Hydroxychloroquine Trial for Treating COVID-19 Disappoints

"The best available evidence does not support the use of hydroxychloroquine in COVID-19."

A just-reported Chinese study compares the clinical outcomes of COVID-19 patients treated with hydroxychloroquine with those of patients receiving standard of care. The results, alas, are disappointing.

I summarized that study in my roundup yesterday of COVID-19 therapeutic research, pointing out that this randomized controlled trial of 150 patients "found no difference in the rate of viral load reduction or symptom alleviation between the group treated with hydroxychloroquine and the one that had not been." Now the University of Vermont pulmonologist Josh Farkas has published his own analysis of the results, delving more deeply into the data.

The patients in both arms of the study were well-matched demographically and clinically, Farkas notes. Most suffered relatively mild cases of the disease, and treatment was initiated fairly late—about 16 to 17 days after disease onset. Twenty-eight days into the trial, the researchers found essentially no difference between the two cohorts with respect to the percent of patients in which the virus was undetectable.

(Tang et al. )

Farkas adds:

This endpoint most directly addresses the question: does hydroxychloroquine exert anti-viral activity in vivo? The answer seems to be: nope. Even if the drug were administered too late to affect the clinical course of the infection, if it exerted any anti-viral activity then we might expect to see that effect here. If anything, there might be a trend towards delayed viral clearance in patients treated with hydroxychloroquine.

The study also found that fever and respiratory symptoms did not abate any faster in patients who had been treated with hydroxychloroquine.

Farkas acknowledges the study's limits, including its small size and that the researchers were not blinded—that is, they knew which patients were being given the treatment. "Nonetheless," he says, "this study currently represents the highest available quality of evidence regarding hydroxychloroquine."

"For now, the best available evidence does not support the use of hydroxychloroquine in COVID-19," Farkas concludes. "It seems prudent to restrict the use of hydroxychloroquine to randomized controlled studies for the time being." He does acknowledge that future studies in which COVID-19 patients are treated earlier in the course of their infections may yet find that hydroxychloroquine offers some therapeutic benefits. Fingers crossed.

 

Comments

[John]

Farkas acknowledges the study's limits, including its small size and that the researchers were not blinded—that is, they knew which patients were being given the treatment. "Nonetheless," he says, "this study currently represents the highest available quality of evidence regarding hydroxychloroquine."

The studies that found that it did work have been dismissed because of their small sample size. If that is a valid criticism of those studies, and I think it is, then it is just as valid here. The fact that this study is somewhat larger than the others doesn't make it large enough to be significant.

So, the answer continues to be "we don't know". It may be that the virus has mutated such that all of the studies are valid but have different results because they were each treating a slightly different virus.

[Geraje Guzba]

Excellent point.

The absence of double blind testing and adequate controls are ubiquitously used to cast doubt upon the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine, and rightly so. But it seems when it comes to the other end of that spectrum, the absence of such controls is no impediment to studies that come to the conclusion that hydroxychloroquine is not effective.

Also,

//The patients in both arms of the study were well-matched demographically and clinically, Farkas notes. Most suffered relatively mild cases of the disease, and treatment was initiated fairly late—about 16 to 17 days after disease onset. Twenty-eight days into the trial, the researchers found essentially no difference between the two cohorts with respect to the percent of patients in which the virus was undetectable.//

The study is limited to "relatively mild" cases. In other words, patients that would have improved, most likely, without any medication or treatment at all. Many of the anecdotal reports are about recoveries in people with **severe** cases. The severity of the infection may be a factor to account for. Perhaps in mild cases, it makes little if any difference. Perhaps in severe cases, it helps.

[John]

I somehow missed that. People with mild symptoms nearly always recover no matter what. So, it is hard to see how even the most effective drug could show itself to be effective when used on people who we know will recover without any treatment.

How did Bailey miss that? Moreover, why did they even bother to do a study like this? It proves nothing and could never prove anything.

[Ronald Bailey]

J: The endpoints of the study were viral clearance (the same for both treated and untreated) and symptom alleviation rates (the same). The patients in the trial were hospitalized - mild in this case means essentially not on ventilators.

[Metazoan]

Nonetheless, I think his point stands. It is possible that the drug is only useful in cases where the patient is critically ill, is it not?

[Geraje Guzba]

Precisely.

Chemotherapy, for example, isn't going to effective in treating mild, non-life threatening cancers, but it *is* effective in treating aggressive cancers that have spread.

The severity of the disease *does* tend to affect the efficacy of proposed treatment, be it introduced later or earlier in the course of the disease.

Have there been any studies in severe cases?

[Brett Bellmore]

That's because chemotherapy attacks rapidly dividing cells, (That's why your hair falls out, for instance.) the faster the cancer is growing, the harder it is hit. It's specific to the mechanism.

[Ronald Bailey]

M: See my post below in which I link to French study in which severely ill patients were dosed with the combination hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin.

[Geraje Guzba]

11 people.

5 had cancer. 1 had HIV.

I think we can agree that reading into these results for any conclusions is unwise. For all the flack that the Gautret study received, it was *far* more compelling than the Molina trial.

[leninsmummy]

https://www.mediterranee-infection.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Abstract_Raoult_EarlyTrtCovid19_09042020_vD1v.pdf?fbclid=IwAR2Bx-Fldm2fFsLg7L06BYUz-8QvwuJ-hAW9uWmwx1KdKzCU0YGHtSwXXWw

We are learning. Above is a link to a pre-publication abstract based on a study with 1061 patients by Didier Raoult (from France).
Findings:
“Approximately 92% of those in this series showed viral clearance within 10 days; those with persistence of virus on PCR had a higher reported viral load. Overall, 4.3% of patients (46 in all) reportedly had poor outcomes – death (0.47%), transfer to ICU (0.94%), or prolonged hospitalization > 10 days (~3%). They reported that poor clinical outcomes were more likely to be seen with older age, initial higher severity, low HCQ concentrations, use of selective beta-blocking agents or ACE-inhibitors. The case series reportedly showed no evidence of cardiac toxicity.”

Ok, I tried posting this but it got lost somewhere in this thread. Here is a better study - probably the largest one yet - with over a thousand people.

[Geraje Guzba]

What do you mean treated *and* untreated? There was no control group receiving a placebo.

And, where in the Farkas study does it actually state mild = "not on ventilators?" Hospitalized does not mean actually mean they needed *any* drugs to recover, either.

The study isn't clear but I assume the patients were not receiving any other drugs, no? If so, they probably would have recovered no matter what.

So, I'm not sure what the point of the study was (given its admitted flaws) if only to demonstrate that healthy people don't need any specialized prescriptions to fight of a viral infection.

[target]

hydroxychloroquine is not antiviral so you would not see any difference in viral clearance. And the only symptom it is designed to alleviate: cytokine storm (overactive immune response leading inflammation and fluid buildup in the lungs). These patients were not being treated for pneumonia, and were also not treated until too late in the course of the disease (16 to 17 days). You see exactly the same result you would expect to see when treating a condition with the wrong therapy; e.g. splinting a leg to treat a broken arm.

Medically the endpoints of the study are completely mismatched with the condition of the patients they were treating. This makes it a worthless study.

[Geraje Guzba]

Good point.

Ron, any response? (I only ask because you seem to like to spar with the commentariat)

[JesseAz]

Ronnie tends to only fight for a few comments until his arguments holes are torn apart.

[Geraje Guzba]

"See my other post, in which I direct you to see another post." - Ronald Bailey

[Metazoan]

Well, there is/was some thought that it had antiviral activity. So I don't think it was crazy to use viral load as a clinical endpoint to find out if that was actually the case.

[Jim Logajan]

It is incorrect to state HCQ did nothing compared to their normal "standard of care" (SOC) - which involved the use of several anti-virals. Specifically, the study states "The shortened time to alleviation of symptoms and rapid normalization elevated CRP and recovery of lymphocytopenia in patients who received HCQ observed in our trial suggested more potential of this drug in controlling acute inflammation and might be useful for preventing disease progression." Further: "A significant efficacy of HCQ on alleviating symptoms was observed when the confounding effects of anti-viral agents were removed in the post-hoc analysis (Hazard ratio, 8.83, 95%CI, 1.09 to 71.3). This was further supported by a significantly greater reduction of CRP (6.986 in SOC plus HCQ versus 2.723 in SOC, milligram/liter, P=0.045) conferred by the addition of HCQ, which also led to more rapid recovery of lymphopenia, albeit no statistical significance. "

[Entelechy]

A covidiot who treats himself with chloroquine or HCQ may end up with a dead fool for a patient .

Off label antimalarials are dangerous because of their small margins of safety , and some high profile climate skeptics have been touting doses toxicologists consider lethal

https://vvattsupwiththat.blogspot.com/2020/04/of-quinine-and-chloroquine-willis.html

[CLM1227]

My ridiculously limited understanding of what is going on is that the critical response to the virus is a hyper-immune response in people that already have immune response systems stressed by other diseases - like diabetes, hyper tension, and asthma. Hydroxycholoquine is a drug administered to lupus patients - specifically to suppress their immune responses to non-harmful stimulus (like sunlight). So if hydroxychloroquine works, it's to prevent the critical immune response that leads to respiratory failure. So it's only useful to see its effect on those cases.

[MJBinAL]

Not to mention that nearly all claims of success for Hydroxychloroquine are when used with Azithromycin and/or zinc supplements. So this study says that hydroxychloroquine does not work by itself. What a surprise.

A better question is why do a study to prove something that has not been claimed?

[JesseAz]

The malaria medicine also reduces replication more than killing the disease by theory. So waiting for 16 days for the virus to relocate prior to treatment is pretty much a stupid way to apply the treatment.

[JesseAz]

Virus to replicate *

[Chipper Morning Wood]

Nobody should be surprised by this. There were equal hopes that hydroxychloroquine works for the flu a few years back, but when the studies were done, it turned out it didn't help. This is why scientists always express caution about a new promising treatment - most of them end up disappointing. Turns out finding drugs that works is really, really hard.

[Geraje Guzba]

Nobody should be surprised by the distorted results of an admittedly crappy study?

Agreed.

[scJazz]

Yup you lost me in 5 words... A just-reported Chinese study... Cause anything they say is valid... What the heck EDITOR!

[leninsmummy]

https://www.mediterranee-infection.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Abstract_Raoult_EarlyTrtCovid19_09042020_vD1v.pdf?fbclid=IwAR2Bx-Fldm2fFsLg7L06BYUz-8QvwuJ-hAW9uWmwx1KdKzCU0YGHtSwXXWw

We are learning. Above is a link to a pre-publication abstract based on a study with 1061 patients by Didier Raoult (from France).
Findings:
"Approximately 92% of those in this series showed viral clearance within 10 days; those with persistence of virus on PCR had a higher reported viral load. Overall, 4.3% of patients (46 in all) reportedly had poor outcomes – death (0.47%), transfer to ICU (0.94%), or prolonged hospitalization > 10 days (~3%). They reported that poor clinical outcomes were more likely to be seen with older age, initial higher severity, low HCQ concentrations, use of selective beta-blocking agents or ACE-inhibitors. The case series reportedly showed no evidence of cardiac toxicity."

[Commenter_XY]

A just-reported Chinese study ....

No need to read further. It is Chinese data. All bullshit, I am sure.

[R Mac]

Thank you.

[Mother's lament]

I'm not going to say it's bullshit, I'm not a virologist. However, if some people with power try to railroad a potential treatment and people die unnecessarily, just because orangemanbad, I think they should be lynched.

[Brett Bellmore]

That was my reaction. I Chinese study? Dollars to donuts it's disinformation, China actively wants the rest of the world ravaged by this virus, so as to improve their comparative position. To many things they've done are inexplicable from any other perspective.

I'm not saying the release was deliberate, but once they knew they were going to be screwed by a pandemic, they wanted the rest of the world to go down, too, hard, so their relative position would be as good as possible.

[MoreFreedom]

Yeah, big problem regarding the source and honesty of a study from a communist country trying to hide the fact of what they've done to the world.

Further, it's worth noting how quickly anti-Trump people jump to conclusions based on studies (but not double blind placebo controlled trials, and in this case administering HCQ very late after infection so after significant damage is done) that show no benefit (or negative benefit). And they hype the potential side effect of arrhythmias which are so rare they don't even report the fraction of patients who get it, while ignoring the risks of Covid vs the risk of a temporary arrhythmia in a very small fraction of the patients.

Meanwhile, the MSM has been dismissing any study purporting any benefit from any drug, if it isn't a double blind placebo human trial, claiming no benefit has been proven (and there's truth to this in terms of statistical significance and elimination of bias). But they have a different standard when it comes to disproving Trump, and that standard is they'll lie if they can get away with it, or even if they know they'll be caught. While in the past, you never heard the MSM claim Obama was lying when he said many times you could keep your plan and your doctor. A blatant double standard that should put outlets like CNN out of business. But I guess those with TDS need to hear CNN lies, which seems to be why they are still in business.

[IceTrey]

If it doesn't hurt why not give it. Also it's being used on conjunction with Azithromyacin.

[Brandybuck]

But it does hurt. There are side effects. And there are patients who need it for other reasons. Taking the drug away from them because it *might* help some edge cases for more visible disease is evil.

[Geraje Guzba]

//Taking the drug away from them because it *might* help some edge cases for more visible disease is evil.//

Yup. The drug has been taken away from everyone else. It disappeared overnight.

Ridiculous.

[R Mac]

I keep hearing this claim. I’ve yet to hear about any actual patients of these other diseases that can’t get it anymore though.

[John]

Exactly. Show me these people. Moreover, it is not like these drugs are in such short supply that any use of them for other purposes will deprive someone else of getting them. That is complete bullshit.

[Chipper Morning Wood]

A ten second google search proved you wrong. As usual.

[Geraje Guzba]

Your cite fell off, again.

[R Mac]

He can’t cite anything because he knows we’ll actually read them and find them full of opinion and anonymous “sources”.

[JesseAz]

Lol. This will be good. What dateless CNN need report did you forget to link to?

[Geraje Guzba]

It's one of those self sustaining truths, exceedingly common in the era of the Orange Man, that has become indisputable because unscrupulous media personalities, and idiots, keep repeating it.

[Overt]

The side effects of this drug are rare, and easily controlled for. Thousands if not millions of expats in malaria countries essentially take these drugs every day for their entire years long residence. The drug is not in heavy demand here in the US, and giving it to a few tens of thousands of patients isn't going to cause a shortage, especially domestically.

I really don't see why people are SO bent out of shape other than the fact that Trump thinks its the best thing since sliced bread. Nevertheless, those people will insist it is pure poison just to make life hard on Trump. It is bizarre.

[John]

Trump has literally driven people nuts. The only reason they are losing their minds over this and doing anything at all to convince themselves and everyone else that this treatment doesn't work is because Trump said it did and proving Trump is always wrong about everything is the only thing that matters.

Look at Bailey in this post. He is taking a Chinese study face value. It is also a study that is of a small number of patients and of patients who were all going to recover anyway. Yet, Bailey tells us "the best evidence now says this doesn't work". WTF? This isn't the best evidence. Even if it were trust worthy, it isn't of patients who were suffering severe symptoms with the real chance of not recovering. So it is not the best evidence. Bailey normally would understand that. But Orange Man Bad seems to have rotted his brain.

[JFree]

And the only reason you are picking nits is because Dr Donald said it worked. Therefore, anyone who says it doesn't, has TDS. By definition. And said TDS must be denounced in the loudest possible terms so that you can prove how loyal you are to Dr Donald.

Whatever happened to the BS meme that you Trumpbots say that what he says is serious but not literal or just spouting off and entertainment or whatever that is?

[Nardz]

A lot more people than Trump have said it works.
Some even credit it from saving them from the covid super plague disease

[Geraje Guzba]

Details matter.

Lefties more or less shit all over the Gautret study in France (which had promising results) and many are now touting the Farkas study as proof positive, despite all of its *admitted* flaws, that hydroxychloroquine doesn't help in any way in the treatment of COVID-19 patients.

John is correct that the obsession of hydroxychloroquine has nothing any longer to do with science, and everything to do with the left clinging to any morsel of doubt, however shaky, to undermine Trump's "ridiculous" assertion that we have a drug available that *****may***** work.

It's insane.

[Gaear Grimsrud]

Yeah I know nothing about this drug or it's potential. But it's clear that a whole lot of chattering heads are invested in proving that it is of no value only because Trump suggested it. I think it wise to withhold judgement at this point.

[retiredfire]

It's not just that they want Trump to be proven wrong, it is that widespread use of this drug could shorten the time it takes for the brakes to be released on the economy, the slowing down of which was the entire point of hyping this latest seasonal flu as being civilization-ending. If the economy comes roaring back, their efforts, and the panic they have caused, will have been for nothing, just like their previous attempts to rid us of the bad orange man. Nothing is more important to the left.

[Brett Bellmore]

" the slowing down of which was the entire point of hyping this latest seasonal flu as being civilization-ending."

Look, I'm as open to claims of bad faith on the left as anybody, but basically the whole world has been treating this as being "civilization ending", so it's hard to blame that just on a desire to crash the economy going into the election so that Trump loses.

Might be one among many motives, but countries where that motive is utterly irrelevant have treated this as very serious, too.

[JesseAz]

You've gone full retard.

[Brett Bellmore]

I was reading about this stuff before Trump ever mentioned it. It was found effective against SARS back in 2005, which is why anybody thought to try it on Covid-19 in the first place.

But as soon as he mentioned it, a wide swath of people suddenly became absolutely convinced the stuff was horribly toxic and completely useless. Because Trump mentioned it favorably!

[Don't look at me!]

Where they using Chinese manufactured drugs? No wonder it didn’t work.

[Set Us Up The Chipper]

Besides, the Bad Orange Man didn't say it WOULD work. He said it would POTENTIALLY work with all sorts of caveats...that were roundly ignored.

[Nonstopdrivel]

I wouldn't say the side effects are rare, exactly, but they are annoying. Diarrhea is probably the most common one, and it was the largest impediment to compliance we faced with soldiers in Iraq. It's not going to kill you, but it can make you pretty miserable for a while.

[Ron]

A little diarrhea or the chance to recover from the drowning effects of Covid-19, I'll take the chance of diarrhea.

[Nonstopdrivel]

Sure. But try convincing a soldier to grapple with diarrhea for the entirety of a 12- to 18-month deployment. Good luck with that.

In the interest of full disclosure: I was one of the medics handing the bottles out, and I never took the stuff myself. Then again, growing up in Wisconsin, I used to get bitten by more mosquitoes in a single afternoon than I got bitten by over the course of my two years in southern Iraq combined, so I took what I considered to be a calculated risk -- a remote chance of malaria over a very real chance of dehydration and electrolyte imbalances. I doubt I was the only one. I'm also not saying it was necessarily the right decision.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

Sure. But try convincing a soldier to grapple with diarrhea for the entirety of a 12- to 18-month deployment. Good luck with that.

To be fair, that's pretty common just from eating at our deployed locations' fine chow halls.

[Nonstopdrivel]

I must have been lucky, because with a few rare exceptions, I ate better in Iraq than I did stateside.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

"________ Squirts" was pretty common during all the ones I went on. You must have a gut of steel.

[Banh]

You know what is so funny..
If anyone watches TV at all, how many Pharma ads has America watched with the speed talking side effects following the drug pitch?
It's the last 1/3 of the commercial.

Side effects of HCQ???

[John C. Randolph]

I took plain old quinine daily for five years as a kid when I lived in Singapore and Indonesia. Hydroxychloroquine is less toxic than natural quinine. If I test positive for COVID-19, I'm not going to be reluctant to take it with zinc. -jcr

[GenoS]

You don't see the danger in a president touting something that is not proven? It's completely irresponsible.

[MJBinAL]

It does not hurt if administered properly.

Not to mention that nearly all claims of success for Hydroxychloroquine are when used with Azithromycin and/or zinc supplements. So this study says that hydroxychloroquine does not work by itself. What a surprise.

A better question is why do a study to prove something that has not been claimed?

[Ronald Bailey]

I: Unfortunately, other French researchers published a case study of 11 consecutive COVID-19 patients in which they dosed them using the hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin recipe from the original study and they report: We found no evidence of a strong antiviral activity or clinical benefit of the combination of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin for the treatment of our hospitalized patients with severe COVID-19. Ongoing randomized clinical trials with hydroxychloroquine should provide a definitive answer regarding the alleged efficacy of this combination and will assess its safety.
The original guys from Marseille have doubled down and claim to have reproduced their results. I hope they are right, but we won't know until the results of RCTs are reported in the next couple of months.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Perhaps Drs. Trump, Ingraham, Hannity, and Clinger should go back to school.

[Geraje Guzba]

Perhaps you should just pull the trigger. The taste of a gun in your mouth must become unpleasant, day after day, in a never ending cycle of doubt and manic resolve.

Be like Nike.

Just Do It.

[GenoS]

That's evil

[Shitlord of the Woodchippers]

You should definitely kill yourself arty. You are valueless garbage.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

I live to watch clingers get stomped in the culture war. It never gets old. Open wider, guys.

[Michael Ejercito]

Did you enjoy how the clingers got stomped at Oberlin College?

[GenoS]

Spoken like a true sociopath.

People have no value except for what they can produce as far as sociopaths are concerned.

[Brandybuck]

But Trump said this was a cure! Fake news! Fake news! Now where's my fish cleaner, I've come down with the sniffles.

[Nardz]

Chug the whole bottle

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

"The Libertarian Case for Chinese Medical Studies"

[BigGiveNotBigGov]

"But Trump said this was a cure!" Snake-oil hawkers have been trying to sell quinine concoctions as antivirals for at least a century and change. Laxative Bromo Quinine was the "Game Changer" of the 1918 flu. Trump Vitamins and Trump University, both defunct and entangled in massive fraud cases, should have served as adequate warnings.

[Shitlord of the Woodchippers]

Trump said it showed promise. How can your mind be so weak and feeble. You must just be jealous that Trump, and almost everyone, are better than you.

[MJBinAL]

Yes, it shows promise, when used with other medications in a cocktail. Nearly all claims of success for Hydroxychloroquine are when used with Azithromycin and/or zinc supplements. So this study says that hydroxychloroquine does not work by itself. What a surprise.

[Banh]

Why the hell are you bothering with a study based in China? Do you expect reliable info, or are you seeking anti-Trump results to bolster US media coverage?

Since "Reason" implies that you use "reason" in your publishing, try reaching out to the many doctors worldwide who are having wonderful results HCQ. Would that be too risky, to talk with people in the field who could direct you to actual patients who could give you testimonials after HCQ?

Made in China info is no better than Made in China product.
Right, Reason????

[Banh]

Such bullcrap coming from "Reason"..

[JesseAz]

Hey now. Reason still has chipper and brandy to suck their many cocks and offer nothing of value to the comment sections.

[MJBinAL]

Yes, if you haven't notices, Reason has been tilting more and more progressive for some time now. Just a little more work and they can merge with Salon and be done with it.

[BigGiveNotBigGov]

Snake-oil drummers are a plague of pandemics nearly as bad as the microbes. Like with Trump today, quinine derivatives were a favorite snake-oil during the 1918 Flu. Laxative Bromo Quinine, a dangerous and ineffective laxative and quinine mix, was as widely hawked then as has been hydroxychloroquine now.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

Yes, an off-patent medicine that's been used for decades is dangerous and ineffective. So ineffective, in fact, they give it to lupus patients, but only as a placebo while the "real" medicine does all the work.

[BigGiveNotBigGov]

Oh, I thought the point was avoiding C-19 snake-oil medicines and their drummers. If it's making random recommendations of other meds for other diseases, thanks for the lupus recommendation (an autoimmune, not viral disease); in the spirit of reciprocity, azelastine nasal spray is great for hayfever - I doubt, though, that it's any better than hydroxychlorquine for C-19 or Laxative Bromo Quinine for the flu.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

Your cite fell off about hydroxychloroquine being dangerous and ineffective.

[lap83]

Furthermore, it's Snake oil stolen from people who need that snake oil for its well-documented medical benefits!!!!!!

[MJBinAL]

Because we can't make any more!

[Nardz]

Fyck off and due, hihn

[Metazoan]

if it exerted any anti-viral activity then we might expect to see that effect here [at the late stage]

Why? If the real problem with Covid-19 is the inflammatory response to the viral load, wouldn't the clinical outcome be more dictated by antiviral activity early in the course of the disease? And could it be that antiviral activity appeared lower so late because in the control group, the immune system was already reducing viral load?

[Nonstopdrivel]

Has anyone proposed a plausible physiological mechanism by which hydroxychloroquine could ameliorate the course of SARS-CoV-2? If it's purely by means of an anti-inflammatory effect, why aren't we investigating the efficacy of other anti-inflammatory agents?

[Metazoan]

There are several. From what I have read, it's split into two potential avenues: antiviral and anti-inflammatory. In the first category, it apparently facilitates the entry of Zinc ions into cells, iirc, which might interfere with the viral RNA polymerase. It may also alter endosomal pH in a way that hinders viral escape.

Regarding the anti-inflammatory aspect, yes, I believe there are some off-label uses of RA drugs as well on critically ill patients. Apologies for lack of cites, feeling too lazy to look up links.

[Ronald Bailey]

Lots of speculation on that. Here's one to review. FWIW, the effect of both chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine on coronavirus were tested by Chinese researchers on green monkey cells in vitro.

[Nonstopdrivel]

Yeah, and THC kills cancer cells in vitro too. It's a huge leap to go from killing things in vitro to having a safe and effective therapeutic agent in vivo. But thanks for the papers; I've downloaded them to read later tonight.

In the meantime, I just want to state that I have made the decision always to use the term SARS-CoV-2 and not the absurd disease name ending in a date. I cannot think of another disease that has a date in the name, and I think it sets a bad precedent. Medical students are already subject to an absurd amount of rote memorization. It's bad enough that they have to memorize the differences between hepatitis A, B, and C or human herpesvirus- 1, -2, -3, -4, -5, -6, -7, and -8. If this becomes the norm, now they're going to have to sit around memorizing what years various strains of viruses emerged -- and all for the sake of some misguided sense of political correctness?

No. Unless my superiors force me to write otherwise, for me its SARS-CoV-2. As a clinician, it tells you everything you need to know at a glance. The year it was discovered is beside the point.

[Jeb Kerman]

I thought I read that the virus is named SARS-CoV-2 and L or S depending on the strain. Remember when had descriptive names for diseases? Polio, mostly a children's disease, doesn't sound too bad.. Chicken Pox, who's afraid of a chicken? Herpes... almost sounds like some sort of fairy. Ebola, isn't that a game played with a ball and pins? Then again there is Black Plague caused by the Yersinia Pestis bacteria. It just sounds nasty. Gonorrhea, yuck. It is caused by the Neisseria gonorrhoeae bacteria. Just from the sound of it, (necessary goner) you don't want it. We need a better name for this thing. Something descriptive, like the XiPoohFlu. Sounds like a crappy thing to get. WuhanWhoopsyCough sounds like it would be a mistake to release that into the wild. I think my favorite might be the RawBatShits. Totally nasty sounding and describes how crazy the reaction to this has been.

[Jeb Kerman]

Well rats.. all my tag marks got removed during the posting of this... Still learning the rules here. Please read all but the second sentence in a George Carlin voice. I think I'll queue up the 7 dirty words skit next.

[chemjeff radical individualist]

And, right on cue, we have Trump's defenders here to pick nits in this study in order to try to prove that Dr. Trump was right all along.

"Pushing an unverified treatment onto desperate sick people in order to pwn the libs!"

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

And right on cue, we have chemtard here with his special pleading to justify his opportunisitic anti-Trumpism, accepting an incomplete medical study from a lying-ass country, despite plenty of reports that hydroxychloroquine + a Z-pack + zinc has helped people recover through off-label use. Better let Cuomo and Whitless know about its ineffectiveness, since they finally caved and allowed it to be used for off-label treatment again.

[chemjeff radical individualist]

Science is science. Sorry not sorry if that is disappointing to you.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

Yeah, the same Science! that ramped back its resource projection needs by up to 84% and then hid the data.

[chemjeff radical individualist]

Much better to go with anecdotes. I'm sure that will save plenty of lives.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

Yes, I'm sure small sample studies that confirm your own bias are much more valid.

[JesseAz]

You failed out of science didnt you? Why you put so much uncritical faith in without realizing discourse is the heart of science. You should go look up the replication failure crisis going on right now dummy.

[R Mac]

The scientists is settled! -Lying Jeffy

[Shitlord of the Woodchippers]

And a pedophile is a pedophile, right Jeffy? Why do you even come here? You’re a bad punchline o a pathetic joke. You’re also a child rape enthusiast.

[Geraje Guzba]

Picking nits? "The study has major limitations, for example: Lack of blinding or placebo control. Performance of the study by a contract research organization, rather than directly by the investigators. Early termination due to recruitment problems and the impression of benefit (which may have led to under-powering). Relatively long delay between symptom onset and treatment initiation (16-17 days)." This is literally from the study itself. These are the same types of "nits" that opponents of hydroxychloroquine picked in the earlier study by Gautret. But, now that the conclusion is one ***you*** like, we're picking nits. And all this time I thought it was about the science. Fuck off, you leftist cunt.

[R Mac]

Most of those words are to big for Lying Jeffy.

[MJBinAL]

Not to mention that nearly all claims of success for Hydroxychloroquine are when used with Azithromycin and/or zinc supplements. So this study says that hydroxychloroquine does not work by itself. What a surprise.

[Moderation4ever]

I have to agree with you here. Looking at the comments trying to find a reason to doubt the study because President Trump told them it works, it must work. The only real research President Trump is doing is throwing things at the wall to see what sticks.

[Geraje Guzba]

You don't have "try" very hard to find reasons to doubt the study. The doubts are literally in the study, freely admitted to by the people conducting the study. Delusional.

[Shitlord of the Woodchippers]

He can’t see past his hatred for Trump.

[MJBinAL]

Let's leave Trump out of it entirely.

I don't believe he is responsible for the small tests done in France, Brazil, NY, or LA that showed success with hydroxychloroquine when used with azithromycin and/or zinc supplements.

Nor do I think that Fauci, immediately after pointed out that the evidence for hydroxychloroquine was antidotal, said that if he got COVID-19, he would take it, was pandering to Trump either.

It disturbs me that it appears that many would LIKE Trump to be wrong, even if it means thousands of people die needlessly. It seems to me you should be hoping for the best for all the prospective medications.

Get over it, everything is not about Trump. Trump is not always right and not always wrong either. Lets just leave that aside and get on with it.

[JesseAz]

And right on queue we have jeff offering a comment with no value while those he accuses of trump defenders actually point to the flaws in the study with actual arguments. Keep up the sophistry Jeffrey, never change.

[Shitlord of the Woodchippers]

It would be poetic justice if a Jeffy were raped to death by some cartel thugs who also happened to be sexual predators.

[SIV]

"If'n TRUMP's fer it I'm agin' it"!

[Echospinner]

On another thread linked to a report of a study from researchers in France with similar results. No significant improvement or outcome in those treated with HCQ.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.10.20060699v1.full.pdf

I think by now a game changer would be obvious.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

Why did they not use it in conjunction with the Z-pack and zinc like Raoult, who had far better results?

[Echospinner]

Show me.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

"Chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine as available weapons to fight COVID-19." Reason won't let me post links, so I posted the title. It'll come up in a Google search. Incidentally, Macron just ordered actual trials, so if he thought the whole thing was bullshit, I doubt he'd bother with something like this.

[Echospinner]

You are allowed one link per post.

[JesseAz]

For some reason this site has also been disallowing some singe citations. Ibe had it happen a few times.

[doreen bazel]

I want to show you Sex in Basel for your own pleasure

[Echospinner]

You do know that docs have been dishing out Z pacs and zinc pills for undiagnosed upper respiratory infections for decades. By the time you start it until you finish out the week astonishingly almost all of them get better.

[James Anthony]

Dr. Josh Farkas wrote, "It seems prudent to restrict the use of hydroxychloroquine to randomized controlled studies for the time being."

This required Dr. Farkas to :
- Overlook safety in wide usage.
- Overlook in vitro evidence of viral clearance.
- Overlook clinical evidence on severely-diseased patients.
- Focus on small-scale evidence on mildly-diseased, likely recovering patients—part of the small quantity of evidence filtered for release by the exceptionally PR-driven Chinese government people, who are fighting Trump to change the narrative history of their massive failures here and in the past.
- Conclude that limiting patient knowledge and patient choice, and requiring some patients to receive inert placebos, is prudent.

Prudent for whom, and in what way? Many patients facing rapidly-progressing mortal illness would think it’s prudent for them to take widely-proven safe medicines that are also proven to clear this specific virus in vitro. Here, hydroxychloroquine; but for my own use, I would certainly also strongly consider ivermectin. Potentially in combination, since they work by independent mechanisms—hydroxychloroquine by interfering with virus reproduction, ivermectin by keeping the virus from interfering with immune response.
refs on mechanisms:
Coronavirus Epidemic Update 34: US Cases Surge, Chloroquine & Zinc Treatment Combo, Italy Lockdown
youtube .com/watch?v=U7F1cnWup9M
Coronavirus Pandemic Update 52: Ivermectin Treatment; Does COVID-19 Attack Hemoglobin?
youtube .com/watch?v=qc6VV7ue4cE&t=3s
And also considering that despite the widespread use of both hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin, they don’t have any known harmful interactions with each other.

Dr. Farkas’s conclusions are strong evidence of his bias against off-label prescribing despite a long, fruitful history of clinicians achieving otherwise unachievable results for patient health by prescribing off-label.

Ronald Bailey’s commentary about hydroxychloroquine yesterday and today are strong evidence of his same bias against off-label prescribing, at minimum.

[Echospinner]

And yet nobody has argued against off label prescribing nor against continued clinical trials investigating this and other drugs.

[NashTiger]

Didier Raoult did a study with 1,061 patients. There were no negatives associated with taking HCQ+a Zpack, and lots of confirmed positives

[Echospinner]

I would honestly like to see the study. The last published one I saw had a total of 46 patients including 16 controls, and six treated patients who were lost to follow up due early cessation of of treatment for various reasons including transfer to ICU. If you have something more recent would like to see it. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7102549/

[Autodidactarian]

https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2020/04/09/world/europe/09reuters-health-coronavirus-macron-doctor.html

[Echospinner]

Oh c’mon. A press news article? Who is this Macron guy? I want something with more meat in it. I asked for a study not the news.

[MJBinAL]

https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/19/french-study-finds-anti-malarial-and-antibiotic-combo-could-reduce-covid-19-duration/

[MJBinAL]

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0924857920300996

[chemjeff radical individualist]

The combination is associated with heart problems. https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/04/11/the-latest-hydroxychloroquine-data-as-of-april-11 The trouble comes in with the azithromycin combination. Like many antibiotics (although not amoxicillin), AZM is in fact tied to QT prolongation in some patients, so what happens when it’s given along with HCQ, which has the same problem? Worryingly, significant risks are identified for combination users of HCQ+AZM even in the short-term as proposed for COVID19 management, with a 15-20% increased risk of angina/chest pain and heart failure, and a two-fold risk of cardiovascular mortality in the first month of treatment.

[JesseAz]

From your link you dishonest fuck: "but notes that long-term HCQ dosing is indeed tied to increased cardiovascular mortality." Nobody is saying to keep these people on it forever.

[R Mac]

He can’t stop lying. I sometimes feel a little sorry for people like him and DOL (if they’re not the same person). I don’t think they even realize how dishonest they are, because they’ve probably been that way their whole life.

[Shitlord of the Woodchippers]

Indeed. The recommendation I’ve heard is a five day course of this drug cocktail. But then Jeffy is also ok with importing child rapists into the US too. By his own admission.

[Martin Cowen]

Your reporting disappoints me. You are, inadvertently I suppose, advancing the agenda of Trump Haters, BigPharma, the CDC, the FDA, K-Street lobbyists, all of whom need for HCQ treatment to fail. That which I want to know is whether Dr Vladimir (Zev) Zelenko protocol works. @Zev_Dr on Twitter. This study uses 3x Dr. Zelenko's hydroxychloroquine dose, fails to include Zinc (which is the active ingredient, fails to include the Z-Pak, and is started late. In my opinion, the recent rash of negative HCQ stories are trying to undermine the therapy for nefarious reason. Why use the wrong dose, for goodness sake?

[NOYB2]

You are, inadvertently I suppose, advancing the agenda of Trump Haters

You're wrong. Bailey is advancing this agenda quite deliberately.

[Shitlord of the Woodchippers]

My suspicion is that some democrats have their hands in an expensive alternative yet to come that will make them boatloads of cash. A cheap cocktail of two generics produced by multiple pharmaceutical producers and a common mineral supplement as an alternative will negate that cash grab. And nothing can ever reflect positively on Trump, no mare how many dead bodies the progs have to step over.

[Shitlord of the Woodchippers]

This might be proof of my theory.

https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2020/04/16/us/16reuters-health-coronavirus-gilead-sciences.html

Remdesivir’s patent dates are all within the last five years. So it hasn’t the potential for the ‘right people’ to reap billions from it.

[Anna]

"Most suffered relatively mild cases of the disease, and treatment was initiated fairly late—about 16 to 17 days after disease onset..." The effectiveness of treatments for viral infections is greatly affected by the time of the beginning of a treatment. Treating mild cases of the disease 16 -17 days after disease onset makes the entire study meaningless.

[PG23COLO]

Ronald Bailey should really stop pretending that he knows anything about science. Reporting on results from one low-quality trial in China, without considering other evidence from around the world, is irresponsible and exhibits a tremendous disrespect for medical research. Reporting one person's conclusions based on one inadequate study, is just lazy. Hopefully, most doctors treating Covid-19 patients are not so lazy.

[Geraje Guzba]

Reason needs him to print the daily TDS. Naturally, he does.

[Silence Dogoode]

So, the Chinese who lied about the start of the Wuhan virus, should now be believed. The China that steals patents and technology, should be believed. The China that lies about imprisoning people and harvesting their organs, should be believed. The China that manipulates its currency, should be believed. I know that I should be doubtful of my own government (USA), but I sure that heck know that believing Communist governments is a really bad idea.

[Doug]

OK, so let me get this straight before I don't bother logging into this website or reading anymore articles because the credibility is fading fast. To being with I am a nurse and have worked in healthcare for over 35 years. What do we know: The Chinese shut down travel in their country long before we knew what was going on. This was an attempt to contain the virus after if likely was either inadvertently or intentionally released from the lab. Tedros with the WHO worked with the Chinese to keep the initial outbreak quiet. He went out on behalf of the Chinese "science" and said it wasn't transmissible between people when he knew it was. These things happened. Not conspiracy theories. Tedros went as far as rebuking Trump for even mentioning travel restrictions early on saying that wasn't the solution and we all need to work together. Let's establish some other little FACTS that this site seems to ignore. Bill Gates basically runs the WHO as one of it's top donors exceeding the money that some countries contribute including the UK. Bill Gates hand picked Tedros for that position because he knew that Tedros supported his ideas and was easily controlled. (the controlled part is speculative but Gates did select him). While Tedros is working to help China cover up this mess Bill Gates who keeps calling this a pandemic tells Tedros that the WHO needs to come out officially labeling this a pandemic. Tedros does not want to do so. Bill Gates makes a sizable donation to the WHO and the Pandemic is declared the next day. All of this is easily verified from very reputable sources. Takes less than a minute. It's putting it together that people struggle with. Gates primary mission is to have everyone immunized with special immunizations that have properties that can actually be read. This would provide proof of immunizations, stop identify theft etc. This is Gates goal. He wants globalism. He doesn't hide it. Enter Fauci who is also a Gates sycophant. The minute the drug is mentioned Fauci is right on it. No proof etc. Only problem is there was proof dating back to 2009 should anyone want to actually do some investigative journalism. A peer reviewed professional journal that very clearly stated that if there were a pandemic related to a coronavirus this medication should be immediately considered as an option for treatment. This was an ancillary finding from an unrelated study but it's a finding regardless. Fauci either knew about that study and ignored it which is dishonest or he had no idea which makes him incompetent in his role. Not interested in which but it's one or the other. Since Bill Gates wants and IMMUNIZATION the marching orders to Tedros and Fauci are to push the immunization narrative and downplay any therapeutics. And we are watching that play out right now. enter this article. The author does not actually do any investigative work. He reports the most promising news is from a corrupt communist regime that started this pandemic to begin with, lied about the virus in the beginning then tried to cover it up even suggesting it originated in the USA. A country that silenced the initial doctors that were claiming it was released from a lab, one of whom can't be located to this day. So when Tedros from the WHO under the direction of Bill Gates collaborates with the Chinese I would say you have the least reliable source of information, possibly on the planet. That's not only sloppy journalism but it's intellectually dishonest and borders on pushing propaganda on behalf of these clowns that have been playing the American public since this began. I can also tell you that the comments Trump made about the drug were spot on. Likely many people are lucky to have received it. Let's wait and see what the long term studies show from a reputable source before we start screaming on behalf of the Chinese government, the WHO and Bill Gates that we need to focus on a vaccine and not therapeutics. A vaccine for a strain of virus that we have yet to be successful in any of it's other previous forms and based on altering the dna which has never succeeded in any vaccine ever. Yeah, I'm sure that will be ready in 18 months right after the vaccine for AIDS that Fauci was instrumental on insisting was the most important course to pursue. Gee wonder how many died over the years because of that advice and direction. In addition the "side effects" of this drug are very rare and the cardiac side effect is associated with hundreds of other drugs that are taken every single day right down to potassium tablets. So lets stop taking rare side effects and pushing them out of proportion to reality. It' cheap, easy to make, appears to be effective and has little side effects. And yes it is FDA approved as Trump said. In addition to sloppy reporting there are people that may actually make a decision as to if they should take this drug based on this information. That's where responsible journalism comes in. Because this isn't responsible journalism. I hope that nobody decided against this drug after reading this article that used a discredited source as the foundation of the story. And if this was just a long narrative to support the underlying notion that Trump was wrong about the drug that would be almost criminally negligent.

[Jeb Kerman]

Wow. Dude. Cliff notes please. Hard to read that wall-o-text there buddy. From the gist I think you are looking for a site where they publish news or a specific brand of commentary. Reason is neither. Reason is radical commentary designed to provoke dialog. In this case, they are repeating Chinese propaganda. The gold is in the comments.

[Azathoth!!]

This 'study' is useless. The treatment regimen is hydroxychloroquine+Z-pack sometimes with zinc. It is not, and has never been, just hydroxychloroquine. So what is the point of this study? A headline that reads 'hydroxychloroquine doesn't work' . And that's all. Because it is far better that ORANGE MAN BAD than saving lives.

[John C. Randolph]

So what is the point of this study? Well, if you're running a communist regime, and you're coming under pressure for your abject incompetence in managing a public health crisis, you might want to get other countries to shun an effective treatment so that you can obtain it at lower cost. Not saying that's what they're up to, but I wouldn't put anything past a regime that's killed about 77 million of their own people over their history. -jcr

[Sanjose Mike]

Azathoth: You are correct. Any researcher of this virus should understand the concept of an "ionophore." HCQ is an ionophore that "escorts" zinc into the cell, where it acts and does NOT allow the RNA strands of the virus to replicate. Any "researcher" who does not understand the concept of ionophores is....well....an idiot. Ionophores are also used to direct Copper into cancer cells. This is sometimes used for prostate cancer. It is unfortunate that media does not understand these issues. However, I'm GLAD you do! Sanjosemike (no longer in CA) retired surgeon

[Shitlord of the Woodchippers]

What you just said would be pops and buzzes to what oases for a ‘journalist’ these days.

[Azathoth!!]

What is unfortunate is that they actually DO understand this and STILL put out this misleading article.

And Ron should know better.

[MJBinAL]

Yep, kinda like a study saying TIRES ARE USELESS, because they tested them without wheels.

[ahmedfathy]

https://msd-norge-as.com/

[IceTrey]

Xi should be tried for crimes against humanity.

[Shitlord of the Woodchippers]

If he fucks up enough, his own government will kill him.

[mjs_28s]

What I saw in this article and the linked Chinese study was, less I missed it, they used only hydroxychloroquine. The hydroxychloroquine therapy that has ok results is a two drug combo and the best results are from a three compound combination, hydroxychloroquine with azithromycin and zinc sulfate. It is already known that zinc by itself in the cells disrupts the RNA replication process and it is also known that zinc, when in the body is a positive ion and doesn't get into cells. HQ, however, changes things and zinc is then able to cross the cell membrane. How about they just keep testing the three compound combination and not just the single drug on its own? ground chocolate on its own is terrible so then I guess we should never mix it with milk and sugar to make chocolate milk, right?

[Sanjose Mike]

I am not clear on if the HCQ was used with zinc. Hydroxychloroquine is what is called an "ionophore." This is a class of medications that assists certain chemicals into the cell. Most of the studies that demonstrate effectiveness use zinc. HCQ allows the zinc to go into the cell, where it directly attacks the virus and does NOT allow it to replicate. Zinc's antiviral properties are well known. Any researcher using the HCQ without the zinc does not really understand the pathogenesis of this organism. I wonder why they are unaware of it? It makes no sense. Sanjosemike (no longer in CA) retired surgeon

[NOYB2]

"The best available evidence does not support the use of hydroxychloroquine in COVID-19." ... and Ronald Bailey is rejoicing that we still don't have a treatment for COVID-19 and that he can smirk about Trump being wrong. Because that's the kind of guy Ronald is!

[MichaelBNeff]

Please don't be upset:

And btw, here is a more comprehensive and very accurate source on the current state of cure testing:

https://pmj.bmj.com/content/early/2020/04/15/postgradmedj-2020-137785.long?

[dangfitz]

WTH?!? "It seems prudent to restrict the use of hydroxychloroquine to randomized controlled studies for the time being." He does acknowledge that future studies in which COVID-19 patients are treated earlier in the course of their infections may yet find that hydroxychloroquine offers some therapeutic benefits. Fingers crossed. Becasue this flawed study was inconclusive, we should "restrict" the use? I hope he means that he advises my Doctor and I to "restrict" ourselves voluntarily, and not to pass more drug laws.

[LockeanProviso]

Not sure why Trump is relevant to this issue. But I agree with criticism that this study is hardly conclusive and people who are at risk must reckon with a calculus that does not have the luxury of time and perfect information. But I also doubt there is a magic silver bullet here. Older people with less effective immune systems are more at risk. So drugs that might counter or slightly reverse aging should be considered such as low dose rapamycin, NAD boosters etc.

[retiredfire]

To the left, Trump is relevant to their entire existence. He lives 24/7 in their heads. Anything to try to lessen is success, regardless of the truth, is allowed. "The ends justify the means". "By any means necessary".

[Doug Sterling]

There are more questions than answers in this study. Did the patients also receive zinc with the hydroxychloroquine? Were the patients also receiving high-dose vitamin C therapy? In Shanghai they might be. It could well be that this study was designed to fail. There are unfortunately a lot of those. The pharmaceutical business isn't primarily about curing people, it is about making money off of illness. And there isn't much money to be made off of hydroxychloroquine.

[David Peters]

And you believe the Chinese, who have lied from the get-go? There are too many reports of successful treatments using hydroxychloroquine, especially with zinc for you to accept at face value such a disingenuous finding.

[Fk_Censorship]

You had me at “Chinese study”.

[Tionico]

patients were dosed with the combination hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin. THIS COMBINATION is what worked like crazy in South Korea, and I think it was Spain? where similar successes were observed. Also there was that doc in NYC that cured a whole bunch of folks using the HCQ along with the Azithro.... AND zinc supplements were also used in all three large scale successes. Makes me wonder which big pharma corp had a hand in this "study" in how to rig a "test" to prove what you had decided all along. Don't forget, the pharmaceutical companies can't make bank on CHQ cause the patents are long run out. They are ALL pushing for vaccines, on which they make $Bns every year. Of CHQ actually works, even in combination, who will pay the money for their needles? This study is rotten anyway.. who had what was known, it was not double bind placebo controlled, they started WAY too late, they knowlingly (or grossly ignorantly) used the drug solo.... Wast of words to try and rig a foregone conclusion.

[Inigo Montoya]

Oops, I posted before reading your comment. Well said, Tionico. And good to raise the question of whether they knowingly screwed up the study design by changing all the parameters from studies that previously showed promise.

[Website Designing Company]

Hydroxychloroquine medicine is a very important dose for Corona Virus patients.

[Inigo Montoya]

I thought the theorized method of action for hydroxychloroquine was that it facilitates the entry of zinc, which in turn obstructs the ability of the virus to reproduce by taking over cellular machinery. As such, one would expect it to be administered early on after infection, not when the virus has already had ample time to reproduce itself and infect many cells. Also, it would stand to reason that it would be administered with supplemental zinc—presumably in a chelated form for rapid absorption in the gut. Sounds to me like the study was poorly designed and set up by people who had no inkling how this drug is theorized to work in COVID-19.

[Sylvie1]

According to the trials conducted in France, the best use of hydroxychoroquine is to combine it with azithromycin. This combination was a last resort for a distant friend of mine who nearly died of COVID-19; he was lucky to be able to get the drugs at all, but he recovered. Which is anecdotal, but the trials are not, despite what Dr. Fauci says.

[beaker55]

"He does acknowledge that future studies in which COVID-19 patients are treated earlier in the course of their infections may yet find that hydroxychloroquine offers some therapeutic benefits. Fingers crossed."

1) Dr. Farkas' study appears to be as "anecdotal" as the number of M.D.'s reporting nearly 100% therapeutic success when their patients are treated early.

2) Farkas' own admission above and the dozens of Doctors reporting therapeutic success using hydroxychloroquine virtually invalidates Farkas' "study" and renders this article a waste of white space; a burgeoning phenomenon at Reason.

[SmartWino]

Completely agree w/Montoya. Bailey dropped the ball here and should be embarrassed. Anyone who has done *any* research on HCQS and COVID-19 knows it needs to given as soon as possible, not 17 days into the infection! (What kind of sick joke is this?) It also requires zinc, and an antibiotic to help prevent pulmonary scarring from iron oxidation.

"Anything to destroy Trump" will literally kill people.

[MichaelBNeff]

And btw, here is a more comprehensive and very accurate source on the current state of cure testing:

https://pmj.bmj.com/content/early/2020/04/15/postgradmedj-2020-137785.long?

[Dyzalot]

Interview with Dr. Robin Armstrong here who just concluded a "phase 2" trial with hydroxychloroquine in a nursing home with apparently 100% success. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQYFR5AAPXE

[MichaelBNeff]

And btw, here is a more comprehensive and very accurate source on the current state of cure testing:

https://pmj.bmj.com/content/early/2020/04/15/postgradmedj-2020-137785.long?

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[MichaelBNeff]

The study as reported by Yale and referenced by this Farkas (who is out of his territory) clearly states that the drug did alleviate symptoms in a meaningful way compared to the SOC, standard care, group who did not receive it. If symptoms of a disease can be alleviated in people who are seriously ill, then perhaps more might survive. I'm sorry if I'm repeating what has already been said.

And btw, here is a more comprehensive and very accurate source on the current state of cure testing:

https://pmj.bmj.com/content/early/2020/04/15/postgradmedj-2020-137785.long?

The above invalidates this article in general and Farkas specifically.

[Sylvie1]

I am very glad your acquaintance, like mine, has recovered. I am glad to hear of any and all recoveries. I'm in rural Maine, I work remotely anyway, and my life is probably as little disrupted as anyone's on the planet now. Just self-published my second novel on Amazon last week.

[Echospinner]

Thanks for the link.

The one you gave links to an abstract published online from Raoult. There does not seem to be any control group and the outcomes seem to overlap with others not treated with the same regimen reported elsewhere so much more data needed. Presumably they will issue a more formal report.

There is nothing wrong with empirical methodology. So long as the limitations are understood.

Hopefully in the coming weeks we will better understand what works and what does not.

[Shitlord of the Woodchippers]

But since Trump said it showed ‘promise’ The left decided to fight against it at every opportunity. Dead bodies are ok if they help keep him getting re-elected.

[MJBinAL]

Wow, they actually HAVE done a stolen version of remdesiver that they have used in China and have the gall to apply for a patent on their identical product! They named it, (you just can't make this stuff up!) "Remdesider"!