while they are at it.
Henry Ford Health System? How could that have any political considerations? Yes, repugs, be sure to dose with the quinine early and often. And don’t forget your zinc tablets!
It is one of many studies, so let’s not jump to conclusions. Maybe the issue here is early vs. late treatment.
I wish I could determine the number of people who were not treated with this apparently somewhat effective medication, at the risk of their lives, because the legacy media, and democrat party found it politically expedient to condemn it because “orange man bad”.
The sad thing is, there were practicing physicians that were reporting it was useful before Trump correctly touted it. So, CNN ignored this at the risk of lives to claim it was useless? Sorry, but that is adjacent to negligent homicide.
This could be the more sickening result of the hyper-politicization of everything in society, even science.
If lab researchers actually lied and refuted HCQ because Trump said this would work, it’s a scandal worth of making a lot of heads roll, even prison time, given there are a lot of lives at stake.
In seriousness, this is good news, can we all just be thankful for the possibility of cheap and readily available treatments for this virus?
You will only be able to get access to it if you declare doing so to be some kind of protest.
Have I mentioned lately the number of people I know buying type IV ballistic plate armor?
Regrettably there seems to be many people for whom truth is a byproduct of political affiliation. “Show me the cis-man’s politics and I can tell you the truthfulness of the cis-man’s statements”.
I think it should be available OTC combined with an appropriate dose of zinc.
I sense impending political fire-fight: