Miracle drug is useless

[struggle4progress]

By Editorial Board
May 17, 2020 at 8:00 a.m. EDT

THE HYPE over the drug hydroxychloroquine was fueled by President Trump and Fox News, whose hosts touted it repeatedly on air. The president’s claims were not backed by scientific evidence, but he was enthusiastic. “What do you have to lose?” he has asked. In desperation, the public snapped up pills and the Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency use authorization on March 28 for the drug to be given to hospitalized patients. On Thursday, Mr. Trump declared, “So we have had some great response, in terms of doctors writing letters and people calling on the hydroxychloroquine.”

Now comes the evidence. Two large studies of hospitalized patients in New York City have found the drug was essentially useless against the virus.

One study, by Eli S. Rosenberg and colleagues, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, examined 1,438 patients suffering from infection across 25 hospitals in the New York area between March 15 and 28. The study also looked at those who received hydroxychloroquine along with the antibiotic azithromycin. Mr Trump had heralded the combination as “a real chance to be one of the biggest game changers in the history of medicine.” The conclusion of the study: “Among patients hospitalized in metropolitan New York with COVID-19, treatment with hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin, or both, compared with neither treatment, was not significantly associated with differences in in-hospital mortality.”

The second study, by Joshua Geleris and colleagues, examined 1,376 patients at New York-Presbyterian Hospital-Columbia University Irving Medical Center in northern Manhattan from March 7 to April 8. Their conclusion in the New England Journal of Medicine: “In this analysis involving a large sample of consecutive patients who had been hospitalized with Covid-19, the risk of intubation or death was not significantly higher or lower among patients who received hydroxychloroquine than among those who did not.” The results, they said, “do not support the use of hydroxychloroquine at present” except in clinical trials ...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-results-are-in-trumps-miracle-drug-is-useless/2020/05/15/150f680c-9545-11ea-91d7-cf4423d47683_story.html

[struggle4progress]

1. Letter From Trump's Doctor

9:54 P.M.
By Matt Stieb

... While the president dismissed “phony reports” funded by his own administration that showed that the drug failed to treat coronavirus patients, he provided an anecdotal explanation for his new regimen. “Here’s my evidence,” Trump said. “I get a lot of positive calls about it.” Hours after the bizarre press conference, the president’s physician Dr. Sean P. Conley wrote a letter justifying his apparent decision to take hydroxychloroquine, which didn’t clear much up ...

... the letter from Dr. Connelly was vague .... the letter’s most notable feature — aside from the comedic premise of the pair’s “numerous discussions” about wanting to take the unproven drug — is that it doesn’t even confirm if the president is on hydroxychloroquine.

Though clinical trials have so far shown that the antimalarial is not an effective treatment for patients who have contracted the virus, there are two studies underway hoping to determine if the drug is able to provide a layer of prevention — though neither has produced any results. However, if Trump is taking the drug with advance knowledge from the studies showing it does serve as a prophylactic, there could be ethical concerns about the president’s decision to take it before the drug is available to front-line workers. There’s also the concern of hypocrisy if the germaphobic president, unwilling to wear a mask, is willing to take an unproven, potentially dangerous, and publicly inaccessible drug while encouraging states to reopen — at the potential expense of the working class ...

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/05/trumps-doctor-explains-why-he-is-taking-hydroxychloroquine.html

[Hoyt]

2. It does appear the drug isn't effective once infected and hospitalized. However,

there are ongoing studies looking at efficacy of prophylactic use, before developing CV19.

I wouldn’t take it for that purpose until those studies are in.

[Celerity]

5. if, IF, it reduced your chances of getting extremely ill once exposed by, say 30-50%, BUT it

also increases your chances of death by heart attacks or other lethalities by 30 to 50%, would you still take it?

[Hoyt]

10. Ask RA and Lupus patients, who have taken it for years.

[Celerity]

13. I will read up on those.

Makes no difference to me, I already had COVID-19 (so did my wife, we did not have any symptoms, thank fuck), so hard pass on the Rump pill regime. We here in Sweden were amongst the first to stop the studies of it as a treatment.

Swedish hospitals abandon trial of promising malaria drug chloroquine for coronavirus patients after it caused them blinding headaches, vision loss and agonising cramps

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8199477/Swedish-hospitals-stop-prescribing-chloroquine-coronavirus-patients-adverse-effects.html

[Hoyt]

14. Please do read up. How's about a link to the 30 to 50% developing cardiac issues.

[Celerity]

15. I was just asking IF those were the numbers, what would you do, simply using an example, not saying

that was what they were.

[Hoyt]

17. No I wouldn't take it prophylactically because the odds are 90% or

more that I won’t be that sick. In fact, I wouldn’t take it prophylactically unless studies show it works.

But the odds of those kind of side effects are not that high, as tens of them of people who take it for RA and Lupus show.

[Celerity]

19. I just read up on lupus and RA use. It seems that the main comorbidities to contraindicate its use

(as well as other drugs already being taken that also fall into the contraindication category) are pre-existing retinal and macular disease issues, psoriasis, renal and hepatic issues, tamoxifen use, azithromycin use, methotrexate use, doxepin use, lefamulin use, neurological disease and myopathy, cardiovascular. problems, GI disease, anaemia, seizures, and patients with glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency (G6PD deficiency) due to the risk of haemolysis (red blood cell rupture). Many other pharmacological interactions as well.

That was off a cursory review of around 15 or so sites.

[Hoyt]

20. And tens of thousands still take it.

[Celerity]

21. Under very rigid medical supervision, not Billy Bob poppin' a blister pack in his double-wide.

[Hoyt]

22. Agree with that, completely. It's monitored closely.

[struggle4progress]

8. There's only one reason anybody's looking at it: Trump and his gang pushed it hard,

using their contacts. The US government stupidly bought 29 million doses, and other folk prematurely jumped on the bandwagon: Utah spent $800K on it

If the US had bought 29 million doses of skunk-fat-boiled-in-turpentine at Trump's command, the administration would be directing research money to study that

There's no evidence it works, and there's no reason to waste money investigating it further: the money should be going towards testing and contact tracing -- and potential treatments (like anti-viral cocktails) that actually have a plausible chance of success

[Hoyt]

12. Maybe. But, doctors still prescribed it. trump also "pushed" Remdesivir, which appears

to offer some help.

The malaria drug was part of anti-viral cocktails used early on, when no other treatments were available with drugs we knew something about.

[struggle4progress]

16. You mean, of course, only that "some doctors prescribed it"

[Hoyt]

18. Of course, and I've said "some" on other posts tonight.

I assume you meant, “there is little evidence it works,” as well.

[Celerity]

3. if it takes out tens of thousands of murderous MAGAts, well... not so useless

[Drum]

4. Useless, sure...but not worthless.

Tramp has just resorted to trying to run the biggest snake-oil con ever. The old elixir wagon thing. So mundane, so refutable, but his contempt for others Makes him unable to resist.

And he is throwing sand in “our” eyes, while so many damning things about him and his cronies continue to pile up.

[Celerity]

6. ...

[Drum]

9. Oh mannnn!

Thanks for that, Celerity! That’s exactly it.

[newsboy]

11. WOW Hydroxy-Trump Oil ?? I am only half way through my bottle of CLOROX

[JCMach1]

7. Considering the effects when I took it for malaria

There are going to be a lot of Trumphumpers running around with diarrhea and general ick for weeks and weeks..!!

[zak247]

23. Trump is likley lying

I don't believe Trump is taking the drug. He's is lying as usual.

Wants to have some consistency so he's falsely claiming he's taking it. Did anyone ask what dosage he was on?
He probably couldn't say?


Now, I know from personal experience doctors are very liberal on drug requests from their patients. But what doctor in his right mind would allow Trump this drug with all those dangerous sounding reports and mere anecdotal stories of unscientific successes.

He may be opening himself up to a colossal malpractice suit if something goes wrong. It doesn't make sense, the whole story, therefore I would bet Trump is as usual LYING.