Sweden stops Chloroquine treatment trial because of side effects:

[tblue37]

Link to tweet

[Pachamama]

1. Your Vision can be lost!!!!

No big deal I guess to Donald....

[Celerity]

2. all his MAGAt lemmings are blind anyway, blind to reality

[sfstaxprep]

3. Swedish Leaders Are As Dumb As Ours

They're about to experience some real pain over there.

[Pachamama]

8. Are you suggesting that Swedish Leasers are dumb for stopping trials that may kill or blind people?

[sfstaxprep]

9. No

They have refused to issue ANY kind of Stay Home Order. There are pictures & videos of people crowding the streets.

It is going to be really, really bad there in the coming weeks.

[Pachamama]

10. I agree - this has been a big mistake on their part

Sadly the result of another conservative head of a country not taking action...

[sfstaxprep]

11. Give Me Norway Every Day

They have supposedly flattened the curve so much, they're at a .7 re-infection rate, meaning they have essentially eradicated the virus.

[Celerity]

14. Stefan Lofven is a Social Democrat, he is NOT a conservative

Löfven came out of the trade unions here (I live in central Stockholm, in Södermalm.)

See my multiple posts on Sweden and COVID-19 to get a sense about my disdain for the course of action (and innaction) we have embarked upon that may well kill 10,000 to 20,000 here (330,000 to 660,000 US equivalent)

We had 78 deaths yesterday, that is like the US having around 2,600 in ONE DAY

[Pachamama]

17. I am fully aware of the Social Democrats and Stefan Lfven - but under pressure from the

...conservatives this has been a mistaken policy to not implement more stringent shelter at home and social distancing in Sweden.

I am half Danish and half German and plenty of friends in Sweden and I either get an earful daily about this or hear some of the disgusting suggestions that the Italians and Spaniards somehow have it for reasons that are the fault of their inferior societies.

Hope you and your neighbors are watching the rising numbers carefully and that wiser minds prevail in Sweden:

[janterry]

4. Michigan stopped, too

Just watched this video

[Hekate]

5. Oh gods...

[Phoenix61]

6. That's been known. It was a reasonable risk when

treating malaria because it is always fatal if untreated.

[Nitram]

7. As I've written on DU elsewhere, I took chloroquine daily when I was assigned to a post in

West Africa with the Peace Corps for two years in 1975. I suffered no side effects except when I took a double dose by accident. I had very weird vision problems for about 24 hours. Other people did report side effects that led to them being given an alternative prophylactic for malaria.

[pat_k]

12. Why weren't they using less toxic Hydroxychloroquine?

I don't understand why they would be doing trials with what I understand is the more toxic form.

It makes sense to me that a drug with anti-inflammatory effect that also has been shown effective against "cytokine storm" that occurs in a subset of serious COVID19 cases would be helpful and among the medications that would be tried. I think Hydroxychloroquine is probably just one of several types of immune response modulators being tried to counteract potentially fatal effects of an immune system being kicked into dangerous overdrive. This one has only gotten so much attention because of DT's idiocy touting as a "cure."

(Disclaimer: I may be partial to Hydroxychloroquine because it has been key in keeping my Rheumatoid Arthritis in remission. I need to have an annual eye check because of potential for damage -- incidence is fairly rare, but there is a risk. In general, the safety profile is high at the doses prescribed for RA. I have no idea what dosages they are testing against COVID-19.)

[Rstrstx]

13. Good question

The Chinese are also going with chloroquine apparently. Perhaps the older chloroquine is easier to get than hydroxychloroquine in some countries? I believe India has stopped exporting both hydroxychloroquine and the compounds to make it.

[pat_k]

15. I guess if availability of Hydroxy form is an issue, it makes sense to trial the more available med.

If Chloroquine is likely to be the only form available in many places, it makes sense to run trials on it, but it seems to me that trials on Chloroquine should still be more comprehensive to detected differences in effect (e.g., Conventional Therapy (CT) + Chloroquine, CT+Hydroxychloroquine, and CT+placebo). Trial sample sizes are relatively small. I can't imagine a pharma co that wouldn't jump on the changes to provide samples for trial.

I hope it turns out to be an effective treatment. Whether it does or not, I hope by next month the increased demand can be met without denying refills to regular users.

I'm "stretching" my prescription for RA by taking 1.5 tabs instead of 2 so when I submit refill early next month I have a few extra days to get the refill. I certainly hope they are able to fill the script because it only takes about a week without for symptoms to begin to return.

[SeattleVet]

16. Here's the FDA's own datasheet on hydroxychloroquine sulfate.

Hydroxychloroquine can have some pretty nasty side-effects. Scroll through the Warnings, and also the Information for Patients.

https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/drugsatfda_docs/label/2017/009768s037s045s047lbl.pdf