Hydroxychloroquine and Chloroquine Increase COVID-19 Patients' Risk of Death, Says New Study
The World Health Organization pauses clinical trials in light of disturbing new results.
"We're going to defeat the invisible enemy. I think we're going to do it even faster than we thought. And it will be a complete victory. It'll be a total victory," declared President Trump at the White House coronavirus task force press briefing on March 18. He hinted that a second news conference in the next day or so would feature "some potentially very exciting news…having to do with the FDA."
A day later the president asserted that the malaria and arthritis drugs chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine had "shown very encouraging—very, very encouraging early results" in treating COVID-19. The president also praised the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for moving quickly, saying that drugs have "gone through the approval process; it's been approved." Consequently, Trump added, "we're going to be able to make that drug available almost immediately." He suggested that using the drugs to treat patients suffering from COVID-19 could be "a tremendous breakthrough" and "a game changer."
On March 28, the FDA issued an emergency use authorization allowing hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine to be distributed and used to treat certain hospitalized patients with COVID-19. A month later, the agency warned about heart rhythm problems and noted that "hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine have not been shown to be safe and effective for treating or preventing COVID-19." Nevertheless, Trump let slip on May 19 that he was personally taking hydroxychloroquine as a coronavirus preventative treatment. Yesterday, the president said that he has just finished his hydroxychloroquine and zinc treatment regimen.
Sadly, accumulating scientific evidence is ever more strongly indicating that the president's hopes for chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine as breakthrough treatments for COVID-19 are not being borne out.
The latest blow to those hopes was a huge observational study published last Friday by researchers in The Lancet. Researchers assessed nearly 100,000 COVID-19 patients from 671 hospitals on six continents with about two-thirds of the patients hailing from North America. They compared those being treated with chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine alone or in combination with the antibiotics azithromycin or clarithromycin with a cohort of patients who did not take those drugs.
The researchers controlled for multiple confounding factors such as age, sex, race or ethnicity, body-mass index, underlying cardiovascular disease and its risk factors, diabetes, underlying lung disease, smoking, immunosuppressed condition, and baseline disease severity.
Ultimately, they found that for patients treated with hydroxychloroquine, there was a 34 percent increase in risk of death and a 137 percent increase of risk for a serious heart arrhythmia compared to those patients not taking the drugs. The risk of death and heart arrhythmia increased to 45 percent and 411 percent, respectively, for those treated with hydroxychloroquine and an antibiotic. Being treated with chloroquine alone resulted in a 37 percent increased risk of death and a 256 percent increased risk of serious heart arrhythmia. There was also a 37 percent increased risk of death among patients taking both chloroquine and antibiotic. That combination slightly boosted the risk of serious heart arrhythmia to 301 percent.
In the wake of the increased mortality and heart arrhythmia risks reported in The Lancet study, the World Health Organization has decided to pause the ongoing randomized controlled trials using hydroxychloroquine that it is overseeing. Patients in those trials who are currently being treated with the drug will continue to receive it until they have finished their courses of treatment. The agency will evaluate the data so far collected from the trials and plans to issue an evaluation by mid-June of the evidence for harm, benefit, or lack of benefit from using hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19.
The best way to nail down the therapeutic risks and benefits of drugs is through randomized double blind placebo controlled clinical trials in which patients are randomly assigned to either the treatment group or the placebo group. Neither the researchers nor the participants know to which group individual patients have been assigned. In mid-May, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases announced that it is sponsoring a randomized control trial to evaluate the efficacy of the combination of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin in treating COVID-19 patients. Preliminary results from that trial are not expected until some time in October. No news yet on whether the agency will continue with the trial in light of The Lancet results.
Perhaps hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine in some combination will still turn out to be a game changer helping to lead to total victory against COVID-19, but that happy outcome is looking ever less likely.
UPDATE: Three of the study's authors retracted it from The Lancet on June 4 because they were unable to complete an independent audit of the data underpinning their analysis and therefore "can no longer vouch for the veracity of the primary data sources." Read more about it here.
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The same WHOdunnit that totally believed the Chinese communist government back in December and January.
I’d wait for the real studies.
It’d be a little harder to fuck up a simple comparison of existing tests. How much of this data is public, that’s the question. If 2/3 is from North America, presumably any from China can be discarded as unreliable without affecting the comparisons too much.
It’s quite easy to bullshit with a meta-study on observational data, while the WHO has *demonstrably* been making #CCPBiologicalWarfare more effective.
To treat the WHO as a credible source is further collaboration.
If the data is public, and from reliable sources (which China is not), even WHO will have a hard time fucking up the analysis.
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The study is on people hospitalized.
HCQ is supposed to function as an antiviral, making it more effective the earlier it is given, and not very effective when the infection is full blown. If you’re in a hospital, the infection has already gone a long way. Preferably, you take it *before* infection, as the Very Stable Genius was taking it.
It’s very possible that HCQ has a negative effect on mortality when given to people who are at death’s door with full blown infections. Then duh, don’t take it then.
This is a general problem with medical reporting. It gets reported as “Medicine X increases risks” without the context in which the risk is evaluated. Dosage matters. Timing matters. Population matters. Context matters.
HCQ is on the World Health Organization’s List of Essential Medicines, the safest and most effective medicines needed in a health system. (Wikipedia). It has been used by millions for decades. The QT elongation has been a known issue. Has the WHO been killing people for decades with HCQ? The WHO has an older report saying that despite the QT issue, they weren’t any known deaths caused by HCQ.
But all of a sudden, HCQ is murderous. And maybe so. Maybe it has always been. But the 180 degree turn should give us pause.
The *result* of the new WHO “finding” is a rationalization for the WHO shutting down their randomized trials on HCQ. If you think the WHO is collaborating with #CCPBiologicalWarfare, this points to the effectiveness of HCQ as a treatment. If you just put it down to incompetence, there’s no reason to take the work of incompetents as useful guidance on HCQ.
If you believe that they *were* incompetent when they recommended HCQ before, and *were* incompetent when they pushed #CCP propaganda earlier this year, but *now* they’re totally competent and we should trust this study, you should definitely give that Nigerian Prince your bank account number so he can deposit his kingdom’s riches to your account.
Apparently covid19 is neither flu nor malaria. Whodathunkit? Maybe we can pretend it is 1000 other diseases that it is not and try the treatments for those
Again proving JFree has no fucking understanding of how pathogens work.
So what is JFree wrong about?
Coronaviruses aren’t influenza viruses, and they’re not malarial parasites. That’s not controversial outside of fringe foolishness.
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THANK YOU. It was recommended as a prophylactic before this. The fact that governors are forbidding it from being used, and the media has been dead set against it, are an extension of TDS and not any medical data. Three months ago they were telling us to stay indoors, now people are getting sick indoors. Try again,Reason. Your bias is showing.
The fact that we’re not *free* to choose for ourselves what medicine and medical services we’d like to purchase, and from whom, should enrage all libertarians.
Curious how this obvious point continues to elude Reason.
It’s almost like corporate profits are more important than individual freedom to Reason.
Well said!
Well said
HCQ is also a zinc ionophore which aids cell absorption of zinc which has been proven beneficial. That was the original theory why it was working. So any study that only does HCQ with possibly an antibiotic, with people already at deaths door, are meaningless.
I keep hearing about world leaders and hospital staff taking the treatment observing benefits. These studies appear to be more political than anything. Mixing politics with science is idiotic.
A double blind study could be set up and implemented with random subjects in about an hour to see.
Don’t even need a new trial. Just collect the data on people *already* taking HCQ for other conditions, and see how they’re doing with corona.
There was a prospective study in Italy like that.
Why don’t we see this data in the US? Across the world? It’s not like they don’t track prescription use in the US.
If we don’t have such studies, it’s because they don’t want us to know.
The *real* study that matters is seeing how many doctors, free to self prescribe, are using it for themselves. Even with their doctrinal aversion to using “unproven” treatments, seems like a lot of them are using it.
Yeah, and Zinc.
And if people were sensible, D3, C, and other stuff. All preventive.
Probably ivermectin once it’s clear you’ve got it. Reports are that it can still be effective later in the course of the infection.
When the news first came of this as a possible treatment it was a reputable French doctor. When Trump mentioned that study it was quackery. Most all that has come from WHO has been garbage.
I’m with you, need to see a real study.
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The Democrats are the party of Jim Crow, the KKK, filibustering the Civil Rights Act, encouraging men to walk into women’s bathrooms if they’re “feeling feminine” that day. Also, YOU are the party of completely and utterly ignoring the reality of radical Islamic terrorists performing clitorectomies on 15-year-old girls, terrorist decapitation and torture, etc. Shall I continue? I can go on for HOURS.
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It doesn’t matter if the doctor is “reputable”, it matters if there was viable study, and in the case of the original claims from France, there simply wasn’t a viable study.
Ron Bailey has been right less often than Trump.
Ouch, that’s gotta hurt
Nardz has been right even less often, judging by his undocumented assertions.
Where do all you clowns come from?
Learn to spout something useful. try a few citations for instance.
Cite?
The funniest thing is alphabet dude thinking he has any credibility left… and then using it to bitch about criticism of Ron Bailey’s complete self-immolation over the last month
Good one retarded keyboard mashing person. Just tell him “back to you and more of it.”
And here I thought it couldn’t get any stupider (it’s a word, you fucking lemming) than what’s presented to us by sqrlsy.
Also, you have no right to incredulously ask where anyone comes from – it’s not like knowing something has ever been used to your advantage.
Please, at least think about killing yourself.
The problem is that most of the places doing the real studies are studiously avoiding the protocol that has actually seemed to work. Why, you’d almost suspect the drug companies weren’t eager to fund research showing an out of patent drug was useful!
My doctor said that Hydroxy taken for malaria
is once a week,when given for Wuhan Flu is once
or twice a day-I’d say they had just better reduce
the dose and that may solve the problem.
The conflicting of chloroquine and HCQ in any report is a red flag. HCQ taken for rheumatoid arthritis is 200-400 mg/day for years. Years! Millions of patients worldwide, prone to inflammatory conditions, have been taking this drug, and not dropping dead from cardiac events. There can be long-term retinal toxicity as s function of total lifetime dose. A one- month course doesn’t even approach significance.
Conflating not conflicting.
Yep.
When they spend all day answering *the wrong question*, that’s how you know the obfuscation is intentional.
Especially when the answer to the *right* question would be trivial to find.
A 65,000 retrospective study of Italian lupus and rheumatoid arthritis patients taking #Hydroxychloroquine.
Only 20 got the virus. No ICU stays. No Deaths.
https://www.iltempo.it/salute/2020/04/28/news/coronavirus-farmaci-efficaci-news-danni-cura-annalisa-chiusolo-artrite-terapia-idrossiclorochina-sars-cov2-1321227/
If *our* medical #DeepState weren’t corrupt vermin trying to kill us, they’d see how the *chronic* users of HCQ are doing.
How many are having their hearts explode?
How many are getting the corona? What does their distribution of outcomes look like?
It’s trivial.
That they haven’t done it tells you about their intentions.
How many children have died of dihydrogen monoxide (DHMO) poisoning because Michelle Obama had to ban chocolate milk in schools?
Penn and Teller once did a phony petition drive at an Ivy League college to force the abolition of the commercial use of dihydrogen monoxide because ‘it kills if too much is taken into the body, it can cause respiratory distress if too much is present, and it causes metals to corrode.’ Got just about everyone they asked to sign.
Then they went on with a petition to ‘end women’s suffrage.’ Because women suffering is awful.
Our best and brightest can be fooled this easily? Sounds like fake news to me. Also, please don’t make light of women suffraging. I have to watch my wife suffrage constantly, seemingly ever since I’ve known her. It’s heartbreaking.
Oddly it’s men that are suffering from women’s suffrage.
“Then they went on with a petition to ‘end women’s suffrage.’ ”
They should give Coulter a call.
Well said!
Quinine, derivatives, and now synthetics are the perpetual favorites of snake-oil salesmen, like Trump. In the 1889 pandemic it was quinine. In the 1918 pandemic it was Laxative Bromo Quinine. In today’s pandemic it is hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine.
A gin and tonic always makes me feel better. #QuinineCure
Quinine and its derivatives have protected hundreds of millions from malaria.
DERP!! It is still used, and used extensively. You should read something other than an MSNBC blog before posting.
Nothing about zinc?
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https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-valency-of-zinc
Zinc + the other drugs. Nothing here about the combo.
In relation to the fucking article shiteater.
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Stuff And Stuff
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Well at least half the patients were sticking stainless steel spoons up their nose so the zinc would directly contact the upper respiratory cells. Maybe it’s the wrong form of zinc. They need to try inhaling oysters instead.
Zinc is over the counter, so they couldn’t show *that* being part of treatment and prevention. People might get the wacky idea that they don’t need to be purchasing their health from the rent-seeking medical mafia.
Applies Double Plus to Vitamin D. Have you noticed the articles denouncing the dangers of Vitamin D springing up lately? Tells you that Vitamin D is over the target.
HCQ IS about zinc. HCQ functions as a zinc inonosphore, that is, it facilitates the transfer of zinc ions across the cell membrane.
//In our analysis, which was dominated by patients from North America, we noted that higher BMI emerged as a risk marker for worse in-hospital survival. Obesity is a known risk factor for cardiac arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death//
And:
//Thus, the presence of cardiovascular comorbidity in the study population could partially explain the observed risk of increased cardiovascular toxicity with the use of chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine, especially when used in combination with macrolides.//
And, as for the bullshit clickbait headline:
//The association of decreased survival with hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine treatment regimens should be interpreted cautiously. Due to the observational study design, we cannot exclude the possibility of unmeasured confounding factors, although we have reassuringly noted consistency between the primary analysis and the propensity score matched analyses.//
I find it ridiculous that Bailey always manages to pump out conclusions that even people conducting the studies don’t come to.
//Nevertheless, a cause-and-effect relationship between drug therapy and survival should not be inferred. //
My proposed alternative headline:
“Fat fucks are at increased chance of dying from COVID-19, and everything else.”
This entire article is a blow to human intelligence.
I dunno, there’s two different places in the summary where they point out that there’s seemingly no benefits conveyed and that there are some risk factors. They couch their conclusions with a bit more uncertainty because that’s the way to handle large studies, but they do say what Bailey is claiming they say.
That’s still not any reason to blame Trump specifically. He was reporting “promising” findings that people shared when they were promising, and there were actual doctors with medical degrees prescribing hydroxychloroquine (in combination with other drugs) as a treatment. Him simply sharing the existence of a possible treatment doesn’t make him culpable if it turns out the drug isn’t all that great.
Of course, if the data bears out (I haven’t dived into the raw data myself), it’s extremely unlikely that he’ll acknowledge it. At that point we’ll have a solid critique of him, that he’s refusing to acknowledge the possibility that something he suggested may later to turn out to be inaccurate.
I have no idea how you can reconcile:
“[A] cause-and-effect relationship between drug therapy and survival should not be inferred”
with
“Hydroxychloroquine and Chloroquine Increase COVID-19 Patients’ Risk of Death, Says New Study.”
I just don’t see how the conclusion warrants the headline, at all. I think it is blatantly dishonest.
Okay, the wording of the headline may be a bit more uncertain than the study. But it also says, “..our findings suggest not only an absence of therapeutic benefit but also potential harm with the use of hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine drug regimens…”
So the harm is not certain or definite, but there does exist a correlation, and they didn’t find evidence of any benefit. They also said this:
“We found no evidence of benefit of hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine when used either alone or with a macrolide.”
With no discernable benefits and the possibility of risks, I think it’s fair to say this study comes down against the use of hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for COVID.
I don’t think the studies demonstrates anything of the sort, let alone that the drugs actually **increase** risk of death.
If causality cannot be established, which the study freely admits, then claiming the drugs increase risk of death is not accurate. You can parse the words however you wish, but the headline is not factually accurate and it is not supported by the study.
Fair enough. The results aren’t encouraging, but there does seem to be some jumping to conclusions about the negative results. Given the need to control for so many factors (age, sex, race, and comorbidities) it may be that the sample of 14,888 people receiving some variety of treatment is insufficiently confident.
I do think the lack of noticeable benefits when compared against the control population is significant, though.
Considering the effect advertised: that HCQ is killing people and the overlooked detail that 12% of the participants died (far more than your average/random COVID cohort), it wouldn’t surprise me at all to learn they did find a marked improvement from HCQ and buried it. Not to say that they knowingly contorted the results (but they actually kinda did) but it’s not at all clear they jumped through the same hoops to show a positive outcome that they jumped through to show a negative one.
Seems like instead of studying whether the drug works and under what conditions, the goal is to prove that the drug doesn’t work and, worse, that it actually kills people. In other words, they are approaching the problem with a preferred solution in mind, and then skewing the data and the studies accordingly.
One goal of testing any treatment is to determine whether it’s worse than nothing. Having read about this study elsewhere, and the study itself, it would seem there’s strong correlation (causation not shown, just correlation) between various forms of this proposed treatment, and worse outcomes.
“One goal of testing any treatment is to determine whether it’s worse than nothing.”
Which would require a clinical trial, with adequate controls. These observational studies are rigged, so to speak.
The WHO AND China HATE Trump, and that is why they unleashed this thing on the world to BEGIN with, so NEITHER can be trusted with ANYTHING.
Not going to bother with the study as most of these have been not worth the time… dod the studies input into the meta study deal with the infection at late stage or early infection? The drug was never meant to save people on ventilators. It was meant to reduce replication of the virus, or earlier stages. It wss labeled as preventative at early stages. Most of the failure studies focus on serious infections where virus replication is ready high and the patient is near death already.
It was meant to reduce replication of the virus, or earlier stages.
So iow, it can’t be tested in humans only in test tubes. And since test tubes can’t die, there is no possibility that this treatment can alter fatality rates either.
It wss labeled as preventative at early stages.
Funny how Trumpbots have never given a shit about anything preventive in healthcare – and still aren’t – except for Dr Donald’s Elixir. Not available in stores. But wait. If you order now, he’ll throw in 10 Ginsu knives and K-Tel’s Top Hits of the 1970’s. All for 19.99.
“Funny how Trumpbots have never given a shit about anything preventive in healthcare”
Never heard this one before. A for originality I guess.
And JFree again with the retarded take and clear demonstration of knowing absolutely nothing about the topic.
You could always test it in patients who have mild cases, just sayin.
Oh, and just because most people here don’t want to pay for your preventative medicine, that doesn’t mean we don’t believe in preventative medicine. Jesus Christ.
Also, not everyone who disagrees with you is a Trump supporter.
That study already excluded the more serious cases of people who are in ICU or who were diagnosed more than 48 hours previously or who were on a different treatment (remdesivir).
And you’re wrong. You really can’t test something as a medical preventive where the test group tests positive but either has no symptoms or has mild symptoms (pre-hospital). Because those sorts of groups are by definition not controllable enough to actually have a valid control group. At least not in any sort of reasonable timeframe.
And it is completely unethical to even try to do so when that same treatment shows verifiable and positively harmful effects once the situation deteriorates or is symptomatic enough to require hospitalization. That latter hypothesis would require THREE separate testing regimens – with the one in the middle designed to figure out exactly when to stop administering that particular regimen because it is has turned counter-productive.
And even more unethical when the drugs in question have already been panic hoarded so that they are no longer available to treat actual conditions for which they have proven to be effective (eg malaria and a couple auto-immune disorders).
The sort of shit you Trumpbots are trying to pull here is EXACTLY why the market is a rather crappy conductor of scientific experiments. Because it will latch on to something anecdotal that is profitable – and it will keep hyping that until it is no longer profitable. It is PROFITABLE to hoard said drug for rich people who are panicking about covid19 even when that drug is then not available for poorer people who will not be able to be treated for malaria. Indeed, that particular action is far MORE profitable than the alternative of not hoarding said drug because it dramatically increases the price without requiring any increase in production because the price is now out of reach for those who have malaria. It is Social Darwinism of the worst sort.
How the fuck is generic hydroxychloroquine profitable for anyone? It is cheap and widely available.
//It is PROFITABLE to hoard said drug for rich people who are panicking about covid19 even when that drug is then not available for poorer people who will not be able to be treated for malaria.//
You are so full of shit.
It increases their chance of the spiritual death that the world will face if Trump gets re-elected, which is more likely to happen if we find a cure for the chinavirus.
You have to be able to figure out how these moron’s think.
I saw those too, but the causality part is simply boilerplate they stick onto every observational study.
We do in fact infer causality from correlation *and other stuff*. See Judea Pearl for details.
And the data looked pretty good for it.
Being fat makes it more likely the rona gets ya, but w/o the rona, you’ll probably make it to the next Country Kitchen Buffet. The Rona is fatist. It’s true. But being fat isn’t sufficient, and even being fat on the Rona isn’t sufficient. The Rona will get people who aren’t fat too.
One confounder is that they just got better at treatment over time.
Another I suspect but am not clear on is whether they saw all infections in their study to “conclusion”. When we cut off the clock on the study, all the people we’re not sure about are dead, whereas the dead ones, we’re sure about.
Problem with all this stuff is *where is the data*? It should be publicly available. We can’t check their homework without them handing over the data they used.
The WHO is a great band ,but, I think their
medical knowledge is suspect. Oh, he means the
crony Chi Com loving idiots that were way behind the curve?
Or did they hide important information? I turst them and the U.N not.
We won’t get fooled again!
El ogro de las americas loves his corn syrup sugar water.
So WHO is going to shut down trials because they read a magazine article. That seems to be an odd way to “science”.
Proper science is regulated by the moderators of the r/science subreddit.
Occasionally, yes, it’s good to shut down human trials if it turns out that there’s bad results happening in the trial.
“So the National Public Health Service is shutting down the Tuskegee Experiment just because some journalist wrote a story in the Washington Star.”
Not that this makes the WHO necessarily right, but you can’t claim that it’s okay to continue experimenting in pursuit of science even if there are startling moral implications.
no more studies of a cure using existing non patented methods. We want a vaccine that must be taken every year at great expense and if you don’t take it you don’t get to work and we will take your children. Now do you understand we are only here to help you.
That’s exactly what is coming. And you’ll be tracked 24/7 so there will be no escape.
Anybody else remember clue? Where professor plum has a position in the WHO?
:
Miss Scarlet: I hardly think it will enhance your reputation at the U.N. Professor Plum, if it’s revealed that you have been implicated not only in adultery with one of your patients, but in her death and the deaths of five other people.
Professor Plum: You don’t know what kind of people they have at the U.N., I might go up in their estimation
Nobody thinks that’s cool reverend.
Having solved all the problems with COVID and the health problems incurred by the associated lockdown orders, the WHO *finally* gets to work on the highly contagious scourge that is chloroquine treatment.
At 45% increased risk of death, the drug looks about as bad as your average lockdown order. What we need is a policy to dose people who aren’t at risk of dying and have no chance of contracting the disease to really bring the positive outcome numbers up.
Mr. Bailey, can you verify that the researchers have no ties to Big Pharma and would, therefore, be less likely to skew results against a non-patented treatment that would deny mega-profits to their sponsors?
How about, no ties to the CCP, and not actively aiding #CCPBiologicalWarfare?
Dear Ron Bailey, respectfully, your headline is bogus. From the study:
“Our study has several limitations. The association of decreased survival with hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine treatment regimens should be interpreted cautiously. Due to the observational study design, we cannot exclude the possibility of unmeasured confounding factors, although we have reassuringly noted consistency between the primary analysis and the propensity score matched analyses. Nevertheless, a cause-and-effect relationship between drug therapy and survival should not be inferred.”
Your entire 7th paragraph is a) completely out of context and b) draws conclusions that the study doesn’t even suggest and specifically asks you not to draw. Can you see how disingenuous that is ? I know you read the comments, so I look forward to your reply.
I pointed out the same issues, above. One thing that is clear from reading Bailey’s articles is that he rarely, if ever, dives into the meat of the studies or trials he is reporting upon – especially when it comes to hydroxychloroquine.
The editors have clearly tasked him with taking a lead on perpetuating the entire “hydroxychloroquine kills people” meme, if only to be able to take the next step of claiming, in a subsequent article, that Trump is responsible for the deaths.
Bailey is a hack.
At least he has one person dumb enough to cheer lead for him in JFree.
I missed that. You said it better and took it a step further.
“The editors have clearly tasked him with taking a lead on perpetuating the entire “hydroxychloroquine kills people” meme, if only to be able to take the next step of claiming, in a subsequent article, that Trump is responsible for the deaths.
Bailey is a hack.”
Sure seems that way. The narrative in Bailey’s writing is painfully obvious.
I emailed Bailey a link to Didier Raoult’s well done study on HCQ + AZT. He acknowledged receipt, but never wrote about it.
But as soon as there is ANY negative study, Bailey will show up.
He is now on my list of untrustworthy writers.
Here is the article I sent Bailey a month ago. I also sent it to Thomas M. Burton and Jared S. Hopkins of the Wall Street Journal. All of them buried it. What else are they hiding from us?
2020-04-20: IHU Méditerranée Infection, Marseille, France: Early treatment of 1,061 COVID-19 patients with hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin (PDF)
Well done
As per usual, the journalism at Reason occurs in the Comments Section.
Imagine that. The World Health Organization, completely funded by vaccine makers, says a cheap simple cure that makes billions of dollars worth of vaccines unnecessary is dangerous. This in spite of the hundreds of doctors who have been curing people and taking it themselves. This is about as reliable as the original catastrophic models from the Imperial College London for which they received 80 million dollars from, you guessed it Bill Gates Foundation. I will be logging out of Reason.com forever.
You have to also add zinc.
And better tell Brazil; they are routinely using it for the virus treatment. And the many people in US taking it for lupus and severe arthritis. Millions around the world taking it for malaria prevention and treatment. You going to die due to heart issues
“You going to die due to heart issues”
Yeah, it’s impressive how they can push The Big Lie with a straight face. Last year HCQ was totally safe so fly off to Malaria Land and take a tub with you.
Today, it’s a world littered in hearts exploded by HCQ.
I’m having trouble reading this data as saying anything other than:
“Long time anti-malaria and arthritis drug deadlier than COVID.”
Seriously, of the 81144 in the control group, 7530 people died. That’s a CFR of 9.3%. Of the 14888 people in the treatment group, 3168 died. That’s a CFR of 21.3%. Given this data, it’s a wonder Trump survived at all.
Of course, if we replace ‘chloroquine’ with ‘the kitchen sink’ it becomes more obvious that Drs. were more willing to throw everything, including the kitchen sink, at patients who were less likely to survive.
They claimed they controlled for disease severity, and actually had a measure for it.
Trouble was, they seemed to turn it into a binary factor and it’s unclear where the threshold for the binary was set, and whether the threshold didn’t just wash out the signal.
The rates are so high because they’re all people *hospitalized*.
The WHO (can’t blame Keith Moon for this, but the others…okay) controlled for all the variables but the severity of the disease at the time of the start of treatment. Probably the most important variable in determining if the treatment is effective and when it is effective as there was some skepticism (due to poor reporting of the safety of treatment with these meds, mistakenly or purposeful) which probably made doctors wait until the signs were severe before initiating treatment during the worst phase of the pandemic. It is already known by doctors on the front lines that severely critical patients are not likely to be helped and the “feeling” is that those starting it before they get exposed or early in the course of the disease are more likely to benefit. The WHO study is interesting, but flawed. Not surprising the authors felt they had to say “the association of decreased survival with hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine treatment regimens should be interpreted cautiously” and not “hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine treatment regimens are not effective and cause increased death rates”. I predict that months from now the medical consensus will be “hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine treatment regimens are useful in preventing COVID-19 infection and decreasing the severity of symptoms if started before infection or before severe disease symptoms occur”.
“The WHO … controlled for all the variables but the severity of the disease at the time of the start of treatment. ”
They did. They had a measure for it and everything.
Trouble was, they seemed to turn it into a binary factor and it’s unclear where the threshold for the binary was set, and whether the threshold didn’t just wash out the signal.
“hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine treatment regimens are useful in preventing COVID-19 infection and decreasing the severity of symptoms if started before infection or before severe disease symptoms occur”.
That’s the general idea from doctors who are using it to good effect.
A little late for an antiviral when you’re sick enough to show up at a hospital.
It’s obvious that the FDA’s reticence to discuss and pursue preventives *for the peasants*, and not just the medical mafia, will have caused a large proportion of the deaths. It will be interesting to see if that manifest fact ever gets published.
Uhmm….these drugs have been widely and safely administered as anti-malaria treatments for decades. How come the WHO suddenly discovers they are unsafe just now…. and only after Trump has tweeted he thinks they might hold promise?
Something doesn’t smell right here. If these are so risky due to heart complications…. shouldn’t that have been determined say sometime in the past 30 years when they were being administered to patients as an anti-malaria treatment or for the other treatments they were issued. A label on the outside saying Anti-Malaria isn’t going to change how the drug effects someones heart.
The dosages are higher in the anti-coronavirus treatments proposed and studies.
And… those drugs were already known to have a risk of complications related to the heart… that was a concern with their use as a treatment against SARS-CoV-2 from the start.
Correction:
My apologies to the Entwistle family. John cannot be blamed for this flawed WHO study either.
“Hydroxychloroquine Lancet study of 96,000 Covid patients ignores Zinc, wasn’t randomized, has 12% death rate
“A new study came out last night in the Lancet which is being used to call for the end of doctors using Choloroquine and Hydroxychloroquine to treat Covid patients without them being enrolled in a clinical trial. Some of the claims about “no chance of any benefit” seem a bit premature given the limits of this kind of study:
“Superficially, it looks large and comprehensive but there are three obvious problems with it –
“1. It ignores zinc entirely. There is not even a mention of the essential mineral, despite Chloroquine being a well known zinc ionophone (something that pumps a mineral across a cell membrane) and intracellular zinc being identified as a useful anti-viral.
“2. It’s not randomized. If doctors are prescribing these drugs to sicker patients or patients with a certain (unknown) genetic risk factor that selection bias (there we go again) could neutralize the entire result. We just don’t know.
“3. These were sick people. The total mortality in this whole group was almost 12%. This trial tells us nothing about using these drugs as preventative measures in mild or moderate cases. It doesn’t tell us whether people had symptoms for a week before getting to hospital — and presumably if people saw a doctor early on, used HCQ and zinc, and then didn’t go to hospital at all (because they recovered) then they won’t be counted at all.
“So this trial successfully filters and removes the success stories (whatever they are) from early HCQ treatment.”
See much more in this vein at:
http://joannenova.com.au/2020/05/hydroxychloroquine-lancet-study-of-96000-covid-patients-ignores-zinc-wasnt-randomized-has-12-death-rate/
It is almost like they are designing the study to fail. Both the Dr. in New York and Los Angeles credited Hydroxychloroquine with allowing Zinc to attach to the virus and kill it. Of course Hydroxychloroquine and antibiotics are not going to have any effect on a virus, neither are designed to be antiviral agents…it is the zinc.
Jfree will be here in a minute to completely ignore the rational argument.
>>34 percent increase in risk of death
why has it been a thing since the 50s then?
Again, the fact that the headline doesn’t say, “WHO releases study saying HCQ greater health risk than COVID.” is very telling.
yeah I see now I riffed your answer … seems it’s the tell.
Can we just jump immediately to Orange Man Dumb?
Won’t get fooled again.
Ronald Bailey is just gullible, buying into a story from the WHO and Lancet, an “observational” study whose results conflict with experiences with thousands of patients treated by other doctors. Bailey has bought into a “study” designed to discredit Trump. Politics and science are a toxic mixture, and someday Bailey may figure that out – in this field and in others where he strays, including climate change.
Ron tends to *report* on studies instead of *analyze* studies.
He takes them at face value if they fit his preferred Narrative.
Why should anyone care what the WHO says? Do they have a good track record of being unbiased and accurate?
When they first started using hydroxychloroquine they limited its use to patients who were the sickest because they were afraid they would not have adequate supplies for the patients already taking it for Lupus and RA. Unless the comparison is between 2 random groups the results are meaningless. What the study proves is that the people taking the hydroxychloroquine had much more severe cases of COVID which is why they received the drug.
A cabal of CCP stooges, with the credibility of a rattlesnake pipes up from deep within Gilead Sciences pocket.. That ship has sailed..
Anyone want to bet if Trump had said DON”T take hydroxychloroqunie the study would have proved it worked?
If Trump suggested it might be beneficial to breathe once in a while, 1/3 of the country would smother themselves trying to prove him wrong.
This may be a good strategy for Trump to announce this on Nov 3.
No, but the media would say “The President doesn’t hold out hope to our suffering citizens and refuses to let science determine if this potential treatment will fulfill the promise it reportedly shows.”
This study is designed to fail because the Deep State/Bill Gates/Fauchi/CDC wants us to take Gates’ vaccine. His father and he are Malthusian Eugenicists who want to kill off most of the World’s population. They did not give HCQ at the time of Diagnosis, they didn’t give the Zinc which is required to stop viral Replicase and they didn’t give the Z-Pak. Dr Raoult in France who is the top Microbiologist in the World has been using this regimen on Corona viruses for years uses it w/o any problems with side effects and it works over 90% of the time in just 1 week. The most effective treatment is a combination of Ivermectin 2 doses a week apart with a week of Doxycycline 200 mg followed by 100 mg daily between the two doses of Ivermectin. Both regimens must be started at the time of diagnosis. This study used patients on their Death Bed without the Zinc or the Z-Pak. It was designed to fail. Again treatment that works takes 1 week when started at the time of diagnosis.
As always, the journalism at Reason is to be found in the Comments Section.
Damn, Ron, this is just sad.
Linked to the large scale study published in Lancet days ago. Also other clinical trials.
HCQ does not work. Go look elsewhere for answers.
Once again.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31180-6/fulltext
Read it this time.
When applied appropriately it’s been effective.
It’s sad that you’re so self absorbed and insecure that you need people to die to feel better about yourself
Citation, please? Link to where it’s been shown actively effective?
Here you go.
2020-04-20: IHU Méditerranée Infection, Marseille, France: Early treatment of 1,061 COVID-19 patients with hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin (PDF)
There is no control group. They might just as well have given them a teaspoon of honey.
There was no control group in the Lancet study either. Observational studies cannot have control groups. They can only have comparisons.
And I note that you haven’t read the IHU article. I suggest that you should read it. The underlined sentence is a link.
There was. The control group was based on the retrospective controlled cohort study. I know the difference between that and prospective studies. The white paper did not even try to do that. I read it.
Take whatever pills you wish.
“Take whatever pills you wish.”
Unfortunately, we’re not free to do that in America, and most of the world.
Funny how with all the rona coverage, a “libertarian” magazine never gets around to discussing that.
Yeah. Here the pharmacy board and state medical board have that stuff locked up tighter than OxyContin. I think it is quack medicine but don’t see the reason to ban it like that.
I thought Reason was reasoned? This is a joke. First and foremost is the fact that this drug has been used for near 80 years, given to people with arthritis for Christ sake. Now all of a sudden it kills people?
The study is not a study. It is a mathematical exercise, kind of like the models they used to overhype this virus in the first place. If the drug is given to hard cases and not the difficult ones, of course there will be a hgher likelihood of death in those given the drug. When you read what they controlled for, they did not control for severity of symptoms, the only factor that actually matters.
The two drugs in question are known to have heart-related risks, and in some cases are being given in larger dosages and rates than they are given for lupus, etc.
Incorrect
My sense has been that these studies are looking at treatment of seriously symptomatic patients (10 days or more after onset of symptoms).
Where other observations have shown benefits has been when HQL is used earlier in the treatment cycle, e.g. <= 5 days from symptom onset.
It's of course ludicrous to suggest a widely prescribed and long-lived drug is broadly 'dangerous'. Any prescription medicine will have side-effects and should only be taken under the supervision of a physician.
Your “sense is that” ?
Have we seen any indicator either way as to whether the study controlled for when in the progression of the disease the treatment was first applied?
Oh, actually, right there in the article:
“The researchers controlled for multiple confounding factors such as age, sex, race or ethnicity, body-mass index, underlying cardiovascular disease and its risk factors, diabetes, underlying lung disease, smoking, immunosuppressed condition, and baseline disease severity.”
“We did math we didn’t show you. You can’t see our raw data either. Trust us. Emperor Xi does.”
I’m not a Trump Fan, but just because Trump expressed hope that a
hydroxychloroquine and zinc treatment regimen may possibly prove out to be a “Game Changer” does not make it a bad idea.
As I’ve always heard over and over this is a hydroxychloroquine and zinc treatment regimen and that it’s the zinc that does the trick. There is something with the hydroxychloroquine that aids getting the zinc into the cells.
Most of the tests in the US are skipping the zinc portion and also trying to use it as a treatment instead of a preventative measure. It seems as if they are attempting to discredit it because of Trump mentioning it. Either that or because there is little money to be made do to hydroxychloroquine being around so long.
The silly thing is that Trump didn’t dream up this hydroxychloroquine and zinc treatment regimen. Trump very likely was informed about it by a medical doctor. The media however is very deliberately attempting to brand this as a non-starter solely because Trump mentioned it.
It’s proof that much of the media is worse than Trump because at least Trump is for something (even if I disagree with him). The media however is simply 180 degrees opposed to Trump. If Trump helped a little old lady across the street the media would try to spin it against him and if Trump didn’t help the little old lady across he would be hammered in the press too.
While I don’t like Trump and will not vote for him, Biden is even a worse choice. I trust Trump way more that Biden even though I will not give him my vote. Biden would be a complete and utter disaster as a president and the usual suspects that he will probably choose as his vice-president will not be able to overcome the mess we would have on our hands.
If hydroxychloroquine and zinc eventually prove out to work, the pharmaceutical companies will attempt to reformulate it slightly so the can patent if and cleanup on the public’s fear. Of course the majority of the media will continue to fear monger in an attempt to influence the election (sort of like Russia did).
Bailey is so happy to stick it to Trump that he misses subtle things. One of the authors is Sapan S. Desai (thereafter referred to as SSD).
From the article:
Pretty impressive: to collect patient records from wildly different hospitals and countries and make them comparable, no? It’s a good thing Sapan S Desai was one of the authors:
So this turns out to be a commercial advertisement!
Two SERIOUS problems with this “study” that arise AFTER the sources.. (WHO, the Lancet, for starters, are SCARY outfits with clear and scary agendas.)
First serious problem is this: the study seems to be of hospitalised patients… by the time someone is in hospital with Chinavirus, its too late. Should have started a week or two ago, By this time the disease will have made too much of a hash of the lungs, immune systemis already in meltdown, VERY difficult to reverse.
Second seriosu problem is this: NO ZINC was included. EVERY successful use of CHQ/antibiotic combinatin ALSO included signficant supplementation with Zinc.
Once you understand HOW this virus kills, the specific pathway it takes, and the role zinc plays in this pathway, it becomes stupid simple. The CHQ merely acts as a carrier for the zinc……. which then is easily introduced into the cells where the virus is invading, and prevents the virus from reproducing.
this “study” is nothing but taking slams at Trump and others who are working toward a cheap effective cure.. which has been effected in multiple cllinical successes.
How many of those involved in this study are in position to benefit from NOT haveing a simple cheap cure for Chinavirus, and/or more profit from desinger drugs like remdesivir (might have misspelled it but you know what I mean) or the mythical vaccine … the one needle to rule them all…….
Perhaps hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine in some combination will still turn out to be a game changer helping to lead to total victory against COVID-19, but that happy outcome is looking ever less likely.
Whaddaya mean, “happy outcome”? It can’t be happy if it makes Orange Man look good. It’s regrettable, but we need people to die so we can flip the White House come November. Fortunately, the old people who have been dying in disproportionate numbers are also disproportionately likely to be Trump voters.
Trump should keep taking it. Lol.
Not buying this line of bullshit for a second. The WHO is as corrupt as any group can be, This is just one more push from the left to keep the country locked down.
Right. Science BAD.
So the organization that is tied to Gates Vaccine foundation and which is desperate to help sell the narrative that a mandatory global vaccine is needed to fight CV19 is now telling us that a drug that has been in widespread use for decades with a good safety record is now suddenly not safe to sue in the fight against CV19? What a shock. All Trump need do is say that a vaccine is the most effective way to treat CV19 and the media will be in a twist trying to figure out how to counter his recommendation while still pushing for a mandatory vaccine.
Just remember that because the science of vaccines is sound it means that ALL vaccines without question are safe and effective and should not be questioned. Its a shame more failed medicines weren’t simply marketed as vaccines because then they would have been successful, at least on paper.
Good reading:
Indian Council of Medical Research: Advisory on the use of Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) as prophylaxis for
SARS-CoV-2 infection
http://www.icmr.gov.in/pdf/covid/techdoc/V5_Revised_advisory_on_the_use_of_HCQ_SARS_CoV2_infection.pdf
Ron Bailey will bury this too, but it is worth reading. They recommend a prophylactic dosage for:
* Asymptomatic household contacts of laboratory confirmed cases.
* All asymptomatic healthcare workers involved in containment and treatment of COVID-19 and asymptomatic healthcare
workers working in non-COVID hospitals/non-COVID areas of COVID
hospitals/blocks
* Asymptomatic frontline workers, such as surveillance workers deployed in containment zones and paramilitary/police personnel
involved in COVID-19 related activities
What about it’s value as a prophylactic? Both prevention and early exposure.
Are people who are already taking it for other conditions (lupus, rheumatoid arthritis) getting C19 at expected rates?
Of those that get it, are they hospitalized at expected rates?
“‘Are people who are already taking it for other conditions (lupus, rheumatoid arthritis) getting C19 at expected rates?”
Kinda obvious to test that, ain’t it?
It’s almost like they’re not really interested in protecting us from corona.
They did this study in two months? I don’t think so. Everybody needs to go read “How To Lie With Statistics” right now.
I don’t get COVID-19 too often, but when I do, I always refer myself to Reason dot com for medical guidance.
Ron, The Lancet Study is a Fraud.
@chrismartenson Garbage ‘Science’: Be Wary Of What You’re Being Told
https://youtu.be/IUD_wvkNhnk
It surprises even a bitter old libertarian like me that there is so much institutional corruption in response to a freakin pandemic. They’re transparently just trying to get as many people killed as possible.
A study done by a company with virtually no employees, virtually no online presence, virtually none of their few employees have any data or scientific backgrounds (outside of a sci-fi writer, I guess) and with results that are incorrect.
Funny, peer review missed these problems.
It was all a fraud and I expect to see Bailey write a column about it.
Destroy yourself. Do it now.
You make money with a mattress strapped to your back and a coin changer on your belt. This is a thread about a LIFE-THREATENING ILLNESS, you self-fellating microcephalic primordial dwarf.
Don’t argue with the spam-bots.
I see this all the time on Quora in the religious section. The lowest man on the totem pole will find someone lower than him to pick on because he’s been picked on himself by superiors.
We are just fucking sheep, fucking each other in the ass.