Early Treatment of COVID-19 Patients With HCQ+AZ Shows Benefit, Study Finds (sciencedirect.com) 284
"Over at ScienceDirect, they report on a French 'retrospective' study of just over 1,000 patients across all age groups with very good results," writes long-time Slashdot reader kenh. The analysis found that administration of Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) and Azithromycin (AZ) before COVID-19 complications occur "is safe and associated with very low fatality rate in patients." From the report: Background: In France, the combination hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) and azithromycin (AZ) is used in the treatment of COVID-19.
Methods: We retrospectively report on 1061 SARS-CoV-2 positive tested patients treated with HCQ (200 mg three times daily for ten days) + AZ (500 mg on day 1 followed by 250 mg daily for the next four days) for at least three days. Outcomes were death, clinical worsening (transfer to ICU, and more than 10 day hospitalization) and viral shedding persistence (more than 10 days).
Results: A total of 1061 patients were included in this analysis (46.4% male, mean age 43.6 years -- range 14-95 years). Good clinical outcome and virological cure were obtained in 973 patients within 10 days (91.7%). Prolonged viral carriage was observed in 47 patients (4.4%) and was associated to a higher viral load at diagnosis (pA poor clinical outcome (PClinO) was observed for 46 patients (4.3%) and 8 died (0.75%) (74-95 years old). All deaths resulted from respiratory failure and not from cardiac toxicity. Five patients are still hospitalized (98.7% of patients cured so far). PClinO was associated with older age (OR 1.11), severity at admission (OR 10.05) and low HCQ serum concentration. PClinO was independently associated with the use of selective beta-blocking agents and angiotensin II receptor blockers (p less than .05). A total of 2.3% of patients reported mild adverse events (gastrointestinal or skin symptoms, headache, insomnia and transient blurred vision). On the contrary, a separate study, which has not been peer-reviewed, found the two primary outcomes for COVID-19 patients treated with hydroxychloroquine were death and the need for mechanical ventilation.
"The study analyzed only 368 patients but represented the largest look at the outcomes of COVID-19 patients treated with hydroxychloroquine -- with or without azithromycin, a common antibiotic -- anywhere in the world," The Hill reported more than two weeks ago.
UPDATE (5/9/2020): A new hydroxychloroquine study -- "the largest to date" -- was published Thursday in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine. It concluded that Covid-19 patients taking the drug don't do any better than those not receiving the drug.
Methods: We retrospectively report on 1061 SARS-CoV-2 positive tested patients treated with HCQ (200 mg three times daily for ten days) + AZ (500 mg on day 1 followed by 250 mg daily for the next four days) for at least three days. Outcomes were death, clinical worsening (transfer to ICU, and more than 10 day hospitalization) and viral shedding persistence (more than 10 days).
Results: A total of 1061 patients were included in this analysis (46.4% male, mean age 43.6 years -- range 14-95 years). Good clinical outcome and virological cure were obtained in 973 patients within 10 days (91.7%). Prolonged viral carriage was observed in 47 patients (4.4%) and was associated to a higher viral load at diagnosis (pA poor clinical outcome (PClinO) was observed for 46 patients (4.3%) and 8 died (0.75%) (74-95 years old). All deaths resulted from respiratory failure and not from cardiac toxicity. Five patients are still hospitalized (98.7% of patients cured so far). PClinO was associated with older age (OR 1.11), severity at admission (OR 10.05) and low HCQ serum concentration. PClinO was independently associated with the use of selective beta-blocking agents and angiotensin II receptor blockers (p less than .05). A total of 2.3% of patients reported mild adverse events (gastrointestinal or skin symptoms, headache, insomnia and transient blurred vision). On the contrary, a separate study, which has not been peer-reviewed, found the two primary outcomes for COVID-19 patients treated with hydroxychloroquine were death and the need for mechanical ventilation.
"The study analyzed only 368 patients but represented the largest look at the outcomes of COVID-19 patients treated with hydroxychloroquine -- with or without azithromycin, a common antibiotic -- anywhere in the world," The Hill reported more than two weeks ago.
UPDATE (5/9/2020): A new hydroxychloroquine study -- "the largest to date" -- was published Thursday in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine. It concluded that Covid-19 patients taking the drug don't do any better than those not receiving the drug.
Retrospective, not controlled, but suggestive (Score:5, Informative)
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Yeah, testing it on Veterans' Dept. guinea pigs doesn't count, eh?
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There was no test on veterans.
It was just individual doctors grasping at straws, the problem with that of course is that the HC would on average have been administered for the most desperate cases with dosage entirely up to their discretion. So those cases dying more is not surprising.
Less dying for the French study at the same time is very surprising. One major difference between the US veteran's and the French patients is that the French at least had a treatment protocol.
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There is a difference (Score:3, Informative)
From the article:
The analysis found that administration of Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) and Azithromycin (AZ) before COVID-19 complications occur "is safe and associated with very low fatality rate in patients."
The study you linked to, the patients were already admitted to the hospital with severe symptoms.
I think that that is a significant difference, regardless of other shortcomings of the study.
Re:There is a difference (Score:5, Informative)
No, that's not what that sentence means. What that sentence means is that the drug did not cause very many fatalities, not that it prevented any at all. Doing nothing whatsoever is also associated with a very low rate of fatalities, because most patients, statistically speaking, do get better.
If the paper had mean that it was effective, it would have either used the word "effective" or would have said that it seemed to be associated with a reduction in fatalities.
The problem with this type of analysis is what's missing: the word "random". This was an analysis of people who were started on these drugs prior to any complications occurring, but of those people:
Let's assume the worst-case comparison. Assume that all of the cases occurred in a country with a low IFR-S — ~0.5% deaths among symptomatic people — and a low asymptomatic percentage — 20%. That puts the real IFR at 0.1% So you'd expect 1 death out of a thousand. In this study, there were three deaths, which is 3x higher than you'd expect. Now assume that half of the people were still mild cases late in the course of the disease, rather than being mild at the beginning, from which you would expect zero deaths. So now it's 6x higher than you would expect. Thus, one possible way to interpret the data is that people with chloroquine and azithromycin resulted in a 6x increase in deaths.
Now let's assume the best-case comparison. It is occurring in a country with a 3.6% IFR-S, everyone who gets sick is symptomatic, and everyone treated was in the early stages of the disease, rather than still mild near the end of the disease's course. That puts the IFR at 3.6%, so you'd expect 36 deaths out of a thousand, and there were three. Thus, a second possible way to interpret the data is that people with chloroquine and azithromycin resulted in a 12x reduction in deaths.
It is impossible to know which of those interpretations is correct, and anything in between could also be correct. This is why a proper study of this disease requires careful control over a lot more variables than just whether you have serious symptoms or not.
Re:There is a difference (Score:5, Informative)
No, that's not what that sentence means. What that sentence means is that the drug did not cause very many fatalities, not that it prevented any at all.
Nope, that is your twisted twist. It means what it means, that is Covid patients at that hospital in Marseille did not die at the same rate as in the other hospitals of the city, for whatever reason. What could it be this mysterious reason? The paper gives us a hint:
As a conclusion, based on our experience, we consider reasonable to follow the recommendations made in Asian countries for the control of COVID-19, notably in Korea and China that consist in early testing as many patients as possible and treating them with available drugs where this strategy has produced much better results than in countries where no active policy has been implemented outside containment. In China, drugs that were recommended were primarily HCQ but also -interferon, lopinavir, ritonavir and umifenovir [27], in Korea, recommended drugs were lopinavir/ritonavir and chloroquine [28].
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Yes it means what it means. The GP is correct the sentence is not comparative to the virus. Safe and low fatality means that nothing speaks against using it. Incidentally the conclusion you link is the same, no where in the conclusion does it make any claim about this drug, in fact the conclusion specifically mentions a whole host of different drugs and country policy of using various drugs is having a positive effect.
This study primarily and exclusively showed in the data that HCQ is safe to administer to
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This study primarily and exclusively showed in the data that HCQ is safe to administer to COVID-19 patients and absolutely nowhere in it does it make any claims about the efficacy of treating the virus.
Again, no. The study does show that, consistently with what happened in China and South Korea (early diagnosis and treatment), and consistently with what happened in Europe and USA (late diagnosis and treatment), there is a _clear_ correlation between early treatment and survival; on top of that, those different drugs are often used in combination. So your assertion "a whole host of different drugs and country policy" is mischievous, because it is exactly one policy, i.e. early diagnosis and treatment, and
Poorly done study [Re:There is a difference] (Score:5, Insightful)
Again, no. The study does show that, consistently with what happened in China and South Korea (early diagnosis and treatment), and consistently with what happened in Europe and USA (late diagnosis and treatment), there is a _clear_ correlation between early treatment and survival;
In the absence of a control group, the study showed nothing of the sort.
YOU NEED A CONTROL GROUP. Really. This has been proved over and over and over.
Saying "Covid patients at that hospital in Marseille did not die at the same rate as in the other hospitals of the city" is not actually a control... but, if you read the paper, they didn't even say that. They did not compare their results to other hospitals.
This study isn't data. This is anecdote.
Re:Poorly done study [Re:There is a difference] (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Poorly done study [Re:There is a difference] (Score:4, Informative)
Hydroxychloroquine, with or without azithromycin, was more likely to be prescribed to patients (hospitalised with pneumonia) with more severe disease.
Also from table no.2: 31.7% of the patients from the control group were treated with azithromycin.
That study is neither blind, nor random, and the control group is not a control group. Q.E.D.
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Assume that all of the cases occurred in a country with a low IFR-S — ~0.5% deaths among symptomatic people — and a low asymptomatic percentage — 20%. That puts the real IFR at 0.1%
Are you sure that this doesn't make the "real IFR" 0.625%?
Re:Retrospective, not controlled, but suggestive (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: Retrospective, not controlled, but suggestive (Score:4, Interesting)
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I actually read that one. The patients were admitted to the ER. And it was neither proven to work, nor was it proven to do any harm.
So if you are sick enough to need the ER, it's too late to use it. But that is supposedly when the remdesivr does work.
The Nejm article Did not mention adding zinc either.
And now there are two distinct variants of the virus, so what works on one may or may not work on the other. Utter joy.
I prescribe ethanol, but it must be noted that I am not that kind of a doctor.
And I spent
Re:Retrospective, not controlled, but suggestive (Score:5, Funny)
Re: Retrospective, not controlled, but suggestive (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Retrospective, not controlled, but suggestive (Score:4, Informative)
The usual interpretation of the difference in those studies is that starting treatment early is important. It's an anti-viral, it's trying to hinder the virus from replicating. It won't fix people's lungs. If you're that badly damaged, it's probably too late for it to do anything.
There was another study on people already taking HCQ prior to the pandemic that seemed to show that they weren't getting sick.
HCQ is one of the WHO's essential medicines and it's very well studied and safe, but it does have some contraindications regarding irregular heart rates that doctors are aware of and monitor for. It's also a cheap generic that almost every big drug company makes.
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Ah, yes, I get it. Orange man bad.
Congratulations, you finally figured it out!!!
Lots of money on the line here... (Score:3, Insightful)
This goes beyond simply "Orange man bad." HCQ is an old drug that doesn't have patent protection anymore. The big pharma companies can't make windfall profits selling HCQ as a treatment for COVID-19, but their new designer drugs and vaccines will be patent protected. Hence, there is a big financial incentive for spreading information recommending against the use of HCQ for treating COVID-19.
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Bingo, remdesovir is new and expensive, HCQ is old and cheap. (and been used by a huge number of people for a very long time, so all negatives are well known)
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You're really, really missing the point.
This is a report about an experiment done with no control group.
It's not political. This is badly done science.
You can't learn anything from these results until the experiment is redone with a control group.
Re:Lots of money on the line here... (Score:4, Informative)
It's not badly done science, it's badly used results. These kinds of studies are great for telling you whether an experimental process might be worthwhile. You're not supposed to draw final conclusions from it.
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You're really, really missing the point.
This is a report about an experiment done with no control group.
It's not political. This is badly done science.
You can't learn anything from these results until the experiment is redone with a control group.
I'll just stow this away for the next global warming story.
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Yes, we should have let those plebs die in the name of science! Finally, someone who gets me.
I have no objections to trying desperate measures to save people.
What I object to is calling it science.
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Saying recording outcomes and looking back on them is unscientific so it should be thrown out... is just as bad as someone blindly claiming X or Y is the s
Re:Lots of money on the line here... (Score:5, Informative)
Bingo, remdesovir is new and expensive, HCQ is old and cheap. (and been used by a huge number of people for a very long time, so all negatives are well known)
The only problem with your ignorant screed is that Gilead, who owns the patent on Remdesevir, has donated 1.2 Millon doses of the drug (which is all there is), and, more importantly, has given up its patent protection on it as well.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/a... [forbes.com]
https://www.biopharmadive.com/... [biopharmadive.com]
https://www.statnews.com/pharm... [statnews.com]
Re:Lots of money on the line here... (Score:5, Funny)
I said good day.
Re:Lots of money on the line here... (Score:5, Insightful)
This goes beyond simply "Orange man bad." HCQ is an old drug....
Look at yourselves. The post that got the "orange man bad" reaction is a simple and clear look at the science behind the different studies. It's clear that drugs trials other than double blind, properly controlled studies, with large sample sizes, held according to proper regulatory procedures which require reporting of both positive and negative results, have a history of reporting bad results. If the "orange man bad" Trump propaganda is coming up in response to posts pointing out basic science then everybody sane knows who it is that has a problem. It's not the person pointing out the science.
Re:Lots of money on the line here... (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, it's science [Re:Lots of money on the line... (Score:3)
If everyone and his dog tells you that HCQ/CQ are good if taken early to prevent the development of severe symptoms and your study is about near death patients, well, your study is not science,
Sure it's science. If people tell you a drug is good for one thing, and you study whether it's good for another thing, yes, that's science. Studying new things is science.
There are very good reasons to study what might be a good drug to give to near-death patients; these are the ones that are most in danger. Unless the previous work on the subject has conclusively shown that the drug is not useful to near death patients, it's a valuable study to make. And, in fact, even if previous studies had shown it's
Re:Lots of money on the line here... (Score:4, Insightful)
Why don't people "De-Colonialize their minds" and try building up "African science" instead of "Western Science" now? I'll tell you why: Because "Western Science" (aka SCIENCE) works and voodoo doesn't.
LOL. That is so random.
Truth be told, from what I've seen, and my BiL (an actual, you know, doctor who does research) has seen
Double LOL, do you know that the"argumentum ab auctoritate" [wikipedia.org] is a well known fallacy? As Carl Sagan put it: "One of the great commandments of science is, "Mistrust arguments from authority." ... Too many such arguments have proved too painfully wrong. Authorities must prove their contentions like everybody else.". It seems it is you who does not know what is science and what is voodoo.
By the way, Didier Raoult's h-index is a whopping 175 [google.fr], so if you want me to use the "argumentum ab auctoritate", well I'd take Raoult's advice upon that of a random moron from the Internet.
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A financial stake? About $1500 at BEST, for a multi-millioniare, through a mutual fund. Do you even 401k, dude? Have any idea how mutual funds work? My 401k is through a mutual fund, and I have no idea what stocks it has, and it wouldn't help me if I did.
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If people have money it is their duty to invest it where it will be of use... and where they think it will profit the most for everyone and themselves.
There is pretty good existing science to support that HCQ can positively impact outcomes, the kicker though is it has to be applied careful and at the right
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Not generally true and this isn't a normal experiment, this is done in a setting where trying to save the lives of those affected takes priority. Don't like it? Volunteer and recruit other test subjects, get infected, and contribute to science.
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This point needs to be emphasized. This is a report of an experiment with NO CONTROL GROUP.
The results are all but worthless.
What the f#*! is wrong with these people? Scientists have known that you need controlled experiments in order to draw any conclusions for A HUNDRED YEARS. [jstor.org]
I'll just hold on to this for the next global warming story.
Re:Retrospective, not controlled, but suggestive (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, but it works. And that's what matters.
No, neither study shows that it works. One study just doesn't show that it kills patients outright.
Previous chloroquine tests for coronaviruses (SARS, MERS) showed a reduction in the duration and severity of symptoms, but no impact on the case fatality rate. A similar lack of reduced fatalities has been seen for antivirals in influenza trials (H1N1).
The problem, I suspect, is that it usually isn't the virus that kills you, but rather cytokine release syndrome — one part of the patient's immune system overreacting to the antibodies that other parts of that patient's immune system produced to stop the virus. Even the complete cessation of viral reproduction presumably won't stop that once it starts. (This is, of course, where IL-6 antagonists and other similar medications come into play, I suppose, but that's a separate drug trial.)
Re:Retrospective, not controlled, but suggestive (Score:5, Insightful)
Clinical trials have protocols for a reason. Medical history is full of things that seemed to work until someone looked into it.
Does Raoult fake results? (Score:2, Troll)
This site posts a lot of evidence that one of the paper authors, Raoult, is a fraud.
https://forbetterscience.com/2... [forbetterscience.com]
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Azithromycin isn't crazy. Assuming there's a chance that secondary infections might be a contributing cause of death. But any study with 100 or less people on a disease with a CFR of only 2-3% is going to be inconclusive at best. A single survival could move the stats by an entire percentage point and it could just be random and not tied to the treatment.
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Why do you believe this drug works? The resulting percentages seem to track pretty well with what we know happens in the general population that catch Covid-19. Without a randomized control to compare against and with the impact being so small it's actually hard to tell if anything happened here at all.
And only a rightard would think that a man who had already plead guilty to crimes he obviously committed walking free is some kind of victory. No, that's just straight up corruption. Be proud!
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If someone puts a gun to your son's head and says "follow my script or I fire" what do you do? It's beginning to look as if those who extorted a false confession from Flynn will spend time in prison.
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At this time, above this post, I see quite a few thoughtful comments by people who are talking rationally and obviously not at all upset and I cannot even tell their political alignment because they are sticking to the topic; a few one-sentence posts by assholes trying to make this a poliitical flame-fest; a couple posts that took that bait; a couple people pushing zinc for some reason; and finally one link I'm too tired to follow questioning
As far as I can tell the only people upset here are the defens
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From a scientific perspective one of the biggest downfalls of this study - even after peer review - is that it was rushed by necessity. I'm not accusing the authors themselves of seeking fame and fortune (as it will get them neither regardless), but rather the fact that there are still a lot of unknowns when it comes to Covid19. There are a lot of factors that we aren't screening for yet - in part because we haven't identi
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Re: Retrospective, not controlled, but suggestive (Score:4, Insightful)
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IMHO, if socialism is the goal. then you can accomplish it only with varying degrees of fascism.
Then you really ought to read up on socialism, as fascism is not a prerequisite for it. Just because some fascists found it fashionable to call themselves "socialists" doesn't mean that what they practiced actually reflect socialist ideals.
Plenty of people would call Trump a poor example of a "capitalist" - just as many people previously said that Bush was a poor example as well - but they still each used that term.
Somewhere between Mussolini and Stalin is your range, for forced public ownership of all companies and forced equal distribution of wealth can only be accomplished at the muzzle of a gun.
You have several important things wrong there. First of all neither of those leaders ca
Long term vs short term. Pretty darn safe short (Score:3)
A lot of people take this medication for years, and there can be side effects from daily use for many years.
It's also used as a preventative when people travel to certain areas, because short term use is safe enough to give it to people who aren't sick.
When reading about side effects, keep in mind the vast difference between 10 days and 10 years.
Re:Long term vs short term. Pretty darn safe short (Score:5, Informative)
In this medical system which was retrospectively studied, they did quite some pre-screening to exclude patients who would be prone to adverse reactions to HCQ. This is a drug that should only be taken on the advice of a competent physician.
Stop it! Stop it NOW! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Stop it! Stop it NOW! (Score:5, Insightful)
We both know this is about more page views (and ads) for Slashdot.
There never should have been a presidential announcement that is was a “cure;” as a result, it’s become highly political, and great fodder to drive slashdot comments.
Besides... it looks like the number of people who recover doesn’t appear statistically different from nothing at all. So yeah... I’ll leave the researchers to do their thing. Nothing truly interesting here.
Re:Stop it! Stop it NOW! (Score:5, Informative)
There never should have been a presidential announcement that is was a “cure;”
There wasn't. The president announced that there was promising evidence for some treatments.
The media made it up "cure" out of whole cloth.
Re:Stop it! Stop it NOW! (Score:5, Informative)
By media you are referring to Sean Hannity and the rest of that hand-in-glove noise machine, yes? https://www.thegatewaypundit.c... [thegatewaypundit.com]
Re: Stop it! Stop it NOW! (Score:3)
Mar 21, 2020 ....be put in use IMMEDIATELY. PEOPLE ARE DYING, MOVE FAST, and GOD BLESS EVERYONE!
Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE & AZITHROMYCIN, taken together, have a real chance to be one of the biggest game changers in the history of medicine. The FDA has moved mountains - Thank You! Hopefully they will BOTH (H works better with A, International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents).....
https://mobile.twitter.com/rea... [twitter.com]
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How did you want this to work? Did you want me to read into his words that which YOU think he MEANT to say? (or more likely, what you really wished he had said, so that you could quote him saying it? but since he didnt...)
Re: Stop it! Stop it NOW! (Score:2)
You know which way this will work because you know which way that verbatim quote sounds.
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Is this research in France being done by a company which sells the name brand version of hydroxychloroquine?
You know, the same company Trump has an investment in?
Re:Stop it! Stop it NOW! (Score:5, Informative)
Which was still not true. Anybody who read about the history of chloroquine trials on SARS would not have considered an in vitro study to be promising, and would have dismissed the early French study outright.
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Re:Stop it! Stop it NOW! (Score:5, Interesting)
On the particular occasion (among many where Trump advocated HCQ) which is probably being referred to, the exact words were:
And one of the reasons that I keep talking about hydroxychloroquine is that the question that nobody ever asks, and the question that I most hate the answer to, is: "What happens if you do have a ventilator? What are your chances?"And I just hope that hydroxychloroquine wins, coupled with perhaps the Z-Pak, as we call it - dependent totally on your doctors and the doctors there - because you know the answer to that question. If you do have the ventilator, you know the answer to that question. And I hate giving the answer.So I don't want to get them there. I don't want to get them there. There's a possibility - a possibility - and I say it: What do you have to lose? I'll say it again: What do you have to lose? Take it. I really think they should take it. But it's their choice and it's their doctor's choice, or the doctors in the hospital. But hydroxychloroquine - try it, if you'd like.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?... [c-span.org] at 1:32:55
As usual he's rambling almost incoherently. Because his base is full of senescent contrarians, many probably took the juxtaposition of his opinion with doctors as as "who do you trust" dichotomy.
Especially here he seems to advocate use in exactly the cohort found later to die more on HCQ... those hospitalized with severe symptoms. On other occasions he has advocated for use earlier or with less severe symptoms... moreso recently as it's always an exercise in moving goalposts with this guy.
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Everyone wants to draw a conclusion with every press release like this. People find it difficult to just say, "oh, well there's some more data we might be able to use at some point, I'll continue and wait to see what the experts conclude." It guess it make sense that people want to draw a conclusion one way or another, or show extreme optimism or skepticism. But really, anyone with a basic education should know better.
I'm sure this story will be filled with posts of people hurling citations at one another s
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If this shutdown accomplishes anything, it's my hope that it fatally undermines the opinions of the "experts". Too many "experts" have recommended horrendous "solutions", and we blindly go along with it because, afterall, they're "experts". Nevermind you can find an "expert" to agree with whatever position you want.
"Experts" are useless. We need to learn to think for ourselves. Doctors, especially, aren't some wizard; some "Chosen One" who dispense benevolent wisdom from some mountain top. Thinking tha
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"Experts" are useless.
Except for computer experts, amirite?
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Fuck no, what would give you that idea?
"Experts" are just sociopaths who don't care about giving you bad advice, as long as you take theirs.
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Fuck no, what would give you that idea?
"Experts" are just sociopaths who don't care about giving you bad advice, as long as you take theirs.
That is a nice and complete fail in recognizing reality and your own limits. If you think you can, for example, replace a researcher in epidemiology even only somewhat competently, then you are completely deluded. Get that MA infectious diseases or medical statistics or the like and then do a real PhD in epidemiology and you will _begin_ to understand things. Add a decade or two of on-target experience and you start to become an actual expert. Even if you just want to follow the field competently, you will
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Nope. What you need to learn is recognizing experts. You _cannot_ competently replace a real expert. (Of course, there are a lot of fake experts around, starting on the low end of actual insight with a well known "stable genius" and going up to actual professors that are not in the right specialty and vastly overestimate their specific level of insight into something they have limited experience with.) This is not a case where thinking for yourself on the subject matter itself is going to make things better
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Wait just a minute, you mean, just because they can get their grandma's printer to work, that *doesn't* make them transcendent geniuses qualified to comment with surety on any topic whatsoever? You are undermining Slashdot's basic purpose - provide a place for snarky comments about others, from a safe distance. Like the loser's table in a high school lunch room making fun of the jocks, class presidents, and being scared of the cheerleaders - safely out of earshot? How dare you!
Re: Stop it! Stop it NOW! (Score:2)
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To be fair, getting a printer to work is a tough thing...
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Indeed. Too many technical people (and too many people in general) have no clue where the limits of their insights are. It is not an accident that double-blind is the gold standard. It comes from even seasoned professionals in the right area have trouble coming up with reliable info unless the experiments are done very, very carefully. Interpretation of messy data by non-experts is a complete fail and can only make things worse.
The VA study? Really? (Score:2)
That's not a study, that's an abstract. Answer this: what was the age of the participants? What were their conditions?
Every negative study I've seen with HC has been with advanced stage C19, or with advanced aged participants, usually both. Everything else I've seen suggests HC ( and HC+AZ ) given early on ( onset of symptoms ) has a tremendously positive impact on outcomes.
I'm open to new data, of course; so lay it on me.
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The saddest part. (Score:2)
I remember when Pons and Fleishmanm "discovered" cold fusion. After it was debunked in the physics community, one of the smartest physicists I knew said this to me: "To bad it was being picked up by 'conspiracy theorists', anything there will be hidden by the noise generated for the next tw3enty years.
There was something there, just look at Stephen Jones and at muon-catalyzed fusion. The professor was wrong, it is going to be at least forty years.
I remember that because I think a lot of the argument ove
And what happened in the control group? (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, there wasn't one? And none of this was randomized? Then this tells you F all.
We already know the vast, vast majority of people recover from Covid-19 on their own or with oxygen.
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The control group is visible here :
https://www.worldometers.info/... [worldometers.info]
mortality rate is in the control group is 32%, compared to 0.7% with Chloroquine
how does a restrospective study work? (Score:3)
How does a retrospective study work? What is the "control" population? They studied 1000 patients that took the drug, but how do they compare these outcomes with patients that did not take the drug to know if it was effective? How do they choose the patients to study and avoid choosing a sample set of patients that would have recovered anyway?
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How does a retrospective study work? What is the "control" population? They studied 1000 patients that took the drug, but how do they compare these outcomes with patients that did not take the drug to know if it was effective? How do they choose the patients to study and avoid choosing a sample set of patients that would have recovered anyway?
You can use the general admissions in the country not subjected to this treatment regimen as the control group.
The mortality rate in France is 4% (that is based on national statistics). He has achieved mortality of 0.75% with a reasonably good sample size this time.
So unless he has cherry picked patients and has turned the ones who are likely to die and spoil his statistics at the door, he is onto something. That is a pity, because he is a d*ckhead and j*rk of the highest order, but sometimes even d*ckh
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Dr. Raoult who ran the study doesn't believe in double blinding, randomization, nor in control groups.
You have to take everything he and his group "finds" with a truckload of salt.
Safe, but not effective? (Score:2)
I am having trouble understanding the conclusions of this study. The statement in the conclusion (and, yes, I RTFA'd) says that it was safe. It did not seem to indicate at all that it was an effective treatment. Is that the message that I am supposed to draw from this? If not, what am I missing?
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You're not missing anything. There wasn't any control in this study, so there's no comparison between the outcomes they saw and what the outcomes would've looked like with standard treatment without the extra drugs. Which means they can't even conclude the combination is safe because without that control there's no way to tell if it was better than, worse than or the same as standard treatment. The best the study shows is that it's probably not egregiously more dangerous than normal treatment, but that's ab
Second study found the same thing as the first (Score:2)
What about this? (Score:2)
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that's a totally bullshit study.
ADD ZINC (Score:2)
Why no Zinc ?
Chloroquine should be associated to zinc for a good effect !!!!
French insider viewpoint (Score:5, Interesting)
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That's because TDS has hit stage 5 for most of these people including the media. Notice how it was all perfectly fine until Trump started saying something? Then the death and we're all going to die from this advice came out. Then there were the sufferers going on about how "look his advice already killed people!" Never mind that police are now investigating the entire thing as premeditated murder.
Some of those people simply need help...from a qualified mental health practitioner.
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I've read that AZM has show anti viral ability before, and prob not bad overall reducing the load on the immune system by not making it attack random bacteria the AZM kills too...
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There's some evidence it could protect the heart and lungs from inflammation caused by COVID-19. It's got anti-inflammatory properties in addition to being an antibacterial, and there's been some research for potentially using it as a treatment for COPD, asthma and heart attacks. All of it pretty early stage stuff. They're using it here because this combo was used by some Chinese doctors throwing every conceivable medicine at the virus trying to find something that works.
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Each and every medical test study bases on statistics