Hydroxychloroquinine updates (and other potential treatments)

[TSmith34, Inc.]

"Fox News now warning viewers they could die from taking the thing they said was a cure for the disease they said was a hoax."

https://twitter.com/HoarseWisperer/status/1262488963639623680

[GooooMarquette]

"Fox News now warning viewers they could die from taking the thing they said was a cure for the disease they said was a hoax."

https://twitter.com/HoarseWisperer/status/1262488963639623680

And the True Believers hear crickets.

[Keithtisbarf]

Trump’s staffers are probably giving him white tic tacs and telling him it Hydroxychloroquine.

[MU82]

I can think of nobody in America I would rather be taking hydroxychloroquine than Donald F. Trump.

[Mutaman]

In supporting this nonsense the Know Nothings refer to a letter written by the
Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. This outfit is a small group of right wingers who believe , among other things, that being gay reduces life expectancy, and is opposed to medicare. They also believe that there is a connection between  abortion and breast cancer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_American_Physicians_and_Surgeons#Gun_control

[GooooMarquette]

I can think of nobody in America I would rather be taking hydroxychloroquine than Donald F. Trump.

So you’re a ‘find the silver lining’ guy, eh?

[Jockey]

Ok could his physician have a licensing issue if he prescribed it because Trump wanted it, despite there being no clinical reason to do so?

Um, he's not taking it. this is just one more case of him covering for his own stupidity.

Remember the sharpie that showed a hurricane was gonna hit Georgia? Well this is exactly the same thing.

[Jockey]

Trump’s staffers are probably giving him white tic tacs and telling him it Hydroxychloroquine.

Or maybe cheeseburgers. Like he'd know the difference!

[shoothoops]

The new Vaccine Czar Moncef Slaoui, and recent Moderna board member, owns $12.4 million worth of stock options in Moderna.


https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2020/05/18/coronavirus-vaccine-adviser-moncef-slaoui-to-divest-12point4-million-of-moderna-holdings.html?__twitter_impression=true

[tower912]

Yes.   Internet conspiracy theories about Fauci and Gates.   Conflict of interest up front and obvious with this guy.   Not a word from the tin foil hat clan.

[WarriorDad]

As usual it is left vs right, blue vs red, cheering for or against drugs success depending on what side people are on.

Found this article to closely resemble what I see here and out in public.




If you’ve watched the news lately, you might be under the impression that a medicine President Trump touted as a possible game changer against coronavirus — has been debunked and discredited. Two divergent views of the drug, hydroxychloroquine, have emerged: the negative one widely reported in the press and another side you’ve probably heard less about. Never has a discussion about choices of medicine been so laced with political overtones. Today, how politics, money and medicine intersect with coronavirus.

President Trump: Now, it may not work, in which case, hey, it didn’t work.

Sharyl: Studies from China and France sparked early hope that a malaria drug— hydroxychloroquine— might work against coronavirus.

President Trump: And it may work, in which case it’s going to save a lot of lives.

Sharyl: But with President Trump’s first endorsement there was a major media-driven effort to portray hydroxychloroquine as dangerous quackery. The campaign was assisted by an online report in mid-April. It said for sick coronavirus patients treated by the Veterans Administration, hydroxychloroquine did not help and was linked to increased deaths.

Reporter questions at Coronavirus Task Force Briefings: Why are you promoting this drug?

President Trump: I’m not.

Reporter: You come out here every day, right, sir? Talking about the benefits of hydroxychloroquine?

President Trump: I want them to try it.

Reporter: If you’re concerned — this VA study showed that actually more people died that used the drug than didn’t.

Sharyl: Meantime, popular support built around a second medicine: remdesivir. Delivered as an IV fluid in the veins, remdesivir was first developed for Ebola, but never FDA approved. Early tests in coronavirus patients proved no survival benefits but said patients did recover four days faster.

Dr. Anthony Fauci: That the data shows that remdesivir has a clear cut significant positive effect in diminishing the time to recovery. This is really quite important.

Tucker Carlson: Donald Trump is for it.

Sharyl: Camps largely divided along political lines. Many right-leaning media figures sided with hydroxychloroquine while the left-leaning press backed remdesivir. Each accusing the other of ignoring real science.

Dr. William O’Neill: I've never seen science politicized in 40 years of practice.

Sharyl: Cardiologist Dr. William O’Neill is a medical director at the Henry Ford Health System in Detroit, Michigan where they’re studying both remdesivir and hydroxychloroquine.

Some people in the media are treating hydroxychloroquine as if it's something that's being pitched by charlatans, it's dangerous, and that's been debunked and discredited. What do you make of that?

Dr. O’Neill: I think that's very harmful. President Trump touted it early and so then the media set out to disprove and discredit it without any regard for science. I think those of us that are actually involved in the scientific endeavor feel that there is some value to it and it has to be tested.

Sharyl: Dr. O’Neill says he’s prescribed hydroxychloroquine to help numerous coronavirus patients and saw improvement in all of them. He’s less impressed, so far, by remdesivir.

Dr. O’Neill: There's a lot of hype for the drug. I saw the original new England Journal article study and I saw the Lancet study and to me it's just like a big Ho Hum. I just don't see a big benefit to it.

Sharyl: Adding to the drama and confusion, a draft version of a study was accidentally published last month showing remdesivir did not help most coronavirus patients and caused such serious side effects, 18 test subjects were taken off the drug. Gilead, the maker of remdesivir, did not respond to our interview requests but has said it ended the study because it couldn’t find enough volunteers to take part.

On May 1, the FDA seemed to give remdesivir the edge, allowing emergency use for severely ill coronavirus patients at the same time, stepping up cautions against hydroxychloroquine and its sister drug saying they should only be taken in the hospital or as part of a formal study due to reports of “serious heart rhythm problems.”

Dr. O’Neill is now leading a study to find out if hydroxychloroquine can serve a critical role as a medicine to prevent coronavirus. But he says the bad press is making it difficult.

Dr. O’Neill: Now people are scared to use the drug without any scientifically valid concern. We've talked with our colleagues at the University of Minnesota who are doing a similar study, and at the University of Washington. We've treated 400 patients and haven't seen a single adverse event. And what's happening is because of this fake news and fake science, the true scientific efforts are being harmed because people now are so worried that they don't want to enroll in the trials.

Dr. Steven Hatfill: Why are the press running medicine in the United States? This is not right.

Sharyl: Dr. Steven Hatfill is a biomedical scientist who worked on Ebola and studies pandemic responses and medicine. He says there’s an unwarranted campaign against hydroxychloroquine.

Sharyl: You think lives were lost because it wasn't used?

Dr. Hatfill: Yes, lives were lost.

He took hydroxychloroquine years ago for malaria and recently, again, to test to prevent coronavirus.

Sharyl: A preventive would mean, if it were to work, that the fear that this comes back before there's a working vaccine, the fear that we have another shutdown ...

Dr. Hatfill: a return to work ... early detection, return to work. Would I give it as a prophylaxis to everybody? No. But for fit, healthy, critical workers going back to work or high risk populations; chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, ex-smokers, diabetics, obesity ...

Sharyl: Might work for them?

Dr. Hatfill: It might work for them.

Sharyl: A third scientist we spoke to, who says hydroxychloroquine has been unfairly disparaged, is Dr. Jane Orient, head of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons.

How do you account for the difference in medical and scientific opinion about this drug? Because some people seem so certain that it can be a positive benefit to coronavirus patients, maybe even crucial in the early days, whereas some people are convinced it should absolutely not be used.

Dr. Orient: That's a very good question. But the ones who have the most experience are very enthusiastic about the possibilities. And we do have naysayers that we suspect may have a little conflict of interest because they are so enthusiastic about remdesivir, which is a new drug that hasn't been approved for anything. And that so far is showing a really very equivocal or even negative results.

Sharyl: All three scientists criticized that VA report casting doubt on hydroxychloroquine as little more than a list of cases with crucial details missing. It turns out one author of the report received research funding from Gilead, the maker of remdesivir, including a 247-thousand dollar grant in 2018.

Orient: I think we have to look at the money. There's no big profits made in hydroxychloroquine. It's very cheap, easy to manufacture, been around for 70 years. It's generic. Remdesivir is a new drug that could be very expensive and very lucrative if it's ever approved. So I think we really do have to consider there's some financial interest involved here.

Dr. Hatfill: Some of these decisions did not seem to be rational.

And when things, in my opinion that are so clear, the right path to take aren't taken, very often: Money is somehow involved.

Sharyl: When it comes to money, we checked financial ties among experts on the government panel devising coronavirus treatment guidelines— which had the effect of dialing back hydroxychloroquine use and giving an edge to remdesivir.

We found that of 11 members reporting links to a drug company, nine of them named relationships to remdesivir’s maker Gilead. Seven more, including two of the committee’s leaders, have ties to Gilead beyond the 11 months they had to disclose. Two were on Gilead’s advisory board. Others were paid consultants or received research support and honoraria. Nobody reported ties to hydroxychloroquine which is now made by numerous generic manufacturers and is so cheap, analysts say even a spike in sales would not be a financial driver for the companies.

In the end, politics and money aside, at least some scientists aren’t ready to count hydroxychloroquine out of the coronavirus equation. Even if others already have.

Sharyl: Is it possible that it's not one or the other— that hydroxychloroquine could be used in a certain setting, maybe for preventive if you find out that works, and the other drug could be used in other settings?

Dr. O’Neill: No, Absolutely. I think, I think that it's just still very early in this disease process that we're going to learn lot. There's 600 studies that are being done in the United States right now on Covid to see all sorts of different kinds of infections and combinations. We're going to be a lot smarter at the end of the summer. So I think what I would just say to everybody, just hold your powder.

We wanted to hear perspectives from from Dr. Fauci and Gilead, the maker of remdesivir, but they declined our interview requests. We also contacted numerous scientists who have criticized or are skeptical of hydroxycholoroquine, but they also did not want to be interviewed for this report.

[The Hippie Satan of Hyperbole]

As usual it is left vs right, blue vs red, cheering for or against drugs success depending on what side people are on.

No one is cheering for the drug not to work.  That is an intellecutally lazy statement.

The problem is that it doesn't really work, has bad side effects, and makes it harder for people who actually need the drug to get it.  So people touting it are actually causing harm.

And I noticed you didn't link your article that you quoted.  Doing a simple look up, of course it is from Sinclair Broadcast Group.  And you don't have to look far to see how deep they are in the tank for Trump.

http://fullmeasure.news/news/cover-story/hydroxychloroquine

So yet again, for a lifelong Democrat, you certainly have a deep intimate knowledge of conservative media.

[GooooMarquette]

As usual it is left vs right, blue vs red, cheering for or against drugs success depending on what side people are on.

You lose all credibility when you claim that people are 'cheering' against the success of any drug based on political affiliation. This virus is blind to political preference, race, color, gender or nationality and it benefits everyone to find a vaccine or effective treatment because we all have loved ones to lose.

If anything, the left vs right and blue vs red disagreements reveal a divide between scientific proof and magical thinking based on Trump's refusal to back down.

[TSmith34, Inc.]

You lose all credibility when you claim that people are 'cheering' against the success of any drug based on political affiliation.

Chicos lost all credibility long ago with his constant goalpost shifting, intellectual dishonesty, and continual lies.

[Uncle Rico]

Someone should recommend leeches to Cheeto Jesus

[The Hippie Satan of Hyperbole]

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/05/trumps-hydroxychloroquine-microcosm/611836/?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_content=edit-promo&utm_campaign=the-atlantic&utm_term=2020-05-19T16%253A19%253A03

"...but the president’s bizarre announcement yesterday that he’s been taking hydroxychloroquine is an excellent microcosm of his handling of the coronavirus pandemic. Trump ignores doctors and scientists. He grabs onto quackish ideas he hears on TV and won’t let go of them. He emphasizes grand symbolic gestures, while declining to take less splashy ones that could be more effective. His statements are a Rorschach test: Some people believe him instantly; others are sure he’s lying. The main question is whether his medication regimen will prove as disastrous as his national coronavirus approach has been."

[MU82]

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/05/trumps-hydroxychloroquine-microcosm/611836/?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_content=edit-promo&utm_campaign=the-atlantic&utm_term=2020-05-19T16%253A19%253A03

"...but the president’s bizarre announcement yesterday that he’s been taking hydroxychloroquine is an excellent microcosm of his handling of the coronavirus pandemic. Trump ignores doctors and scientists. He grabs onto quackish ideas he hears on TV and won’t let go of them. He emphasizes grand symbolic gestures, while declining to take less splashy ones that could be more effective. His statements are a Rorschach test: Some people believe him instantly; others are sure he’s lying. The main question is whether his medication regimen will prove as disastrous as his national coronavirus approach has been."

That is a marvelous paragraph, one of the best, most succinct narration of the situation.

[MU Fan in Connecticut]

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/05/trumps-hydroxychloroquine-microcosm/611836/?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_content=edit-promo&utm_campaign=the-atlantic&utm_term=2020-05-19T16%253A19%253A03

"...but the president’s bizarre announcement yesterday that he’s been taking hydroxychloroquine is an excellent microcosm of his handling of the coronavirus pandemic. Trump ignores doctors and scientists. He grabs onto quackish ideas he hears on TV and won’t let go of them. He emphasizes grand symbolic gestures, while declining to take less splashy ones that could be more effective. His statements are a Rorschach test: Some people believe him instantly; others are sure he’s lying. The main question is whether his medication regimen will prove as disastrous as his national coronavirus approach has been."

He was already hallucinating without taking hydroxychloroquine.

[D'Lo Brown]

You lose all credibility when you claim that people are 'cheering' against the success of any drug based on political affiliation. This virus is blind to political preference, race, color, gender or nationality and it benefits everyone to find a vaccine or effective treatment because we all have loved ones to lose.

If anything, the left vs right and blue vs red disagreements reveal a divide between scientific proof and magical thinking based on Trump's refusal to back down.

I am almost never on Chicos' side but I am here. Everyone on "my side" has become a medical scientist & expert on hydroxychloroquine over the last couple months.

Trump himself was the one to politicize even drugs now. The buck stops with him. But also, the reflexive nature for people to suddenly become scientific experts & acting versed in research, FDA statements, etc on HCQ alone... Many on the left were like a pig to mud when the President decided to politicize HCQ.

HCQ is very widely used for COVID & not just by MDs that have the blue flag flying at home. I for one hope that those patients that just started getting it today will see some benefit.

[forgetful]

To maybe bring this back to the talk of treatments. Previously I mentioned some of the antibody treatments in the pipeline and thought they would be the first real "cures". I cautioned against one of the US based companies early results, and hinted that the Chinese would lead on this.

Here is one of their early progresses. A neutralizing antibody that is quite promising. Their results are being published in Cell, which is the top scientific journal.

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-05-scientists-china-drug-pandemic-vaccine.html

[GooooMarquette]

I am almost never on Chicos' side but I am here. Everyone on "my side" has become a medical scientist & expert on hydroxychloroquine over the last couple months.

Trump himself was the one to politicize even drugs now. The buck stops with him. But also, the reflexive nature for people to suddenly become scientific experts & acting versed in research, FDA statements, etc on HCQ alone... Many on the left were like a pig to mud when the President decided to politicize HCQ.

HCQ is very widely used for COVID & not just by MDs that have the blue flag flying at home. I for one hope that those patients that just started getting it today will see some benefit.

You agree with Chicos that people on the left are “cheering” for this to fail? Wow - that doesn’t reflect anyone on the left that I know. Everyone I know just wants to get back to normal, and do it safely.

I’d love to see it work, but thus far the limited data I have seen (the studies in JAMA and the New England Journal of Medicine) don’t look promising.

[wadesworld]

I think Trump supporters confuse people saying, “even though Trump is championing it, all the evidence suggest this isn’t working” with, “Trump supports this so we would rather see people die and our economy go down the toilet just to have this not work!”

[GooooMarquette]

I think Trump supporters confuse people saying, “even though Trump is championing it, all the evidence suggest this isn’t working” with, “Trump supports this so we would rather see people die and our economy go down the toilet just to have this not work!”

Yep. They are confused about the difference between “cheering” and  “predicting.”

[WarriorDad]

No one is cheering for the drug not to work.  That is an intellecutally lazy statement.

The problem is that it doesn't really work, has bad side effects, and makes it harder for people who actually need the drug to get it.  So people touting it are actually causing harm.

And I noticed you didn't link your article that you quoted.  Doing a simple look up, of course it is from Sinclair Broadcast Group.  And you don't have to look far to see how deep they are in the tank for Trump.

http://fullmeasure.news/news/cover-story/hydroxychloroquine

So yet again, for a lifelong Democrat, you certainly have a deep intimate knowledge of conservative media.

Yes, there are people that are cheering for it not to work. 

The article was shared with me on Facebook.  The author is an award-winning journalist formerly from CBS.  Five Emmys and the Murrow award.  I have no idea what Full Measure is, but appreciated her reaching out to doctors and their viewpoints. I'm well aware of almost every article I see with giddy news from journalists when studies support their beliefs.  It was good to see some different points of view, including those from the medical field. 

I'm not tribal like you are.  If a Democrat only reads liberal news, how does that enlighten someone?  You and others blame conservatives for being stupid for only watching Fox News, don't you think they would be more enlightened reading both sides?  And doesn't this ultimately confirm what most intelligent people know, that news is bias based on the source?  If it wasn't, then there wouldn't be such a thing as liberal news or conservative news.  Then again, there are people like Justice Roberts that believe there are no Trump judges or Obama judges, just judges.  That is a complete disassociation from reality, but if it makes him sleep well at night. 

I'm sorry you believe a lifelong Democrat should only watch MSNBC.  It's one of the reasons my wife is no longer a lifelong Democrat because of what she was seeing there.  The party has changed as drastically as the Republicans have.  We believe in not being drones and only following one new point of view.

[The Hippie Satan of Hyperbole]

Yes, there are people that are cheering for it not to work. 

The article was shared with me on Facebook.  The author is an award-winning journalist formerly from CBS.  Five Emmys and the Murrow award.  I have no idea what Full Measure is, but appreciated her reaching out to doctors and their viewpoints. I'm well aware of almost every article I see with giddy news from journalists when studies support their beliefs.  It was good to see some different points of view, including those from the medical field. 

I'm not tribal like you are.  If a Democrat only reads liberal news, how does that enlighten someone?  You and others blame conservatives for being stupid for only watching Fox News, don't you think they would be more enlightened reading both sides?  And doesn't this ultimately confirm what most intelligent people know, that news is bias based on the source?  If it wasn't, then there wouldn't be such a thing as liberal news or conservative news.  Then again, there are people like Justice Roberts that believe there are no Trump judges or Obama judges, just judges.  That is a complete disassociation from reality, but if it makes him sleep well at night. 

I'm sorry you believe a lifelong Democrat should only watch MSNBC.  It's one of the reasons my wife is no longer a lifelong Democrat because of what she was seeing there.  The party has changed as drastically as the Republicans have.  We believe in not being drones and only following one new point of view.

So you are a "lifelong Democrat" who claims that he's not tribal?  I belong to no political party and have voted Republican multiple times.  How is that tribal?

Here is what I am.  I am against stupidity.  I am against bad science. 

You link to things that are anti-intellectual, anti-science nonsense with biased political agendas all over them.  And I enjoy picking them apart and exposing them for what they are rather than brainlessly saying "wow this guy has an interesting point" like you do.  I think critically.  You don't.