Posted on 04/19/2020 6:28:07 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Dozens of people taking hydroxychloroquine and other autoimmune drugs for chronic ailments such as lupus and rheumatoid arthritis have tested positive for the CCP (The Chinese Communist Party) virus, according to data compiled by the Global Rheumatology Alliance.
The study is sponsored by an international collaborative, the COVID-19 Global Rheumatology Alliance, which includes a large group of academics, clinicians, and patients working together, and so far suggests that hydroxychloroquine doesn’t always protect against the disease, which originated in Wuhan, China, in December last year.
Over 9,500 patients have submitted surveys to the alliance, of which nearly half were diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis or lupus. Nearly a third of all respondents with the chronic disease said they were taking hydroxychloroquine, of which 189 (7 percent) said they were diagnosed with the virus.
Separately, patient information provided by rheumatologists and published on Thursday in The Lancet Rheumatology also suggests the antimalarials may not adequately protect people from the virus. Of the first 110 patients reported, 69 were taking medications such as hydroxychloroquine to treat chronic ailments like systemic lupus erythematosus and rheumatoid arthritis, before being diagnosed with the coronavirus.
As of April 1, 2020, 110 individuals with rheumatic disease who have been diagnosed with COVID-19 are included from six continents: Europe, North America, South America, Asia, Africa, and Oceania.
However, the research doesn’t specifically address whether hydroxychloroquine is effective at treating coronavirus symptoms, and researchers acknowledged that one limitation to the study is that some countries test only people showing severe symptoms.
Jinoos Yazdany, chief of the division of rheumatology at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, told The Wall Street Journal that the antimalarial doesn’t fully protect people from contracting the new virus and is “not a magic bullet because people that are on it are contracting the infection.”
On March 28, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorized emergency use of the drug, which President Donald Trump has also touted as a “game changer” in the fight against the CCP virus, allowing the federal government to begin distributing millions of doses to states across the United States. However, as of yet, no large clinical trials have been conducted to validate smaller studies and prove the drug can safely be used to treat the disease, prompting medical professionals, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, the United States’ leading infectious disease expert and a member of the White House coronavirus task force, to caution against using the drug.
Speaking at a White House news conference on March 20, Fauci said data on the drug so far “was not done in a controlled clinical trial. So you really can’t make any definitive statement about it,” and that only such studies would determine if the drug was truly safe and effective.
A number of clinical trials exploring the drug’s efficacy and safety are currently underway around the world, including a 1,500-person trial at the University of Minnesota. Three early studies, two from France and one from China, indicate a benefit of utilising hydroxychloroquine but have been branded inadequate by some in the medical community.
India, which manufactures 70 percent of the world’s supply of hydroxychloroquine, agreed on April 7 to lift an earlier ban on the export of the drug following a telephone conversation between U.S. President Donald Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Trump had said at a previous press conference that India could face retaliation if it failed to lift the ban and release the 29 million doses of the drug it had ordered for its medical stockpile.
RE: Prophylaxis utilizing plaquenil:
Thanks, whose protocol is this? Has it been written anywhere?
Here. I’ll post it again here for you:
https://academic.oup.com/jn/article/130/5/1360S/4686372
As you can see the body has a mechanism known as “homeostasis” that regulates the interstitial concentration of Zinc pretty tightly.
If the viral load is small enough, the probability of viral shedding is commensurately small. Person to person transmission is the exchange of shedded virii.
In a medical setting, proper use of PPE can contain a small amount of shedding. Otherwise, PPE would be useless against any patient’s infection.
Think of the tetanus shot. It is given after a person is potentially exposed (such as stepping on a rusty nail), but acts as prophylaxis against the disease for about 10 years after. It doesn’t prevent introduction of the infection (darned nails), but prevents the exposure from becoming illness.
In the case of the CCP virus, prophylaxis is not intended to prevent exposure, nor does it prevent small scale infection. It prevents progression of the infection to the point where the carrier sheds significant amounts of virus, and where the carrier experiences significant effects of the resultant illness.
If HCQ and zinc can prevent replication at a 90% effectiveness rate (or higher), it is effective at preventing the disease caused by the CCP virus, and is likely somewhat effective in preventing person to person transmission by lowering the amount of virii in the carrier’s system so that there is much less viral load to shed.
Needless to say, I disagree with your conclusion, but I greatly appreciate the reasonable discussion over how our separate conclusions were arrived at.
Don’t tell anybody. The vitamin Supplement industry is worth Billions. But, yes. All you are doing with “Zinc Tablets” is increasing the concentration of Zinc in your urine. Who knows? That could be part of “The Cure” but somehow I doubt it.
Fair enough. Over the years I have worked with a number of physicians who ran clinical trials. They made sure that I understood that there is no such thing as risk free medicine. That said, a number of the newer drugs are pushed into the market with safety track records that are considerably more concerning than that of HCQ. We will not know definitively about the prophylactic efficacy of HCQ until controlled trials with placebo groups and deliberate exposure of subjects to COVID 19 are conducted. My guess is that those trials will never be conducted because of the lack of profit to the pharmaceutical industry. It is very hard to establish intellectual property rights to a generic drug.
Adopted by the royal college of medicine in India and I believe the UK
Studies in America are using this protocol as well for front line providers
See Global. Stop reading.
RE: Adopted by the royal college of medicine in India and I believe the UK
Again thank you. A Link would be even more helpful. But thanks nonetheless.
RE: See Global. Stop reading.
Exactly what is wrong with Global? Would Local be better?
Nothing mentioned about zinc from the piece above. Without zinc, HCQ is not as effective
+++++
3 points.
1. Your comment. I noticed that as well although I would have said less effective without the zinc. Maybe much more less effective.
2. And some models of how HCQ works, my current favorite, is that it protects red blood cells from oxygen depletion by the virus. You can test positive and still be protected under that scenario.
3. As was pointed out, how about deaths? That is the real test. How many of these people died compared to the an equivalent number of those that were infected and did not use HCQ.
Sigh, so it is not a prophylactic in those who have immunity issues. Again, since they have immunity issues it is important to know the degree to which they they experience the affects of Covid-19, and if they seem to recover faster. If they experience mild symptoms, or no symptoms at all, it means that while it may not be a prophylactic for them, it may mean it still acts as an agent keeping them from major issues as a result of their testing positive for Covid-19. So to just report that it is not a prophylactic is telling an incomplete story. Everything we can learn is important, not just one fact while ignoring other questions.
RE: Sigh, so it is not a prophylactic in those who have immunity issues.
I’m not sure what you mean by “in those who have immunity issues”.
Do we differentiate between people who have and have NOT immunity issues?
OK, let’s move the discussion further along...let’s agree that for those with immunity issues (e.g., those who have serious pre-existing conditions ), it does not act as a prophylactic.
What about those who are HEALTHY? Will it act as a prophylactic?
They were doing prophylaxis studies among health care workers right now. That is probably the best we will get as no one would deliberately expose people to the disease
I don’t know that. However, I can go to Duckduckgo to check it out.
“The question is how many were INFECTED. Period.”
HCQ doesn’t prevent you from being infected, it keeps you from getting really sick, and in the process, (because you became infected) you also became immune.
So in effect it acts like a vaccine using the live virus itself as the vaccine.
So the fact that no deaths were reported in this “study” is supportive of HCQ.
“Well, then we better tell many Doctors and healthcare workers who are taking HCQ now as preventative to STOP as they are simply wasting their money and making the drug more scarce for patients who really need it.”
You’re actually going to say with a straight face that it’s a waste of time to take a drug that results in any future infection being ASYMPTOMATIC or much less severe than it would have been?
You’re really not thinking clearly here.
RE: You’re actually going to say with a straight face that it’s a waste of time to take a drug that results in any future infection being ASYMPTOMATIC or much less severe than it would have been?
Doctors being Asymptomatic can still be dangerous. Let’s say a doctor who is NOT treating Covid-19 patient is treating another ill person with a heart condition. He is infected but not symptomatic. How is that not dangerous to his non-Covid patient?
The answer to that question is complicated by the evolution of Malaria. There are many places where HCQ is no longer used because the malaria organism has evolved to be resistant to HCQ.
I think the original effectiveness of CQ against malaria was quite high.
But perfection is not necessary, only significant effectiveness. Realistically, N-95 masks, gowns, and gloves are not 100% effective in actual use. But that doesn't mean people shouldn't use them.
Most likely you are correct.
I will concede that being asymptomatic is BETTER than being ill.
But the asymptomatic doctor should still not be in the hospital.
So, if the HCQ prevents one from being seriously ill even if it does not prevent infection, yes of course, it is a vast improvement and it is still useful PRE and POST Infection.
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