Posted on 08/04/2020 8:53:04 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
The persisting political climate has made any objective discussion about hydroxychloroquine "impossible," two Henry Ford Health System executives wrote in an open letter dated Aug. 3.
Adnan Munkarah, MD, executive vice president and chief clinical officer at the Detroit-based system, along with Steven Kalkanis, MD, senior vice president and chief academic officer for Henry Ford, penned the letter in response to comments by Anthony Fauci, MD, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, that their study on hydroxychloroquine was "flawed."
The situation is a bellwether for the kind of tension other systems may face when their clinical research overlaps with commentary from the White House.
Four things to know:
1. Addressing friends and colleagues around the world, Dr. Munkarah and Dr. Kalkanis said the most accepted and definitive way to determine treatment efficacy is a double-blind, randomized clinical trial. But this type of study takes a long time to design, execute and analyze, so observational research is used to get as best an answer as soon as possible.
2. Observational research can never completely account for biases inherent in how physicians make different decisions to treat different patients, the leaders said. It's not unusual that results vary in different studies, and no one study should be considered on its own.
3. The Henry Ford treatment study should be considered as another important contribution to hydroxychloroquine research, Drs. Munkarah and Kalkanis wrote in a letter to the editor published in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases July 31. Based on their findings, the authors believe the drug can have a role in reducing mortality for COVID-19.
4. Scientific debate is common, and can, in part, fuel the advancement of knowledge, the leaders write. They said their only goal was to report validated findings and allow the science to speak for itself, regardless of political considerations. In light of the recent events, Drs. Munkarah and Kalkanis said they have decided to no longer comment about the topic outside of the medical community and will stay focused on their patients, community and commitment to clinical and academic integrity.
Exactly.
Not to mention Fauci is reported to have a financial interest in some of the vaccine makers.
Rep Kennedy mentioned that in his debate debate with Alan Dershowitz over HCQ.
Follow the money. It would deprive too many big time players of a lot of income.
See my post 22 and follow the money.
They weren't going to treat him with anything and send him home with nothing and $20 worth of meds fixed him. If you see a graph of countries that treat with HCQ, it will show they are doing twice as good as we are in deaths. The doctors that were banned on YouTube, Twitter, and FB say they have given one tablet twice a week to their staff and no one has caught Covid for 4 months in their office and it is full of Covid every day.
This is going to be the biggest scandal in American history when this is over.
BTW, Remdesivir (sp?) is over $3000 a dose. HCQ is less than a buck. If we were all issued HCQ as a prophylactic and treated with HCQ if we caught it, we could stop this disease cold in a month. Hundreds of thousands dead instead of a few thousand, and $trillions spent instead of a few million because Trump mentioned a drug in passing.
Bump
My daughter has an arthritic shoulder and has been prescribed HCQ for years. She has been getting her prescription, but only taking it when the pain is bad. She has enough stocked to take care of the entire family and friends should COVID strike in our area. We have done a lot of research and have decided that this is the route we will go if needed.
bkmk
“Are they all wrong?”
I never said they were wrong. I said that the testing they used was inconsistent with the issue and using an unapproved product on everyone is not safe. Can it work? At this point, you have no more idea that I do. But not using it won’t cause other problems or kill someone. And if it can, it shouldn’t be used until it is safe.
Even they are not sure of the results yet...and with good reason.
From their study:
“The findings have been highly analyzed and peer-reviewed,” said Dr. Marcus Zervos, division head of Infectious Disease for Henry Ford Health System, who co-authored the study with Henry Ford epidemiologist Samia Arshad. “We attribute our findings that differ from other studies to early treatment, and part of a combination of interventions that were done in supportive care of patients, including careful cardiac monitoring. Our dosing also differed from other studies not showing a benefit of the drug. And other studies are either not peer reviewed, have limited numbers of patients, different patient populations or other differences from our patients.”
Of the 2,541 patients hospitalized between March 10 and May 2, 2020 across the system’s six hospitals, the study found 13% of those treated with hydroxychloroquine alone died. The death rate for the US during January 1, 2020–May 18, 2020, according to the CDC and over a 4 month time frame, is approximately 1.3 million cases of coronavirus disease and 83,000 associated deaths. That equals approximately 6%. That is less than half of the test results in loss.
No one knows what to expect right now, and for a while. But saying a drug is working when the test results are inconclusive, and with all the variables involved not including the side effects, Fauci may not be far, if at all, from being right. I don’t want to be the proverbial guinea pig on an individual gamble that the gamblers don’t pay the price unless there is no other way. And with the reported changing of the virus, they are still throwing darts at the board blindfolded.
It has shown some promise, but it’s not completely safe yet.
rwood
“”””It has shown some promise, but it’s not completely safe yet. rwood”””
If you are looking for complete safety in this life, I suspect you are going to be disappointed many times.
Bump
When the Left is involved, EVERYTHING is political.
You'll have a steep hill to climb, making the case that a medicine sold OTC and consumed millions of times a year is unsafe. Where would you like to start?
Any studies that do not support the correct results are attacked as flawed and those conducting them are attacked as heretics and in need of re-education.
Essentially the same technique that is applied to news stories.
Well, heck. There went lunch. I wonder if I still have some Tito’s left.
Therein lies the heart of the problem. If Munkarah and Kalkanis had any REAL integrity they would stand up to the leftist bullies and defend their important study. Instead, they're running and hiding behind Mama Medical Community's skirt.
“Where would you like to start?”
We might start here:
This includes reports of serious heart rhythm problems and other safety issues, including blood and lymph system disorders, kidney injuries, and liver problems and failure.
Get that part about serious heart rhythm problems?
Data from Solidarity (including the French Discovery trial data) and the recently announced results from the UK’s Recovery trial both showed that hydroxychloroquine does not result in the reduction of mortality of hospitalised COVID-19 patients, when compared with standard of care.
https://www.who.int/news-room/q-a-detail/q-a-hydroxychloroquine-and-covid-19
There is a higher risk of side effects in the presence of renal and liver impairment, and there have been isolated reports of COVID-19 disease-causing renal and hepatic injury.
Former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, MD, said the verdict on hydroxychloroquine is not in doubt.
“We all hoped it was going to work. ... All of the studies that were rigorously done have pointed in the same direction, which is that the drug doesn’t work,” Gottlieb told MSNBC. “I think at this point, we can definitively say hydroxychloroquine doesn’t work. I’m not sure what more we need to do.”
https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20200729/hydroxychloroquine-no-covid-cure-experts-warn
Where would you like to start? Where do you want me to stop? At no time did I say this was not a possible, workable product to be used. I said it is not proven to be a cure or, in most of the well performed trials, even an improvement. It may be the answer. But with all the baggage it carries, and that everyone will not react to it the same, they don’t have the answer. And getting fired up over questionable studies and media spin, can get people killed.
rwood
“I suspect you are going to be disappointed many times.”
But I’m not going to be dead from heart failure from ventricular arrhythmia, renal failure, acute liver failure, decreased blood platelets leading to bone marrow failure, low levels of white blood cells inviting infections, seizures....And there’s more attached to the use.
https://www.webmd.com/drugs/2/drug-7515/hydroxychloroquine-sulfate-bulk/details/list-sideeffects
Taking something with this much baggage and no real determined success, is a bit foolhardy. When the medical field can say it is the answer, then it will have to be evaluated for each patient’s capacity and need.
After all, the dosage for a 5 foot 3 woman, 100 pounds, will be different from that of a 6 foot 7. 250 pound man. And everything in between. Long way to go, but it needs to be done intelligently, consistently and completely. Otherwise, people will die from the illness and the cure. Not very promising now.
And I am not going to be disappointed in something I don’t expect to be the answer at this point. Only disappointed when another person bought into it as the answer and dies from side effects. Hate to see a person die not knowing why because of a guess.
rwood
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