Largest Study To Date Finds Hydroxychloroquine Doesn't Help Coronavirus Patients (time.com) 236
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 "do not fare better than those not receiving the drug," reports Time:
Dr. Neil Schluger, chief of the division of pulmonary, allergy and critical care medicine at Columbia, and his team studied more than 1,300 patients admitted to New York-Presbyterian Hospital-Columbia University Irving Medical Center for COVID-19. Some received hydroxychloroquine on an off-label basis, a practice that allows doctors to prescribe a drug that has been approved for one disease to treat another — in this case, COVID-19. About 60% of the patients received hydroxychloroquine for about five days.
They did not show any lower rate of needing ventilators or a lower risk of dying during the study period compared to people not getting the drug.
"We don't think at this point, given the totality of evidence, that it is reasonable to routinely give this drug to patients," says Schluger. "We don't see the rationale for doing that." While the study did not randomly assign people to receive the drug or placebo and compare their outcomes, the large number of patients involved suggests the findings are solid. Based on the results, Schluger says doctors at his hospital have already changed their advice about using hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19. "Our guidance early on had suggested giving hydroxychloroquine to hospitalized patients, and we updated that guidance to remove that suggestion," he says.
In another study conducted at U.S. veterans hospitals where severely ill patients were given hydroxychloroquine, "the drug was found to be of no use against the disease and potentially harmful when given in high doses," reports the Chicago Tribune.
They also report that to firmly establish whether the drug has any effect, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is now funding a randomized, controlled trial at six medical institutions of hundreds of people who've tested positive for Covid-19.
They did not show any lower rate of needing ventilators or a lower risk of dying during the study period compared to people not getting the drug.
"We don't think at this point, given the totality of evidence, that it is reasonable to routinely give this drug to patients," says Schluger. "We don't see the rationale for doing that." While the study did not randomly assign people to receive the drug or placebo and compare their outcomes, the large number of patients involved suggests the findings are solid. Based on the results, Schluger says doctors at his hospital have already changed their advice about using hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19. "Our guidance early on had suggested giving hydroxychloroquine to hospitalized patients, and we updated that guidance to remove that suggestion," he says.
In another study conducted at U.S. veterans hospitals where severely ill patients were given hydroxychloroquine, "the drug was found to be of no use against the disease and potentially harmful when given in high doses," reports the Chicago Tribune.
They also report that to firmly establish whether the drug has any effect, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is now funding a randomized, controlled trial at six medical institutions of hundreds of people who've tested positive for Covid-19.
if it's useless, why Gates Foundation doing it? (Score:2, Insightful)
Shouldn't they be pursuing more promising trial treatments than wasting time and perhaps lives on something useless?
Anecdotal (Score:5, Insightful)
There is anecdotal evidence that it helps. There is anecdotal evidence that isn't helpful. There is anecdotal evidence that it is harmful.
To figure out what it actually does, you need a proper, controlled trial, which is what they are doing.
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Well, there is actually pretty good evidence that id does not help, but the residual error is still to large to completely discount it. Hence they are making sure now. Also, there was a study that recently showed that it does not seem to harm (except in large doses), hence there is no ethical problem with doing a proper double-blind study.
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Here is pretty good evidence that it does help [sciencedirect.com]
A retrospective analysis of 1061 cases in Marseille, France fond that administration of the HCQ+AZ combination before COVID-19 complications occur is safe and associated with very low fatality rate in patients. Good clinical outcome and virological cure were obtained in 973 patients within 10 days (91.7%).
Like other anti-virals such as Tamiflu, you need to begin the treatment early. Waiting until yor patient is almost dead results in dead patients.
WTF is with p
Re:Anecdotal (Score:4, Informative)
There is anecdotal evidence that it is harmful.
No, there's already clinical evidence that it can be fatal. Not the same.
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From what I've read, the drug doesn't do much by itself. This paper seems to support the idea that it must be combined with something else.
Re:Anecdotal (Score:4, Interesting)
From what I've read, the drug doesn't do much by itself. This paper seems to support the idea that it must be combined with something else.
Say you have three studies that show:
A by itself: no effect.
A + B: no effect.
A + B + C: significant improvement.
The rational assumption is "C saves lives", not that "A saves lives, but only in conjunction with B and C."
What the paper strongly suggests is that zinc sulfate reduces the severity and duration of viral infections [nih.gov], which I think everybody but the die-hard pharmaceuticals-only doctors already knew. Going from there to the assumption that it is more effective in combination with hydroxychloroquine is not supported by any evidence at all. It might be true, but it is approximately equally likely that carrots + peas + zinc sulfate has a better cure rate than zinc sulfate by itself. Just saying.
IMO, every bit of effort spent experimenting with chloroquine is effort that could be spent experimenting with something that might actually help. About the best that could be said, or so we thought, was that it wouldn't kill anybody. Now that even that assumption has been cast into doubt, the ethical thing to do is to study zinc sulfate by itself and see if there's a similar improvement, and if so, abandon all chloroquine experimentation outright. Don't even bother with a double-blind to confirm that it is useless; if the numbers from the experiments are even within a few percent, walk away.
Re: Anecdotal (Score:2, Insightful)
Or perhaps experts in the field know how these chemicals work by themselves and so can form a logical and plausible explanation for why they would be more effective together, which is why they tested that combination and not just component C by itself.
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Sadly, no. This has basically become political at this point, with hordes of researchers doing studies in an effort to help the POTUS save face.
There is a small possibility that they might be more effective together, but either way, at this point it should be clear that any experiment lacking a baseline zinc-sulfate-only arm is defective by design.
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This paper is crap. Not only is it not randomized, not blind nor double-blind, but their two groups of people were separated in time. That's right, after a certain point in time everybody started getting zinc sulfate. So we could attribute any improved outcome to the medical staff simply learning how to handle Covid-19 patients better, or to a change in the prevalent strain of the virus. There's so many confounding variables here I could hit one with a dart blindfolded (not sure why the dart wanted to b
Re:Anecdotal (Score:4, Insightful)
You know what else works if it's started early? Doing absolutely nothing. 90% cure rate.
The ordinary standard for a drug use approval is safe and effective in comparison to a placebo (novel drug) for existing drugs for that indication. No comparison study has shown that yet [fda.gov]. The French studies that keep being cited simply claim to reduce viral load in the upper respiratory tract -- without comparison to an controls -- and, the latest one, that they haven't managed to kill people.
Because you people keep shifting your claims. First it was HCQ, and then HCQ + AZ, and then HCQ + zinc, and for some reason HCQ + AZ + zinc, now we get Vitamin D thrown into the mix. "It has to be combined" with what?. Pick one and stick with it.
Re: Anecdotal (Score:5, Insightful)
It would be great. It would also be great to show that the something that you're touting is actually better than nothing. None of the studies being touted as showing a benefit actually make that comparison.
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I am? I'm missing where I've said that in this chain of posts. Please quote it.
I am saying that any proposed treatment needs to be tested against a control such as a placebo.
So you in fact agree, "it would also be great to show that the something that you're touting is actually better than nothing." Why are you arguing with the prio
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...so this study likely was done just to try to say it does not work and get that out in the press.
If that is the case, then it is a horrific abuse of the public trust to shame a medicine for political or financial gain
Re:Anecdotal (Score:5, Insightful)
There is anecdotal evidence that it helps. There is anecdotal evidence that isn't helpful. There is anecdotal evidence that it is harmful.
To figure out what it actually does, you need a proper, controlled trial, which is what they are doing.
Ahem. And it should be done. If not for any other reason, the Orange baboon shutting up is a valid enough reason to start off with.
A few minor corrections:
1. It has been shown to be effective in vitro at the concentrations which are reached in blood plasma in standard dosages by multiple teams from different countries - Australia, China, Russia (off the top of my head).
2. This is closer to the French study (by the scandalous Dr Rault) because it started the treatment EARLIER than the veterans one. It is still NOT at the same time as in Dr Rault study because USA admits patients LATER than the admissions in his clinic. His admissions were early on (first signs that temperature refuses to drop). USA, UK, etc admissions are generally "when the sh*t hits the fan" and when the patient has the first signs of breathing difficulties. Any expectations that something with antiviral properties will work at all at that point in time are misplaced. The horse has already bolted. Last, but not least, due to different admission criteria the various studies are not comparable.
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There is anecdotal evidence that it helps. There is anecdotal evidence that isn't helpful. There is anecdotal evidence that it is harmful.
To figure out what it actually does, you need a proper, controlled trial, which is what they are doing.
Hydroxychloroquine was approved for medical use in the United States in 1955.[2] It is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines, the safest and most effective medicines needed in a health system.[7] In 2017, it was the 128th most commonly prescribed medication in the United States, with more than five million prescriptions.[8][9]
Re:if it's useless, why Gates Foundation doing it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:if it's useless, why Gates Foundation doing it? (Score:5, Informative)
The Gates Foundation is not doing anything other than funding a study [geekwire.com] to see if this medicine does anything. That is literally one of the things the foundation is set up for: to study what if.
It is certain the foundation is looking into other treatments, both ones in development and ones which don't yet exist.
Perhaps you should be asking why the con continues to push this worthless drug instead of focusing on more promising trial treatments while people are dying, 78,000+ and counting.
Done trolling yet?
Re:if it's useless, why Gates Foundation doing it? (Score:5, Funny)
Perhaps you should be asking why the con continues to push this worthless drug instead of focusing on more promising trial treatments while people are dying, 78,000+ and counting.
Trump hasn't promoted HCQ for some time now. He's currently promoting Clorox. Try to keep up.
Re:if it's useless, why Gates Foundation doing it? (Score:5, Funny)
I find Chlorox with lemon fresh scent to have good nose but rather bitter aftertaste. Perhaps the Head Cheetoh could share his cocktail recipes, maybe I'm just lacking a good mixer or complimentary spirit. I'm thinking Bombay Sapphire would give a cool blue sheen and some botanicals to support the lemony scent.
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This therapy should of course be supported by a robust daily regimen of lung sunburn. Rather than the weak florescent tubes currently peddled that only give a mild amount of vitamin D in a long period of time, the good old fashioned 400 volt mercury vapor lamps that can sunburn skin in less than ten minutes should be guided into all the major bronchial tubes and left to linger until a pleasant searing sensation is felt.
Re:if it's useless, why Gates Foundation doing it? (Score:5, Funny)
You're doing it wrong. It must do a tremendous number on the lungs so you should try vaping it.
The Germans were the first to realise this as early in 1915. They managed to delay the outbreak of the spanish flu for three years by freely distributing chlorine gas among british and french troops. The brits and french were so thankful they later reciprocated in kind. Mass distribution of gas was later banned by the UN after intense lobbying from Big Pharma since it was such a cheap, patent-free and effective way of preventing people from dying from the flu.
It is an established fact that if you inhale large enough amounts of chlorine gas you will NOT die from the spanish flu, covid19, infection, car accidents or even old age.
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Not a troll, the drug has been proven by science in several studies to be useless. Now we're saying the Foundation is going to give that to humans who are dying instead of something with some hope of being useful. How is that not bad? How is it trolling for me to question it?
Re:if it's useless, why Gates Foundation doing it? (Score:5, Insightful)
You haven't read the studies (or unreviewed pre-prints, which is what most of actually are) have you?
HC and HC+AZ have been shown to have a significant benefit when used early in the infection. It's true about remdesivir as well.
HC and HC+AZ have been shown to have no benefit, or to even be harmful, when used in the later stages of infection, especially after ventilation has occurred.
This basic split in results - when the treatment is applied - is obvious when you actually read what people are putting out there. The VA 'study' for example not only gave treatments only to the sickest cases (late in the infection cycle), it actually moved patients from the control group to the treatment groups AFTER they were ventilated and dying. The Belgian and Israeli studies on HC+AZ and remdesivir, on the other hand, show good results by starting the treatment early.
Nothing is a miracle, 100% effective cure, though. There is not, and will never be, such a thing.
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No, it hasn't been "proven" to be useless. In vitro (test tube), it has proven as a candidate for vivo (living). It would be great if it works because it is a cheap readily available drug that has well established production, logistical, and consumption processes. Its side effects are also well known across a diverse body of people.
But the reality is that the case isn't looking good for it. The studies thus far haven't proven but certainly have hinted that it is not useful. The zinc combo retroperspect
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Are they actually looking at the complete combination of the three drugs or just hydroxychloroquine on its own again?
The studies with positives results used a drug cocktail whereas the negative studies only looked at a single component. Seems skewed from the start.
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Again, if chloroquine is useless by itself and chloroquine + azithromycin is useless as a combination, but adding zinc sulfate improves the outcome, and zinc sulfate has been known for many, many years to reduce the severity and duration of viral infections by itself, what could possibly possess anyone to believe that chloroquine helps in combination with all those other things, rather than reaching the far more obvious conclusion, which is that zinc sulfate, given early, saves lives?
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Again, if chloroquine is useless by itself and chloroquine + azithromycin is useless as a combination,
If given to severely ill patients and not early on in the treatment.
what could possibly possess anyone to believe that chloroquine helps in combination with all those other things
Another comment here addresses that point: https://science.slashdot.org/c... [slashdot.org]
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Large as it is, the study in question is a retrospective study, not a controlled study; you can't be sure that the group of patients that got the treatment weren't somehow different from the patients who didn't. In fact it's almost certain they were different.
I think, evidence-wise, this is enough to rule out the "silver bullet" scenario; it does not, however, rule out a modest effect, or perhaps even a more dramatic effect in certain kinds of patients.
The gold standard for evidence is a randomized control
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Shouldn't they be pursuing more promising trial treatments than wasting time and perhaps lives on something useless?
To be clear, the Gates Foundation is not only studying HCQ. It is studying other treatments too. If anything it helps establish what does not work.
Re:if it's useless, why Gates Foundation doing it? (Score:5, Insightful)
I was insistently told that Trump said that we're investigating it, and that he hoped that it worked. The logical follow up would be to investigate it, right?
But we shouldn't investigate it first [arstechnica.com] because then we're only doing it to prove Orange Man Bad. Or we should investigate it, but not report any results, because those reports are obviously biased by "Orange Man Bad."
For god's sake, make up your mind. Should we investigate the thing that Trump said to investigate, or simply ignore him?
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Nobody is competent investigating this thing (or not) because of Trump.
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In how far is my statement defending Gates? Oh, right, it is not. Even the _foundation_ of the guy that caused immeasurable damage to the software world can get some things right.
Re: if it's useless, why Gates Foundation doing it (Score:2)
Providing the world with an overall effective operating system, allowing a huge market for other developers to make money from targetting that one platform, is a bad thing?
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It was a while back (before about 1992-1994 or so), but Microsoft started out as a not-unfriendly not-incompetent provider of a widely used disk "operating system". They had such deep penetration in the OS marketplace that there wasn't more space to grow there.
Many companies and customers (93-97%) of the burgeoning personal computer market built their products (WordPerfect, Lotus, Intuit, many others) and customers built businesses using Microsoft's OS.
To maintain the phenomenal growth required to maintai
Re: if it's useless, why Gates Foundation doing i (Score:2)
Sounds pretty bad for the particular competitors.
It's not evidence that they've done irreparable harm to the software landscape as a whole.
Re:if it's useless, why Gates Foundation doing it? (Score:5, Insightful)
The true Trump derangement is when people disbelieve experts who contradict Trump in a domain in which Trump clearly knows nothing. For example, you just claimed that the double-blind study being carried out by the Gates Foundation is helping to make sure the Orange Man Bad hypotheses is validated. If it isn't derangement, then it is either bad faith or idiocy.
The funny thing about the Orange Man Bad meme, is that it becomes demonstrably true when you add almost any noun to the end.
Orange Man Bad Person https://www.businessinsider.co... [businessinsider.com]
Orange Man Bad Philanthropist https://www.foxnews.com/politi... [foxnews.com]
Orange Man Bad Golfer https://golf.com/lifestyle/cel... [golf.com]
Orange Man Bad Husband https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] , see also first two wives
Orange Man Bad Boss https://www.brookings.edu/rese... [brookings.edu]
Orange Man Bad Scientist https://www.breitbart.com/the-... [breitbart.com] (the link to show that he said what his detractors claim he did not say, not that he was actually being sarcastic
Orange Man Bad Businessman https://www.nbcnews.com/politi... [nbcnews.com]
And yet, Trump fans LOL and say ORANGE MAN BAD, TDS!1!11, when people who haven't drunk the KoolAid point out that some specific thing he is doing is, in fact, probably not good.
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Hi, I'm the Orange Man. I have no medical degree, hell I don't even believe in science since it is just politics by any another name. My Svengali, Giuliani, has intimated that this Magic Elixir will cure you of the virus, and failing that, will get the country working again. But I'm not a doctor, so if you demand your doctor gives it to you and you die, hey, I said I wasn't a doctor.
Now, I've directed the CDC to get right on this medication, because, you know, I have this amazing dyspeptic gut....errrr....d
Instead of this strawman bullshit . . . (Score:3)
Why not quote what Trump *actually* said? And cite what Trump *actually* did?
"Now, I've directed the CDC to get right on this medication"
Did Trump actually do that? Or are you just a filthy liar?
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Comment removed (Score:3)
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Even if it does have some benefits that can be proven, I'm not sure how useful it's going to be, at least for this particular p
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We still have a pretty linear rate of infections and death in the US. We have tools we can use. The at home testing has been improved. There are some drugs that will be available in the near term. The consents by sane pe
Re: No Zn or Azithromycin used in this study (Score:2)
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The controlled study (no, it doesn't have a placebo group, one doesn't do that with deadly diseases unless maybe one is Dr. Mengele) has been done, is peer-reviewed, and published on May 1 by Dr. Didier Raoult. I haven't found the publication on line, but Laura Ingraham had the account of it on her 10 PM Fox News slot last Wednesday night, which I transcribed from my DVR, and is here:
" "This is the full peer-reviewed study by the renowned infectious disease specialist Dr. Didier Raoult and now it's publis
Jared is gonna be pissed (Score:2)
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HCQ is a cheap generic drug. India is a major manufacturer of generic drugs; they have the infrastructure to crank out millions of HCQ pills (they probably already do!). Nobody is going to make windfall profits on it. This is why big pharma would rather come up with something new, like Remdesivir, that they can sell for $1,000 per pill.
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I take no responsibility... (Score:3)
I never said it worked.
I never said we should try it.
I never made any claims about it.
I take no responsibility for it.
- Trump in a few days
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And I saved lives by recommending it!
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YEAH! The drug doesn't work and won't help people. WOOHOO! Trump was WRONG. This is so great. Aren't you so glad it doesn't work so you could post that?
No. What I wish is that he would stop talking and let the experts do their jobs.
Re: I take no responsibility... (Score:3)
Compares Trump's behaviours to those of other OECD government leaders. It's clear he's an outlier. There nothing wrong with being an outlier if it improves outcomes.
Now let's look at the evidence and see whether his outlier behaviour is overall helpful or harmful.
Only The Sickest Patients Were Given HCQ! (Score:5, Interesting)
They broke patients into two group: sickest and least sick. Then they gave HCQ only to sickest group. A quote from the study:
Hydroxychloroquine-treated patients were more severely ill at baseline than those who did not receive hydroxychloroquine (median ratio of partial pressure of arterial oxygen to the fraction of inspired oxygen, 223 vs. 360).
Take this to an extreme: give HCQ to only the dead patients and deny HCQ to all living patients. In the end all the dead patients are, astonishingly, less healthy! Conclude that HCQ doesn't work!
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In the end all the dead patients are, astonishingly, less healthy!
Damn, the start of an apocalyptic event perhaps?
Just as invalid as the other studies (Score:4, Insightful)
This was not a randomly-assigned placebo-controlled double-blind trial. A wide variety of other studies, that appear to show that chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine are effective against SARS-nCOV-2, are routinely derided and called completely invalid for that precise reason. As such, this trial must be condemned, for precisely the same reason.
The right answer is going to wind up being an 8-way double-blind controlled trial: Test all possible combinations of hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin, and zinc, and see what shows up.
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One doesn't do placebo-controlled studies with deadly diseases since the outcome for the placebo group is known - death. That is unacceptable and equivalent to murder if one tries it.
Faaaaaaaahhkk... (Score:2)
Back to Clorox, I guess.
Hydrochloroquine Plus Zinc (Score:5, Informative)
Zn2+ Inhibits Coronavirus and Arterivirus RNA Polymerase Activity In Vitro [plos.org]
Chloroquine Is a Zinc Ionophore [nih.gov]
Hydroxychloroquine + Zinc has shown a positive effect in a preliminary (not yet peer reviewed) report. This was an observational study, and it was among patients that were already sick enough to go to a hospital. So the treatment would be expected to have only a modest effect:
Hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin plus zinc vs hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin alone: outcomes in hospitalized COVID-19 patients [medrxiv.org]
The real study to watch is this one:
A Study of Hydroxychloroquine, Vitamin C, Vitamin D, and Zinc for the Prevention of COVID-19 Infection [clinicaltrials.gov]
It is looking at HCQ+Zn given prophylactically to healthcare workers and their families. I expect this study to show a positive result - they may have preliminary results within a few weeks.
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I'm going to re-post this here because I think it needs to be said again:
I'm just going to point this out because I know that many of you will argue this way and that about how this treatment "benefits" patients without any understanding of the underlying scientific knowledge about these drugs.
Hydroxychloroquin is used to reduce the immune response. Specifically to decrease inflammation. Inflammation in the lung tissue and the consequential damage done by this immune response resulting in the patient presen
Re: Hydrochloroquine Plus Zinc (Score:3)
Dude, that's a _one year_ study. It lasts 26 weeks! It's sample is skewed toward emergency personnel whose immune systems are a little different than most. It's also a preventative study, not a prescription or treatment type.
It makes perfect sense from the protecting Emergency Personnel view point and probably will have finds for further study in application to the general population. However, preliminary findings in a few weeks will be biased and potentially misleading.
Only gave HCQ to severely ill? (Score:2)
Hydroxychloroquine-treated patients were more severely ill at baseline than those who did not receive hydroxychloroquine
So the study compared standard care of covid-19 patients against the outcome of those who were already severaly ill and THEN given HCQ? I'm no statistician, nor am I a physician, but this seems to slant the study considerably. If they're only going to administer HCQ to the severely ill, then the study needs to remove data from anyone who wasn't severaly ill to get a fair assessment.
All this study appears to have shown is that if you take all moderately ill patients who recover plus all severely ill patien
You need zinc in the regimen (Score:2)
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Oh really? And who has measured this zinc deficiency? Do people taking HCQ for autoimmune disorders develop zinc deficiency?
It's quite the hypothesis. Backed by nothing.
Re: You need zinc in the regimen (Score:2)
Where is your evidence it is backed by nothing? Seems like as empty an assertion as the one you are claiming OP has made.
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"Prove a negative."
No. That's his hypothesis/explanation. Prove that the patients were suffering a zinc deficiency.
Re: You need zinc in the regimen (Score:2)
I'm not an expert or involved in the trials so I can't provide that. Sorry. However if you google Hydroxychloroquine and zinc you will find many many results talking about using them in combination as a treatment for COVID-19.
Maybe they're all just baseless, but I think it's more likely that where there is smoke, there is fire (that is, If a lot of experts are talking about a subject, it's probably because it's worth talking about).
Another non-study with an incorrect summary (Score:2)
Patients were not assigned evenly or randomly, instead high-risk patients were placed in the treatment groups:
The groups were not fixed, nor were treatments applied equally or as reccommended:
Re: Another non-study with an incorrect summary (Score:2)
Well we know it is not the "gift from heaven" that Trump called it, based on these results (yes, he literally said that).
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)
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Yeah, but that won't make Geliad stocks go up.
A control population already exists (Score:2)
At what rate do people who are already being prescribed HCQ for other conditions (arthritis, lupus, etc.) get Covid-19?
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There is no evidence someone with covid-19 antibodies is protected. There is unsubstantiated evidence people can be reinfected.
Herd immunity requires around 65% of a population (depending on the disease it can be much higher) be immunized or otherwise not able to be infected to have any noticeable effect. If we were to make our way toward that goal, tens of thousands, potentially hundreds of thousands, of additional people would keep dying.
I have no problem with herd thinning. Do you?
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There is some indirect evidence. Convalescent plasma shows a lot of promise as a treatment, implying there is something in that plasma that fights off the disease (and it's not Chlorox). How long that lasts is anyone's guess.
Re: 20% of NY already has antibodies. (Score:2)
I'm ok with thinning the herd as long as the psychopaths like you are all at the front of the line.
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I'm ok with thinning the herd as long as the psychopaths like you are all at the front of the line.
Person's laptop goes off without any warning. User contacts laptop company instead of IT to diagnose problem. Laptop company says laptop is dead and needs repaired. User puts in ticket to IT to have laptop repaired because they are dead in the water and don't have another machine to get to work files. IT contacts user and finds user hadn't bothered to plug in laptop power adapter.
Herd thinning is completely
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You had best hope that when someone else wants herd thinning that you are still fully employed and insured.
And also make sure that you are never mistaken, distracted, having a bad day or caught up in some other indistinctly related emergency, and call for help only to discover that it was a simple issue and easily resolved when a fresh mind is brought to bear on it.
Perhaps you are the perfect one who should be the lord of all things, so we can all bask in your brilliance, learning how It Is To Be Done.
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There seems to be a large range in the estimates of the number of people who test positive for antibodies, and not certainty whether that imparts immunity. Its extremely embarrassing for us to know so little about the disease at this point.
Some of the antibody tests have extremely high false positive rates: (>10% in this study)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/cd16... [dropbox.com]
Unfortunately without knowing details, is difficult to deduce anything from the reported 20% infection rate.
A different view: New Yourk has had
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These facts are all political and anyone saying anything that makes Trump look good is killing there careerer.
Keep repeating what your puppet masters tell you to say. Good boy! Sit.
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>"Keep repeating what your puppet masters tell you to say. Good boy! Sit."
There are plenty of puppet masters to go around for everyone. There are some that might be acting on you... or me. Not that I am all into conspiracy theories, however.
Based on critical observation, it seems pretty apparent most of the media is poised and ready to amplify, sensationalize, repeat, and often distort even the very tiniest thing this administration does that might possibly be perceived as negative. Less the sensation
Re: Hydroxychloroquine effect, moratlity rate, dea (Score:2)
Your posting payments will be reduced until such time as you return to the official talking points messaging you were provided.
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We have an atruthful president, but we do not live in a post-truth age. The efficacy of hydroxychloroquine can be determined by double blind studies which apparently are currently underway. The true mortality rate can be determined by allowing proper recording of causes of death (looking at you DeSantis, https://news.yahoo.com/florida... [yahoo.com] ) or even testing corpses decades later. https://www.nytimes.com/1998/0... [nytimes.com] It is people on the right who have made belief in hydroxychloroquine an article of faith.
Unfo
Re: Hydroxychloroquine effect, moratlity rate, dea (Score:2)
If you haven't had it, you're going to.
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Ignorance is Strength is not good public policy. Nobody is saying we should stay on lockdown forever. I don't think anyone is saying we should stay on lockdown until there is a vaccine available. So you are arguing with yourself quite a bit.
Beyond that, I'm not sure what you are arguing. Are you arguing with experts who have already explained publicly and in detail how "Flattening the curve" will reduce the peak number and thereby save lives via lower strains on health infrastructure? Do you doubt that ou
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Given the 3-14 days of asymptomatic carrier status post initial infection, reducing that interval would reduce R0 significantly. Statistically speaking, competent testing and contact tracing have that effect, reducing transmission of this unpredictable and sometimes fatal condition. That has been demonstrated in several places (Taiwan, S. Korea, others).
Being way smarter than we are, you already know this. Therefore the only conclusion available to us is that you understand and accept the economic consequen
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FTFY [arstechnica.com].
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Condolences to you for the control group wife's aunt and uncle and two cousins who did not receive HCQ + AZ +Zinc and died.
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HCQ + AZ +Zinc saved the life of my wife's aunt and uncle and two cousins (all one family).
Or maybe it was prayer? or ___ fill in the blank.
This sort of thing is called confirmation bias and anecdotal which is why they test drugs under double-blind studies.
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If it doesn't it's an enormous waste of HCQ, which is in limited supply and needed for other disorders, and a gigantic driver of AZ resistance, for a drug that is already seriously at risk of being useless, and a serious risks to patients, because you can't keep filling them with larger and larger cocktails of drugs while ignoring unstudied interactions, much less known contraindications.
Let's start supplying ever
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Glad your family members survived, but your anecdotal evidence isn't science. At the India Times is shit. Get a real job.
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Have they studied whether applying Clarins' Golden Glow Booster to your face reduces the chance of getting CV-19, even among people who meet many members of the public, while not wearing a face mask, and shake hands while not wearing gloves? There is a study with at least one participant ongoing right now.
Re: Morons will mod your post up. (Score:2)
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Another paper by Gautret et al [sciencedirect.com] was a retrospective study on when it started administering HCQ when the COVID test showed positive, largely before symptoms appeared. They claim to have reduced the mortality rate, where 8 in about 1000 people died. Azythromycin was also administered, but nothing else (no zinc, vit d, etc).
This might be a red herring, however, as previous mortality didn't tend to count those not showing symptoms due to testing failures, meaning the asymptomatics might've been treated, lowering
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The study [nejm.org] says "Hydroxychloroquine-treated patients were more severely ill at baseline than those who did not receive hydroxychloroquine". So, like most/all prior HCQ studies, this one is worthless too. Anti-viral drugs need to be administered at the VERY START of the infection. By the time somebody realizes they have COVID-19, and become sick enough to be admitted to a hospital, it's probably too late for any anti-viral (including HCQ or Remdesivir) to have much effect.
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Or during the full moon.
Or when Saturn is in Aquarius.
Or trying to dilute it a million times.
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I have family members that take it for lupus. The talk around those with lupus is that nobody that already takes hydroxychloroquine has been hospitalized for Covid. With all of the politics and the $billions to be made off of patented alternatives you can be sure that the truth won't come out for years if ever.
Re: we already know the outcome the gates foundati (Score:3)
The Gates foundation is constructing 7 factories for production of vaccines that they expect at most 2 of will be found to be useful.
They are literally willing to build and dispose of 5-6 multi million dollar factories.
What is your contribution to fighting COVID 19?
Re: Study designed to fail fails, news at 11 (Score:2)
How do we *know* when it is "supposed" to be taken, without doing studies to establish that?
That study has suggested that taking it later is not effective.
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HCQ is not an antiviral.