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Chloroquine phosphate has shown apparent efficacy in treating Covid-19

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

61–70 of 174 posts

Re: Chloroquine phosphate has shown apparent efficacy in treating Covid-19

#61
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tonic water can contain up to 83mg/L actual quinine. Three 2L bottles of tonic water could get you 500mg, a therapeutic dose of quinine. Unfortunately, I have not found any place that manufacturers note how much quinine is in their tonic water.

Yeah, I remember reading something similar years ago. But I suspect with the proliferation of "craft tonic water" there may be some "flavours" that don't contain quinine at all. And 6L of tonic water is... quite a lot.

I read somewhere that gin & tonic was invented because they needed the gin to cover up the taste of the quinine, since the tonic needed to have a _lot_ of quinine to be effective.

Shudder.

Re: Chloroquine phosphate has shown apparent efficacy in treating Covid-19

#62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I remember reading something similar years ago. But I suspect with the proliferation of "craft tonic water" there may be some "flavours" that don't contain quinine at all. And 6L of tonic water is... quite a lot.

I read somewhere that gin & tonic was invented because they needed the gin to cover up the taste of the quinine, since the tonic needed to have a _lot_ of quinine to be effective. Shudder.

Yeah, I think something related to the British navy?

Re: Chloroquine phosphate has shown apparent efficacy in treating Covid-19

#63
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tonic water can contain up to 83mg/L actual quinine. Three 2L bottles of tonic water could get you 500mg, a therapeutic dose of quinine. Unfortunately, I have not found any place that manufacturers note how much quinine is in their tonic water.

Yeah, I remember reading something similar years ago. But I suspect with the proliferation of "craft tonic water" there may be some "flavours" that don't contain quinine at all. And 6L of tonic water is... quite a lot.

6L is about 2200 calories worth of sugar if you're drinking Schweppes, so it might cause other complications :)

Re: Chloroquine phosphate has shown apparent efficacy in treating Covid-19

#64
post #50
post #18

> • The outcomes of some current clinical trials of chloroquine in China have been announced, without access to the data. Shameless tangent, China has just booted its most competent respiratory disease epidemiologist from heading epidemic control committee for not backing Xi Jinping's "herbal remedies" https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3895540

why does a search lead me to an article with the exact opposite story? http://www.china.org.cn/china/2020-02/19/content_75720773.ht...

Compare the dates, three weeks are an eternity in this mess.

Re: Chloroquine phosphate has shown apparent efficacy in treating Covid-19

#65
post #18

> • The outcomes of some current clinical trials of chloroquine in China have been announced, without access to the data. Shameless tangent, China has just booted its most competent respiratory disease epidemiologist from heading epidemic control committee for not backing Xi Jinping's "herbal remedies" https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3895540

[deleted]

Re: Chloroquine phosphate has shown apparent efficacy in treating Covid-19

#66
post #59
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the real story is he proposed doing scientifically valid testing, which could easily disprove their efficacy - and that somehow turned into "the experiments give some hope for the treatment of the novel coronavirus" ... due to a bad English translation?

> ... due to a bad English translation? Not simply bad, but like a 180⁰ of the original meaning. Well, there is rich context to this. Chinese mainland media has been for weeks escalating the "herbal remedies" craze, and Xi somehow managed to insert himself even there. Now the media (propaganda ministry) can't back off, because Xi will look like an idiot if they are to back off and acknowledge how foolish it is. For Z…

Gotcha, thanks for the breakdown! What a world...

Re: Chloroquine phosphate has shown apparent efficacy in treating Covid-19

#67
post #47
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Limiting the quantity that can be purchased to a particular address or credit card or similar restriction can help with this problem. As can inflating the price (high taxes) for non-doctors who are purchasing preemptively. If you are sick, go to a doctor and get it at the normal price. If you are a prepper, pay extra, buy less.

That still causes shortages. It's just increasing the ultimate gray market resale price. Looking at potential death puts gray market buyers in a weak negotiating position.

There is a shortage either way; there hasn't been a change in the amount of the drug or the number of people who want it in either scenario. If anything, the price going up will increase production and the shortage will lessen as fast as the logistics chain can manage.

Basically instead of people choosing where it goes a government agency/hospital system chooses where it goes. After the CDC testing debacle, hopefully people understand that giving control to the government isn't a clear cut win. It is good if people have some control over their own destiny.

Re: Chloroquine phosphate has shown apparent efficacy in treating Covid-19

#68
post #18

> • The outcomes of some current clinical trials of chloroquine in China have been announced, without access to the data. Shameless tangent, China has just booted its most competent respiratory disease epidemiologist from heading epidemic control committee for not backing Xi Jinping's "herbal remedies" https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3895540

:( gov is backing cow dung, urine and alike here.

Re: Chloroquine phosphate has shown apparent efficacy in treating Covid-19

#69
post #22
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm fairly certain finding the vaccine is really quite easy to develop and has been done by multiple companies small and large already. The main issue is to do the clinical trials and get it approved and mass produced in a timely fashion. These trials and the validation can take about a year. Here is the official list of currently being developed covid19 vaccines (all in pre-clinical stage) https://www.who.int/bluepr…

Yeah, a local hospital was approved for vaccine testing today. Timeline for completing the tests? 13 months.

It makes sense that vaccines need more careful assessment before rollout than treatment pharmaceuticals. When the medical infrastructure has reached triage grade saturation, even coin toss treatment candidates could become rational if they can run in parallel to conventional treatment. Exposing the still healthy to a vaccine is an entirely different risk calculation.

A reasonably opportunity to throw money at the problem would be to fund speculative production ramp-up for likely candidates ahead of approval, this should not be left to the invisible hand alone.

Re: Chloroquine phosphate has shown apparent efficacy in treating Covid-19

#70
post #18

> • The outcomes of some current clinical trials of chloroquine in China have been announced, without access to the data. Shameless tangent, China has just booted its most competent respiratory disease epidemiologist from heading epidemic control committee for not backing Xi Jinping's "herbal remedies" https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3895540

The RFA source in the taiwan news mentioned the replacement took place in Feburary, and you can see that Zhong Nanshan remains in a leadership role up to yesterday [1]. A similar source [2] to the RFA one mentioned that Zhong was replaced on a post called "新冠病毒专家组组长" (leader of the COVID expert group); he's more commonly known as "国家卫健委高级别专家组组长" (leader of the senior expert group in national health commission; see [1]). Judging from the titles it's likely normal personnel changes.

Not to downplay the issue here: there have been reports of doctors being forced to include herbal medicines in the treatment from higher up, despite having little evidence supporting their efficacy. Just a random fact check.

Sources (all in Chinese; note epochtimes doesn't have a particularly good reputation):

[1]: https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/web/fyrbt_673021/t1755063.shtml

[2]: https://www.epochtimes.com/gb/20/3/12/n11934088.htm

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