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Posted on 04/13/2020 3:21:05 PM PDT by Pining_4_TX
On Saturday the Food and Drug Administration approved the use of two antimalarial drugs, hydroxychloroquine and a related medication, chloroquine, for emergency use to treat COVID-19. The drugs were touted by President Trump as a “game changer” for COVID-19.
However, a study just published in a French medical journal provides new evidence that hydroxychloroquine does not appear to help the immune system clear the coronavirus from the body. The study comes on the heels of two others - one in France and one in China - that reported some benefits in the combination of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin for COVID-19 patients who didn’t have severe symptoms of the virus.
I am a medicinal chemist who has specialized in discovery and development of antiviral drugs for the past 30 years, and I have been actively working on coronaviruses for the past seven. I am among a number of researchers who are concerned that this drug has been given too much of a high priority before there is enough evidence to show it is indeed effective.
There are already other clinical studies that showed it is not effective against COVID-19 as well as several other viruses. And, more importantly, it can have dangerous side effects, as well as giving people false hope. The latter has led to widespread shortages of hydroxychloroquine for patients who need it to treat malaria, lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, the indications for which it was originally approved.
(Excerpt) Read more at acsh.org ...
It is a load of horse crap.
We are not touting the drug as a preventative or to lessen people with mild symptoms-WE ARE SAYING IT SHOULD BE USED IN EXTREMELY ILL PATIENTS!!!!!!!
85% of the people in this study of 80 PEOPLE has very mild symptoms!!!!!!
I swear, I didn’t want to believe there was a concerted effort by the Left on this, but I believe it now.
.
"...The idea that the combination of hydroxychloroquine with an antibiotic drug, azithromycin, was effective against COVID-19 gained more attention after a study published on March 17. This study described a trial of 80 patients carried out by Philippe Gautret in Marseille, France. Although some of their results appeared to be encouraging, it should also be noted that most of their patients only had mild symptoms. Furthermore, 85% of the patients didn’t even have a fever – one of the major telltale symptoms of the virus, thus suggesting that these patients likely would have naturally cleared the virus without any intervention...
I see posters talking about 11 patients and such. I have to go read this again.
Exactly! Zinc is what does the work. Hydroxychloroquine just enables the zinc to enter the cells.
And, there is Dr. Wallace, Cedar-Sinai, he has >2000 Lupus patients under his care and he wrote a letter to the FDA and sent copies to several other doctors that to date not one of his thousands of patients on HCQ has to date come down with the Wuhan Virus.
Nor, has there been a single patient among his 2000+ patients to ever experience any heart issues.
His practice is more than 35 years and counting.
In Marseille the IHU-Méditerrannée Infection, the institute where dr Raoult is employed, has up until midday 11 April treated 2401 cases of COVID19 with the HCQ/AZ combination with 10 fatalities (0.4%). In the state and university hospitals in Marseille not affiliated with this institute 4100 cases have been treated with 63 deaths (1.5%).
It should be noted that both results so far are good.
Obviously factors such as age, comorbidities, other medication etc must be taken into account when comparing the two populations, however just making an initial comparison between the rough numbers tells us that the likelihood of such a difference occurring by chance alone is less than 0.0002 (ie 2 chances in 10 000).
Again, calculating from the rough numbers alone, dr Raoult's institute ought to have seen 37 fatalities. Thus, 27 people were saved by treating 2401 patients to a cost in medication per saved patient of less than $1800.
Now, we know from the latest publication by dr Raoult that he certainly did also treat the elderly and patients with other illnesses. So, what is going on here - and why are the leading medical authorities so negative?
PS Yes, chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine have side effects, and some are serious. However, in almost all cases I've been able to find they have either been described in conjunction with malaria treatment where the acute dosage is many times what has been proposed for the COVID19 patients, or they have occurred only after many years during chronic treatment (RA, lupus) with doses more reminicient of what is given to the COVID19-patients for a few days up to a week.*
* The problems of side effects were actually addressed in a press release from the IHU-MI institute already February 27. I can only assume the fact that it was in french is the reason for it never seemed to register with the critics of the HCQ use. (Yes, sarcasm intended.)
Below is a translation of the press release. Note the discussion re the dosage.
Marseille, February 27, 2020
Chloroquine and Coronavirus, real or fake news
Three publications from Chinese teams working on Coronavirus 2019-nCoV are currently available in the literature. The first, in Cell Research, reports the activity of Remdesivir and Chloroquine against the Chinese Coronavirus. It shows that both are very effective in vitro. The authors conclude their paper by recommending that these drugs be tried in a clinical setting (1).
A second pre-publication report, published in BioScience Trends, reports that the first evaluation in clinical trials of Chloroquine, which includes analysis of the results of more than 100 patients, shows that Chloroquine is superior to the control treatment. It prevented the worsening of pneumonia, improved the results of radiological pulmonary examinations, it lead to the elimination of the virus and it decreased the duration of the disease.
No side effects were observed. Given the in vitro efficacy, the authors sought a concentration of 1.1 mmol/ml, or 0.3mg/l. A dosage of three tablets of Plaquenil (OH Chloroquine) 600mg/d, which we use daily, allow us to obtain a concentration of 1mg/l, or 3 times the dose needed to reach this concentration.
After analyzing these findings, a Chinese committee including government experts, regulators and leading clinical trial investigators concluded that Chloroquine provided clinical activity against the virus. The drug will be part of the next version of the guidelines for the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of pneumonia caused by this virus which is published by the Public Health Commission of the Republic of China (2).
Dr. Zhong Nanshan (3), President of the Chinese Medical Association (2005-2009), Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Thoracic Disease, Director of the Guangzhou Institute of Respiratory Diseases, said in a february 27, 2020 press conference that Chloroquine has a positive effect and that patients were no longer carrying the virus after 4 days (4).
References:
1: “Remdesivir and Chloroquine effectively inhibit the recently emerged novel coronavirus (2019-nCov) in vitro,” January 25 20020, Cell Research, Nature.
2: “Breakthrough: Chloroquine phosphate has shown apparent efficacy in treatment of COVID-19 associated pneumonia in clinical studies,” Jianjun Gao and at, February 19 2020, Advanced Publication, BioScience Trends.
3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhong_Nanshan
4: https://www.france24.com/en/20200227-china-virus-expert-says-earlier-action-would-have-reduced-infections
https://www.mediterranee-infection.com/chloroquine-et-coronavirus-vraie-ou-fake-news/
Update: So far in Marseille IHU-MI has treated 2570 patients for more than 3 days with CQ and AZ. Totalt number of fatalities: 10. This gives a preliminary fatality rate of less than 4‰ (<0.4%).
Need Zinc! It prevents damage caused by inflammation. (Cytokine Storm)
Read an article today that reported Fauci said we could use HCQ to treat MERS!! Different results for different administrations. Funny how that works.
HCQ is relatively safe. (Over the past 2+ decades I’ve seen thousands of patients on it.) Azithromycin given IV has more cardiac complications and has to be monitored.
Been reading medical journals from across the planet about this drug cocktail and it’s getting a thumbs up.
“Small study” = anecdotal evidence.
There are anecdotal cases from the Democrat lawmaker in Michigan, to actor Daniel Dae Kim, to the 102 year old in NY who all recovered and credit treatment with hydroxycloroquine.
Not ever treatment works for everyone.
I guess I should have paid attention to THIS text to decide, eh?
"...There are already other clinical studies that showed it is not effective against COVID-19 as well as several other viruses. And, more importantly, it can have dangerous side effects, as well as giving people false hope. The latter has led to widespread shortages of hydroxychloroquine for patients who need it to treat malaria, lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, the indications for which it was originally approved..."
That sounds like the Leftist litany out there. Gee, it can have dangerous side effects? So can aspirin. And there's that terrible false hope. We can't have people feeling any hope, even false hope. Hope of any kind gets in the way of complete hopelessness, which is what they want.
Can't have that.
there is some retraction going on
I still would ask for Trumps drug
Sounds like a poorly designed study.
We R all signtists now.
This was the case with the cruise ships.
None of the passengers who were taking hydroxychloroquine for arthritis, lupus, or an an antimalarial contracted the virus.
It’s only 400mg per week used as an antimalarial.
A “sud” with 11 patients?
Chuckle!
Fake “research”, fake predetermined results.
I wouldn't be surprised if we looked under the skin of this doctor and found a hard core Hilary Clinton supporter and Trump hater.
I wonder how much Soros is paying her to make this sh*t up.
Katherine Seley-Radtke is pimping for the unproven drug Remdesivir.
She has an agenda - for Remdesivir.
So, who funds this group? Soros? Gates? Clinton Foundation?
“Gee, it can have dangerous side effects? So can aspirin”
We found out my oldest brother was allergic to aspirin and penicillin. Me and my other brother played tic tac to on his back. You could run your finger and it would raise the neatest red welts. Lotsa fun.
This was out the other day in the brain dead media.
This is old news being dredged up yet again.
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