UK Halts Hydroxychloroquine Trial, Calling It 'Useless' for Covid-19 Patients (reuters.com) 245
An anonymous reader quotes Reuters:
British scientists halted a major drug trial on Friday after it found that the anti-malarial hydroxychloroquine, touted by U.S. President Donald Trump as a potential "game changer" in the pandemic, was "useless" at treating COVID-19 patients. "This is not a treatment for COVID-19. It doesn't work," Martin Landray, an Oxford University professor who is co-leading the RECOVERY trial, told reporters.
"This result should change medical practice worldwide. We can now stop using a drug that is useless..."
Landray, a professor of medicine and epidemiology at Oxford University, noted the "huge speculation" about the drug as a treatment for COVID-19 but said there had been until now "an absence of reliable information from large randomised trials". He said the preliminary results from RECOVERY, which was a randomised trial, were now quite clear: hydroxychloroquine does not reduce the risk of death among hospitalised patients with COVID-19.
"If you're admitted to hospital, don't take hydroxychloroquine," he said.
The trial involved over 11,000 patients in a randomized trial begun in March.
The article ends by quoting Parastou Donyai, director of Pharmacy Practice at the University of Reading in England, who describes the announcement as "welcome relief to thousands of scientists, doctors and academics who have been crying out for proper proof of whether hydroxychloroquine works in COVID-19 or not" -- and calling the conclusion that it does not work "definitive."
"This result should change medical practice worldwide. We can now stop using a drug that is useless..."
Landray, a professor of medicine and epidemiology at Oxford University, noted the "huge speculation" about the drug as a treatment for COVID-19 but said there had been until now "an absence of reliable information from large randomised trials". He said the preliminary results from RECOVERY, which was a randomised trial, were now quite clear: hydroxychloroquine does not reduce the risk of death among hospitalised patients with COVID-19.
"If you're admitted to hospital, don't take hydroxychloroquine," he said.
The trial involved over 11,000 patients in a randomized trial begun in March.
The article ends by quoting Parastou Donyai, director of Pharmacy Practice at the University of Reading in England, who describes the announcement as "welcome relief to thousands of scientists, doctors and academics who have been crying out for proper proof of whether hydroxychloroquine works in COVID-19 or not" -- and calling the conclusion that it does not work "definitive."
The end of it? (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's hope the energy/time/resources put into testing and retesting this can now be better spent elsewhere.
Re:The end of it? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:The end of it? (Score:4, Insightful)
Not comprarable to antivaxxers (Score:2)
Moving the goalposts would occur after the findings emerged. The suggestion to combine hydroxycholoroquine with zinc goes back to at least March [google.com]. Not that the British study was wrong to use hydroxycholorquine alone; it's useful data to know that it's not effective alone against COVID.
We're still in the discovery phase of COVID. It's not like the situation with antivaxxers, where decades of evidence exist to rebut outlandish claims.
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What is the benefit to selling people on hcq and zinc if they don't work? Hcq is a $1 pill and zinc is even cheaper. No one is going to make any money pushing hcq+zinc if it works. Maybe you might want to dig a little deeper into who will make mega bucks if an expensive vaccine or anti-viral cure is found.
Woah, woah. To counter multiple studies that no combination of HCQ works, you're going with a conspiracy theory that it's what Big Pharma wants you to believe. Maybe you should read the studies and not believe that there must be some grand conspiracy behind things. If there is a vaccine, most governments around the world will work to make it affordable and perhaps free. That sorta destroys your "follow the money" doesn't it?
Re: Not comprarable to antivaxxers (Score:2)
If there are I'd love to read them. I've only seen hcq-only. It's been months since hcq+stuff was the idea but we only get hcq-only studies. I'm not even going to go off on how poorly designed most of those are.
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I haven't seen ANY studies that look at hcq+anything else.
Then you haven't remotely been paying attention. HCQ with or without Az has little effect. [the-hospitalist.org] HCQ + Zn has little effect. [statnews.com] After you've read them will you admit that HCQ does little?
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Oh I missed your line about vaccine prices. Yes, I agree governments will make them affordable to end users / patients. The manufacturers are still going to take in billions in tax dollars. It'll just be the government paying on behalf of tax payers instead of directly from people's pockets. Either way, the people will pay billions for any vaccines or cures.
The manufacturers are still going to take in billions in tax dollars.
According to whom? Right now there are multiple companies and governments working on a vaccine. If a government institution comes up with one and works for manufacturer how are you sure that they won't also take control of manufacture?
It'll just be the government paying on behalf of tax payers instead of directly from people's pockets. Either way, the people will pay billions for any vaccines or cures.
And they would pay $0 for Zn pills today? If a person requires a single $1 Zn pill, that's $7B for the world's population for one dose each for however long they need to take the pill. Big Pharma would rather you pay for many pills rather than a single vaccine. Follow the mone
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The same as the benefit of selling people on homeopathic remedies, or a phony "real estate university".
For some people, cheating, stealing, and fraud are their own reward.
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I think you are missing the point that there are two mostly independent hypothesis around hydroxychloroquine for treatment of COVID-19 that came about before we knew much about the effectiveness of either treatment ( and before Trump even commented on hydroxychloroquine).
And I think you missed the point that one of your doctors had their work retracted. So you have 1 doctor essentially.
On March 6th this medcram youtube video was posted on the idea of using intracellular zinc to block RNA synthesis of the COVID-19 virus. https://www.youtube.com/watch [youtube.com]?... [youtube.com]
And? That looked in vitro amounts of Zinc may help with RNA. Nothing about HCQ + Zinc. And the word is "may".
On March 17 this youtube video was posted on the idea of using hydroxychloroquine as an ionosphere to get zinc inside the cell to inhibit the COVID-19 virus. https://www.youtube.com/watch [youtube.com]?... [youtube.com]
Another video about in vitro testing of Zn and CQ. Not HCQ. Also nothing to suggest it's effective against CoVID but only using CQ can help get Zn into a cell.
On March 19 Trump made his first public comments on hydroxychloroquine: https://abcnews.go.com/Politic [go.com]... [go.com]
Nothing about Zinc. Nothing. For you it's 1+ 1 therefore . . . 17. You've jumped so many steps there.
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The suggestion to combine hydroxycholoroquine with zinc goes back to at least March [google.com].
Here's where the whole scenario started [uchealth.org]. It's from a journalist who said zinc lozenges have been shown to shorten (not cure) the time someone has a cold. He cites a Dr. Ian Tullberg who said, "“there’s good evidence that oral zinc works well," in regards to helping people get over colds.
The journalist then goes on to say, citing a Dr. James A. Robb, a molecular virologist, who said, in regard to
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Moving the goalposts would occur after the findings emerged. The suggestion to combine hydroxycholoroquine with zinc goes back to at least March [google.com].
The letter you link here is dated "April 28, 2020".
The citations given by the letter you link are "I combined the data available from China and South Korea with the recent study published from France."
All of these are studies of hydroxycholoroquine alone; none of these are studies of hydroxycholoroquine with zinc.
Not that the British study was wrong to use hydroxycholorquine alone; it's useful data to know that it's not effective alone against COVID.
We're still in the discovery phase of COVID. It's not like the situation with antivaxxers, where decades of evidence exist to rebut outlandish claims.
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All of these are studies of hydroxycholoroquine alone; none of these are studies of hydroxycholoroquine with zinc.
There are studies [startribune.com]
While not a primary goal, the study also found no increased protection for participants who also took zinc or vitamin C. A separate study suggested that zinc could boost the effectiveness of chloroquine, but even if that’s true, the U authors noted that most Americans consume enough zinc already so supplements shouldn’t be needed.
So now it's zinc. Here's the pattern: HCQ. No HCQ with Az. No it's for prevention. No it's with zinc. At what point will you admit there is little benefit?
Re: Not comprarable to antivaxxers (Score:2)
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Too many fraudulent claims about it.
The vaccine doesn't exist yet. You do understand that right?
Too much false reporting about it.
What sources are you using? It doesn't exist yet is what I get from my sources. There are a number of different researchers working on one but none have been shown to be effective yet.
Re: The end of it? (Score:5, Insightful)
But when Trump made the mistake of mentioniong just HCQ there were the bad scientists that saw that they might have a political hammer to use against Trump and ran with it, even though the least little bit of research into its origin back in early March would have shown it was never about HCQ alone but a combination of drugs.
Let's be honest about Trump's role in this: He didn't just mentioned it. He advocated using it. He outright stated lies about its effectiveness. He was an active cheerleader even recently despite multiple studies showing it has little benefit. To state otherwise is denial. It seems you want to push this on others when he clearly has been a major source of disinformation and outright lies.
Re: The end of it? (Score:5, Insightful)
You're not being honest. Prior to Trump mentioning it as a promising treatment -- offering up hope and optimism -- the media's articles on this possible treatment were positive
Citation needed. Most news outlets I follow cited numerous experts like Dr. Fauci that they were skeptical.
Where do you think he learned about this... It was the media.
Um no. He got it from his conspiracy sources he thinks is media. He certainly didn't get it from the NHS or the CDC. You'd think as President he'd consult with his medical advisors but no, you're asserting he rather listen to media about medical advice. Doesn't that paint him as an idiot?
The very same outlets that had written positive articles about it, then turned around and went out of their way to try and find anything negative about it, while completely ignoring the positive studies.
Again no. Pro-Trump outlets painted it positively because they wanted to paint Trump positively. When that backfired, it was the media's fault. No. It's all about Trump and his supporters trying to blame others for things that he clearly did. There's no accountability or responsibility there. It's always someone else's fault.
What positive studies? Please cite them.
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Rather convenient on your part that you can easily discount anything you don't like as either a conspiracy theory or Pro-Trump. It must be nice to be so bliss. :)
Rather convenient of you to twist what the article says. From your own article: "One undercut President Trump’s claim that certain antimalarial drugs cure Covid-19, the illness caused by the virus, concluding that the medications in fact were dangerous to patients. The other found that some blood pressure drugs did not increase the risk of Covid-19 and might even be protective."
Also way to ignore the multiple other studies that were not linked to this one researcher.
Here are some positive articles from April: https://www.washingtontimes.co... [www.washingtontimes.co] [washingtontimes.com]
Bahahahaha. You linked to the Wash
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None of this has the slightest basis in reality. The Trump family has investments in Pharma, he pushed HCQ because he thought he would profit from it. Other countries had tried it and some advocated for it. It had nothing to do with positive US media reports, as Trump gets his "information" from Fox and Fox isn't media, it's propaganda that supports Trump.
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Many different claims. [Re: The end of it?] (Score:2)
No. It's not moving goalposts. It's called bad people doing bad science to further their shitty political agendas.
Wrong.
Many different claims for many different treatments involving hydroxychloroquine have been advanced, but the first claims were that it was in and of itself a therapy effective against COVID-19. Gao et al. 2020, for example, although the conclusions here were dubious due insufficient information about how the tests were done; and the Zhang et al. 2020 result (this was the one that got people excited about it) but with only 31 patients receiving the treatment, it was only indicative, and not statisti
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The new diet resulted in weight gain for 66.666667% of the frogs. The other frog died.
Re: The end of it? (Score:5, Informative)
From day one it was always a combination of HCQ, Azithromycin, and zinc - which helped inhibit the virus' replication process.
No it wasn't. Even the original French study didn't include anything else, and you *are* moving the goalposts.
Or maybe etymologists around the world are just getting it wrong, all science is bad and only Slashdot commentators know the TRUTH! Oh man, have my eyes just been opened? I think they have. Do you have a newsletter I can subscribe to?
Re: The end of it? (Score:2)
Re: The end of it? (Score:4, Insightful)
"From day one it was always a combination of HCQ, Azithromycin, and zinc - which helped inhibit the virus' replication process."
No it wasn't. This is moving the goalposts. To this day, it is not that.
"But when Trump made the mistake of mentioniong just HCQ..."
He didn't just mention it, his family has an investment in it and he pushed it, then you took your direction to argue for it.
"...bad scientists that saw that they might have a political hammer to use against Trump..."
Scientists are not politicians and Trump is not a victim.
"...because of likely fraud"
The only fraud here is you, the article you linked to makes no such assertion.
"So please don't bullshit people..."
Pure projection. Look at yourself in the mirror.
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That's right, and adding Zinc with HCQ only benefits those who are Zinc deficient. Furthermore, HCQ's primary anti-viral benefit does not involve Zinc.
Zinc is only a "moving the goalposts" argument used by Trump tribalists. It, like HCQ, is irrelevent.
Re:The end of it? (Score:5, Insightful)
The way it's playing out:
The way it's supposed to work: HCQ might be effective. Do randomized blind tests to find out. Someone suggests HCQ might be effective in combination with other things. Do randomized blind tests of those combinations to find out. etc.
Because you can't prove a negative, the burden of proof is upon those who think HCQ is effective to conduct studies which show its efficacy. But likewise, such a study failing to find efficacy does not automatically close off all further avenues of study along those lines (e.g. HCQ in combination with other substances). Those avenues, if different enough from the original, should be treated as new hypotheses unrelated to the original. Need I point out that our most effective treatment of HIV currently involves a cocktail of multiple drugs which by themselves are ineffective or are limited in their effectiveness.
e.g. Water puts out fires. Test some fires, put water on them, fires go out. Hypothesis confirmed. Someone then proposes the idea that water won't put out certain fires. You don't call them crazy and cut off their funding just because it contradicts your earlier general test. You allow them to test their hypothesis. And they end up proving that water does not put out grease fires. Then someone else claims that water can put out grease fires. Again, you don't block them just because they're contradicting what's previously been proven true. You allow them to test their hypothesis. And they demonstrate that water mixed with a foaming agent can put out grease fires.
It's like how a computer learns the game of 20 questions [wikipedia.org]. The first question is not the be-all end-all solution once it's been answered. Each subsequent question refines the answer further, allowing it to map out that branch of the solution space to further refine where each answer works, and where it doesn't. Eventually it builds up a very comprehensive map of branches which allow it to narrow down (e.g.) a specific animal in less than 20 questions. The only consideration when building up this map is whether the resources you spend answering a question pretty far down a branch is worth it. When those resources could instead be spent on a question near the base trunk, and thus answering it gives you coverage of a much larger segment of the solution space.
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Unfortunately it's gotten politicizied, leading to erroneous claims and demands by both sides. The way it's playing out:
*I* would like to see tests continue.
At the moment, the best studies that have been released don't show that it helps, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't keep looking for a protocol in which it does help (as well as continuing to gather data to verify the other studies).
But, at the moment, I'd also say that this is a low probability shot.
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"Unfortunately it's gotten politicizied, leading to erroneous claims and demands by both sides."
This a lie right out of the "fine people on both sides" mold. There is the objectively correct side and the Trump side. Arguing that there is no evidence is not "political" when there is no evidence.
What to trial (Score:3, Interesting)
The way it's supposed to work: HCQ might be effective. Do randomized blind tests to find out. Someone suggests HCQ might be effective in combination with other things. Do randomized blind tests of those combinations to find out. etc.
No, The way its supposed to work, is you first have some reasonable evidence that suggests it might work. For HCQ alone there was solid evidence from cell cultures where they tested many drugs. For HCQ+Azitromycin AFAIK the evidence was a french study though there was no mechanism known why it would make a difference. for the HCQ+Zink thing, what i ve seen so far was only from people who lack the biochemistry knowledge. It reminds me of the ivermectin study where 10000 times the normal dosage had an effect
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The proponents are using the G-d of the Gaps argument. "The reason it didn't work is because you didn't use it with THIS extra-special elixir, oh yes!!" Next we'll be told they weren't holding the pills correctly.
Re:The end of it? (Score:5, Interesting)
I doubt it.
This isn't about evidence, it's about hope, and for better or worse people have been encouraged to pin their hopes to this drug. They aren't following other research, so asking them to give up on hydroxychloroquine is tantamount to asking them to give up hope.
So I expect the search will go on for evidence that hydroxychloroquine benefits *some* patients in *some* situations until a vaccine or a definitely superior treatment emerges.
I do think we can put an upper credible limit on the possible efficacy of this drug. The Marseilles group's extraordinary results are likely a Type 1 error. Hydroxychloroquine has been extensively used as a frontline treatment, both alone and with azithromycin and sometimes zinc sulfate; if the effect were that powerful we wouldn't have to perform statistical yoga to see it.
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For years I've been advocating the development of what's now being called "tailored medicine". I just wish I knew how to do it well, and how to fund it.
Take a large pool of subjects. Divide them into treatment and no-treatment groups. Look for a treatment effect. This is how you study drugs.
But suppose, instead of having just 2 groups, you had many? Suppose there was a blue-eyed group and a brown-eyed group? Males vs females? Caucasian vs non-Caucasian (however you define squishy categories like that)? You
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Sure. We know that people seem to have widely different responses to the virus itself, so why not to medicines? For example some people -- even relatively young ons -- have a dangerous clotting complication, others don't seem to. Some seem to have neurological complications, others don't.
If COVID-19 becomes a permanent feature of society, the way cancer is, then we'll probably explore these things, but for now the highest priority probably should be keeping people from getting hospitalized.
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Umm... this is done now. A lot.
So, dividing people into 10000 groups like "male, 20-29, blue eyes, ethnic scandanavian, double-jointed" is pointless (no group is large enough). But by taking down all of this information, you can run some well-understood statistical analyses to say "did the blue-eyed behave differently than the brown-eyed in either the control or active groups? How about the double-jointed?" You can check any combination; you effectively create "virtual subgroups" on the fly. And most l
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It's not going to end because the point (Score:3, Insightful)
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The resources were well spent. Negative results are very important in medicine, and even more so if some political nil-whits try to tell actual MDs what to do.
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Are you implying that it's a waste of time to study a possible treatment regime that actually has theatrical promise? It may have proven ineffective, but that doesn't mean it was a waste of time you know. Assuming this study doesn't get pulled like the first two, we at least learned that one treatment option doesn't help. Knowing what doesn't work is information we didn't previously have. So on to the next theory, which will likely not work either.
Exactly. That is why the UK government has been happy to throw money at several different possible vaccines in development in the full knowledge that it may be the case that 6 out of the 7 or even the whole 7 may end up coming to nothing for the £100millions spent.
Re:The end of it? (Score:4, Insightful)
I see a pattern (Score:4, Insightful)
A new article about the usefulness of hydroxychloroquine pops up: the summary does not mention Trump.
No matter your opinion, this is ridiculous.
Re:I see a pattern (Score:4, Insightful)
Frequency illusion causing you to see a pattern that isn't there.
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Unless you've run a statistical analysis you wouldn't know if it is frequency illusion.
Perhaps you meant to say "it could be frequency illusion"?
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True but given the sampling of articles I've read (popular - as scientific papers tend to ignore such tidbits) either mention Trump or not no matter if reporting positive or negative results. While it's not scientific it effectively falsifies the claim of OP, if that's his experience it'd be a matter of limited sampling and not from a general rule. The frequency illusion is the most likely explanation if he get his news from enough outlets to be able to notice a general pattern.
IMO. YMMV.
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Yes, it looks like it is ineffective in treating Covid-19. It was worth a shot studying it though.
Martin Landray, the Oxford University professor, is wrong on one count. It isn't a "useless" drug. It has many medical uses and is very effective for its proven uses.
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So, in other words, you lied to exaggerate a point.
Re: I see a pattern (Score:2)
The difference is, Clinton would have had the sense to keep her mouth shut instead of prattling on about an unproven treatment.
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Slashdot seems to have a real stake in HCQ failing, they keep posting all these articles against it and keep mentioning Trump.
All of these trials and articles showing HCQ isn't effective just uses HCQ on it's own. We've known for months that alone it's not very effective. It's the combination of HCQ, Azithromycin, and Zinc that seems to do the trick.
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Pavlovian -- hydroxychloroquine useless, orange man bad
But now it's Orange Man Bad because Science!
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Eh what we have here is another case of orange fan mad.
You can spot them because they are never ever able to say anything negative under any circumstances about Trump.
Prove me wrong lgw, give an unqualified criticism of something, anything Trump has done.
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Trump has utterly failed to build the wall. For all his talk of immigration control, he achieved nothing substantive until the CV19 lockdown, and I expect that will be temporary. Plus, as is say in my sig Trump looked a looked like Bernie in that crisis, mailing out UBI checks to everyone.
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"disavowed under oath"... What does that even mean? I mean, Don Jr released emails showing that he, Manafort, and Kushner met with Russians to talk about getting dirt from the Russians to affect the US election. The Russians took one look at the clown show and decided not to work directly with the Trump campaign. Also, Trump himself released a summary of the Ukraine call where after they asked about the money the US had promised, Trump said "do me a favor..." and asked them to investigate a company conne
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Two things, firstly you're not the person I was replying to, so you're not really giving me want I want. Second, do you realise I can't have modded you down? You probably got moved my an angry Trump fan.
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No. Orange Man stupid, bad is just a side-effect.
And yet... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:And yet... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And yet... (Score:4, Insightful)
That is because you have zero understanding of what is going on. The retracted studies were about _side_ _effects_ not primary effects against Covid-19. This is an entirely different topic. And it was a statistical study, not based on a controlled trial. If you do not familiarize yourself with the actual facts or ignore important details, you will never get a good picture of what is going on. You have only yourself to blame for that. Also note that it did not took long for these studies to be recognized as problematic and that means the process works.
Re: And yet... (Score:2)
Why waste time posting about it, go gobble some down then. Fuck dosage recommendations, "scientists" make all those up so you stay sick longer right? Then we'll get you a jar of covid spit, huff that a few minutes, and we'll check if your toes turn red. Badda bing badda boom, Dear Leader's gaze shines upon you, don't let him down or you won't get your COVID check.
Seriously! Why would some stranger on the internet give you bad advice?
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I have ZERO trust in any "scientists" or "journalists" when it comes to any topic that either side has decided is political.
That's amazing. You distrust scientists because you have a your own political agenda and therefore those who disagree with you must be political?
Well I guess we can throw global warming science out, science about every pandemic, and basically all science based around economics and society. We should tell these scientists that they are all biased, political and therefore need to find other jobs.
Reactive verses preventative (Score:3)
From my point of view, it seems its becoming clear that HCQ doesn't help much if at all with patients who are already ill and admitted to the hospital. Its good to see studies that are now also starting to follow the patients post-release from the hospital to see what the lingering issues, if any, are. One interesting thing I've seen lately is a possible correlation between losing the sense of taste and smell, at least temporarily, after recovery.
That being said, I went to the study website for a quick perusal but didn't find much in the way of the results - probably have to dig deeper. What I'm still interested in is if HCQ or any of the other drugs they used for the trial are effective as preventative care. Getting a flu vaccine when you are currently sick with the flu isn't going to help much with getting better. Same with measles and chicken pox and other things we have vaccines for. Same with poor diet or lifestyle choices. Once you are sick, you are now in a reactive mode, not preventative mode.
Look at the ventilator thing. Its a known fact that the vast majority of patents who have to be put on a ventilator will never come off of the vent. I've read various sources that say that 95% or more of patents on ventilators die before becoming well enough to be taken off them. So the focus should be to prevent patients from getting to the point of needing a vent, not to make millions and millions of vents that in 95% of the cases, doesn't save the life of the patient. With this and other ongoing studies, I think we are starting to see what works or doesn't work when you are already at the point of being in the hospital.
At the end of the day, finding things that will prevent someone from even having to go to the hospital in the first place needs more attention (besides locking yourself away for days/weeks/months on end).
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needs zinc (Score:3)
It's not just Hydroxychloroquin, but zinc, that gets the job done, It's also only effective at the very early stages of infection. This is well known. It is angering that just because Donald Trump recommended it, so many are against it.
Obvious Fatal Flaw: Hospitalized Patients Only (Score:3)
All patients were selected after being hospitalized which means they already had been sick too long for the HCQ et al regimen to help them. From the beginning the proposed regimen was
"Hydroxychloroquine + Zinc Sulfate + Azithromycin EARLY!" to avoid hospitalization.
So this is yet another study in a series of studies that gave HCQ et al to patients, even patients near death, in flawed attempts to prove that HCQ could not work.
US Halts Trump Trial (Score:2, Funny)
Calling him useless for anything.
The two other fradulent studies were retracted. (Score:4, Insightful)
Here's the Archived version: https://web.archive.org/web/20... [archive.org]
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This was not a large or very
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Re:Yet Another Useless Trial (Score:5, Informative)
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Other trials have shown taking HCQ to have dangers in its own right. So people who self-assess as being at risk would not consent. So they remove themselves, and the influence the randomness of the sample.
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Other trials have shown taking HCQ to have dangers in its own right.
And? Again what are you talking about? I'm not sure what your point is.
So people who self-assess as being at risk would not consent.
1) You are asserting that is the only reason someone would not participate in a study of an experimental treatment is that the "sefl-assessed". It is not. The individual patients may be taking contraindicative drugs or not suitable due to other medical conditions. I would imagine that the advice of their doctors would be an important factor here and not self-assessment.
2) These studies do not assess the entire population. That would req
Ever hear of placebos? (Score:2)
You sign off in case you DIE either from the drug OR the lack of the drug. Randomly you get it or you get a placebo. Best practice is the nurse doesn't even know you are getting the fake or the real one. Ever hear of double blind?
You think they'd put somebody with no experience in charge of a study? You must be an American.
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Best practice is the nurse doesn't even know you are getting the fake or the real one. Ever hear of double blind?
You think they'd put somebody with no experience in charge of a study? You must be an American.
Indeed. That criticism is so arrogant and stupid, it is staggering. Best practice is however that nobody in the clinical side knows which one is real and which one is the placebo.
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Well, the researcher(s) running the study need to know which patients get the real drug and which patients get the placebo, otherwise it would not be possible to determine efficacy.
Yes. That is why they get isolated from the clinical side and have no contact with the patients and whoever treats them _or_ they make sure even the researchers do not know who gets what until the study is concluded. A common approach would be that an outside expert does the random assignments and pre-packages the medicine per patient (so that all capsules look the same) and documents the assignment. The documentation is then sealed by the expert and left that way until the study concludes and the outside e
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In the medical world, the patient has to agree to any treatment whatsoever (with a few exceptional cases that involve life-saving intervention and an inability for the patient to respond). When the treatment is experimental, there are extra precautions that are taken, additional permissions that are requested from the patient, because the treatment has unknown benefit.
Why would you do that? To avoid horror shows like the Tuskeegee Study (look it up).
There is no full randomness-as-in-quantum-noise in medic
better idea (Score:2)
1. Don't call it random, and explain why the selection procedure is reasonably statistically valid. If 99.9% of the random selection consent, that's reasonable. If 5% consent, then it probably isn't
2. Log the reasons for refusal of consent, so others can assess for bias
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Randomization does not mean the scientist gets to select a random sample from the population and force them to participate in an experiment. It means that people who consent to participate are randomly assigned to either a treatment or a control group. This is to minimize the likelihood of assignment bias by the people conducting the experiment.
This is the standard method for conducting randomized trials.
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Assignment bias includes the random selection choosing individually whether to participate.
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And you really think that is a valid criticism? They compensate for that for small numbers of non-consent and if they have large numbers of non-consent, they scrap the trial. Seriously, do you thing these are utter amateurs at work here?????
Re:Fake study if it does not include ZINC (Score:4, Funny)
Almost right. It's not as easy as just adding zinc. The zinc must be soaked in the urine of a menstruating rabbit and applied during a quarter waxing (not waning) moon to be truly effective.
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Nope. It may have done something is any effect was there. It is exceptionally unlikely that an effect will only be visible in combination.
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Well, if you have a medicine whose sole purpose it to increase zinc absorption in cells - you need zinc for the effect to be there. Nobody made a claim that it works against Covid without zinc. So what is this study trying to verify?
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You take in Zinc all the time, so there would be an observable effect.
Seriously, do you think the researchers doing this are completely incompetent and stupid?
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No, I believe the researchers have a political agenda and/or financial interest in vaccine production. I believe the research has been sponsored by some of the contenders for the vaccine production.
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This is not about Trump. This is about finding a solution to the health crisis.
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In other news, 55% of normal people say a vote for the dark Lord Zargothrax would strain a friendship. Yet this does not appear to be true in reverse; supporters of the eternal dark of chaos say they are willing to be friends with normal people.
Those poor supporters of the ancient evil are the real victims here.
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55 percent of strong liberals say a vote for Trump would strain a friendship. Yet this does not appear to be true in reverse; Trump supporters say they are willing to be friends with liberals. [vox.com]
Dumb people willing to be friends with smart people, but smart people don't like surrounding themselves with morons? Color me surprised. To be clear, I think less of you because of your endless pro Trump posts. Frankly most people don't really give a crap what you think of me in reverse.
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Wow. You should tweet them.