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Chloroquine, past and present

blogs.sciencemag.org

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Re: Chloroquine, past and present

#141

Post by cameldrv »

gumby wrote: post #91
cameldrv wrote: post #62

We definitely want more studies, but IMO we're reaching a tipping point. We have anecdotal evidence from China and South Korea, and this quite flawed, but at least data-containing study from France. Chloroquine's safety profile isn't great, but the safety profile of COVID is way worse. If you look at Chemotherapy for example, one would never take any of those drugs unless you had cancer. COVID isn't quite as bad as c…

> Chloroquine's safety profile isn't great, but the safety profile of COVID is way worse. If you look at Chemotherapy for example, one would never take any of those drugs unless you had cancer. The FDA's Office of new drugs is split into divisions (dermatology, oncology etc) and the different divisions have different approval criteria as you mention. From my Onco friends' PoV, cancer patients are pretty much assumed…

I appreciate an expert opinion here. What do you think is the actual rate of adverse events from Chloloroquine, and of what severity?

Re: Chloroquine, past and present

#142

Post by munk-a »

BurningFrog wrote: post #100
guiriduro wrote: post #48

Is there not an argument that given chloroquine's apparent efficacy, albeit statistically weakly or improperly demonstrated (so far), along with its long history of relative safety in anti-malarial prophylaxis (with known caveats), set against an exponential growth in dangerous pneumonia - it is therefore rational to want to at least offer it to all suspected cases and healthworkers in balance of the serious risks th…

Sure, but what is rational and what's allowed by the FDA are entirely separate things. I expect to see a lot of exploring of this outside the US. Maybe once bolder countries have sorted things out, we can use their findings.

The FDA has investigated Plaquenil and there is a clear record of the side-effects and directed usage - I don't know why you think it'd be any sort of impediment.

Re: Chloroquine, past and present

#143

Post by tompagenet2 »

arrrg wrote: post #98
cameldrv wrote: post #62

We definitely want more studies, but IMO we're reaching a tipping point. We have anecdotal evidence from China and South Korea, and this quite flawed, but at least data-containing study from France. Chloroquine's safety profile isn't great, but the safety profile of COVID is way worse. If you look at Chemotherapy for example, one would never take any of those drugs unless you had cancer. COVID isn't quite as bad as c…

The study from France seems to suck, though. Not very valuable data. They measured virus, not outcomes, they measured virus in the throat, not the lungs, the starting point was not the start of the disease but some later (more arbitrary) point in time, the two groups were not randomly assigned and the study wasn’t really blind. It could be that they just happened to compare two groups where the treatment group was fu…

Thanks, I've found it hard to understand the French study. Do you have a good link to an (English, sorry) summary or critique?

Re: Chloroquine, past and present

#144

Post by adrr »

transreal wrote: post #109

This is pretty interesting. I've been taking Plaquenil (hydroxochloroquine) regularly for 6 months now to control an auto-immune disease, and I came down with potential symptoms of covid-19 2 weeks ago, but it was very mild - just a sore throat and cough that lasted 4 days, and I had a slight fever the first night. I self quarantined just in case, but after recovering thought I must have just caught a cold, since my…

You can get an antibodies test that you can do at home with a finger prick. Need to google it. I am about to one since I had symptoms couple weeks ago after being in the same room with someone with an uncontrollable cough.

Re: Chloroquine, past and present

#145

Post by cameldrv »

gnulinux wrote: post #99
cameldrv wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you mean COVID is as fatal as cancer or Chloroquine is?

COVID. For >70 y.o. individuals mortality rate is 30%. If you're >70 y.o. have heart condition and have diabetes (all risk factors) COVID is clearly more deadly than some (most?) cancers, not to mention it kills in the order of weeks, when cancer kills in the order of months or years.

Right. OTOH in the Chinese treatment guidelines, they say not to give it for >65 y.o. Unfortunately that's exactly the population it would potentially benefit the most. I'm guessing there must be some reason that's in there, but I'd like to see numbers.

Re: Chloroquine, past and present

#146

Post by axaxs »

transreal wrote: post #109

This is pretty interesting. I've been taking Plaquenil (hydroxochloroquine) regularly for 6 months now to control an auto-immune disease, and I came down with potential symptoms of covid-19 2 weeks ago, but it was very mild - just a sore throat and cough that lasted 4 days, and I had a slight fever the first night. I self quarantined just in case, but after recovering thought I must have just caught a cold, since my…

Please remember that greater than 90 percent of people who have covid like symptoms test negative. So while there's a chance you had it and recovered, it's very small. Stay safe and assume you're still vulnerable.

Re: Chloroquine, past and present

#148

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

gridlockd wrote: post #125
wolco wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The recovering youth are getting breathing problems that aren't going away as well. It would be in their interest not to get it. It's also resetting our global warming clock. Something youth were keen about getting the world to do. If they can't handle staying at home for an extended time then global warming might not be that important after all.

Aren't virologists predicting that 60-70% are going to get it, no matter what? What is the "extended time" that you are talking about? Close to half of COVID infections result not even in a cough. Going by the mostly elderly population on the Diamond Princess, mortality with proper treatment is going to be significantly lower than 1%. Flatten the curve? Sure, but we can't be locking down the entire country indefinite…

> Close to half of COVID infections result not even in a cough.

Possibly?

> Going by the mostly elderly population on the Diamond Princess, mortality with proper treatment is going to be significantly lower than 1%.

If we're all sick at once can we all get proper treatment?

We're all making assumptions and treating our ideas like they have to be true. We still don't actually know, we will only know in retrospective, and that's important to keep in mind. We can't know what's going to happen, and I think we need to be more cautious than optimistic. Where's the line between that an insanity? I don't know, but we can't act like we know the math, especially when we're getting equal and opposite information every day.

Re: Chloroquine, past and present

#149

Post by kadoban »

transreal wrote: post #109

This is pretty interesting. I've been taking Plaquenil (hydroxochloroquine) regularly for 6 months now to control an auto-immune disease, and I came down with potential symptoms of covid-19 2 weeks ago, but it was very mild - just a sore throat and cough that lasted 4 days, and I had a slight fever the first night. I self quarantined just in case, but after recovering thought I must have just caught a cold, since my…

Many Covid-19 cases are mild even without any medication. That is an interesting anecdote though.

Re: Chloroquine, past and present

#150

Post by munk-a »

annoyingnoob wrote: post #4
AdmiralBumbleB wrote: post #3

This chloroquinine rush is already out of control. My pharmacy is already out of it and is unable to procure from other pharmacies (which are also out already!) My pharmacist placed orders for all her patients to prefill prescriptions (where possible) for the next few months. I can understand a shortage when there's a clear evidence-based need, but the rumour-mill hasn't even ramped to full bore yet and it's already…

We stocked up on my daughters medications last week, there was already a non-covid-19 related shortage. Thank god we got what we need for several weeks. Its pretty scary when you rely on a common drug and it runs out.

Yea, my wife takes plaquenil to treat arthritis and I asked her to double check her supply when these rumors started floating around. It's always scary to imagine a bunch of folks going out and hording the stuff to scalp it off later.
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