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#241

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Yes, I think so. People grew up to trust institutions, and for decades they had good reason to (at least in the subjects of public health and safety). Who's to blame when after decades -- no, centuries -- we elect a leader who makes false claims that are counter to medical science -- and potentially hazardous, if followed, to the public health? The victim, or the authority? I know which party I blame.

The man who died drank aquarium cleaner. It is a huge stretch to blame that on Trump.

He drank aquarium cleaner because the President of the United States told him it would cure the virus. Not a stretch at all.

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#242
post #81

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Acetaminophen is also easy to overdose and has been recommended as a fever reducer for Coronavirus.

Who is recommending acetaminophen for coronavirus fever reduction? Provide a source.

Well, that got answered.

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#243

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How are these people getting their hands on prescription drugs? Someone touting X prescription drug as a potential cure for something doesn't mean we should all go out and take it. I mean, PrEP is a treatment to prevent the AIDS virus from spreading, but it's not like someone being happy about that means you should somehow illegally procure and take a prescription drug. The double standards here are shocking.

> How are these people getting their hands on prescription drugs? The people in this story didn't get their hands on prescription drugs, they found an aquarium chemical with a similar name.

Are you arguing that the chloroquine they took, as chloroquine phosphate, is different from the chloroquine that's used to treat malaria?

That's more than "a similar name". It's the same name.

From what I've read, both chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine are used to treat inflammation.

So is it chloroquine vs hydroxychloroquine that you're referring to?

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#244
post #196

I saw this paper [1] on Twitter today. At number 5 in the list of top-scoring chemicals that disrupt the virus's behaviour (PDF p11) is quercetin, which is apparently found in capers [2] and readily cleared for use as a supplement. While no one should be self-medicating with this sort of thing unless they know exactly what they're doing, it seems to me like this sort of chemical could show promise as a therapeutic tr…

These types of drug screens rarely produce good results and you need to take things with a huge grain of salt. People in the field know this.

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#245
post #2

The repeated recommendation to use a drug which has not been properly tested by the president of the most powerful nation on this planet seems inappropriate to me.

It's a prescription drug (unless you're ingesting the aquarium cleaner). No one is recommending self-medication.

Two people having a bad reaction suggests highly improper usage.

Do you dislike it mainly because Trump mentioned it?

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#246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an oversimplification. The amount for an overdose is only around 3X a regular dose (2g vs 600mg) In contrast, most drugs for which you overdose need to be at much higher dosage multiples compared to the prescribed dose.

There are plenty of drugs with a narrow therapeutic index (NTIs or NTIDs), some of which are available over the counter. Some extremely popular ones: lithium, valproic acid, acetaminophen, almost all anticoagulants (warfarin/heparin), almost all of the -mycin antibiotics (and a lot of other antibiotics), all of the tricylic antidepressants. See this paper for a very interesting discussion of the topic: https://www.nc…

Lithium, valproic acid, anticoagulants and -mycin antibiotics (topical excluded) and all anti-depressants are not available OTC in the US.

Acetaminophen has a therapeutic index of close to 8, much better than chloroquine.

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#247

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Hard to understand your point. It seems quite obvious to me that you can't shut down the world economy for any length of time without introducing enormous amounts of collateral damage (i.e. deaths). What is nonsense about that?

The experts in China, South Korea and Taiwan have proven that you can get the disease under control with testing, contract tracing and serious quarantine methods. The alternative is collapsing the healthcare system because available hospital beds are full of coronavirus patients - coronavirus isn't the flu, 20 % of patients are hospitalized for three weeks. We are observing that in Italy and New York State. The Presi…

They also haven't shut down their economies, which was the point I was making. The actions you describe are not mutually exclusive to a more nuanced approach to reduced economic activity. That is, something other than economic suicide.

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#248

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They didn't take the drug, they took an aquarium cleaner... http://bannerhealth.mediaroom.com/chloroquinephosphate >A man has died and his wife is under critical care after the couple, both in their 60s, ingested chloroquine phosphate, an additive commonly used at aquariums to clean fish tanks. Within thirty minutes of ingestion, the couple experienced immediate effects requiring admittance to a nearby Banner Health…

There's an important detail missing: the dose. I gather that the therapeutic dose is on the order of 500 mg/day. So did they eat 10x that, 100x that, or what?

Given it's a bulk cleaning product, they'd need some damn finely calibrated scales to measure out anything more precise than "a pinch". Which clearly isn't good when 3x the clinical dose will land you in hospital.

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#249
post #208

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People taking warfarin literally have serum levels measured frequently. Typically lithium and valproate too. TCAs barely used any longer. Acetaminophen doesn’t belong in this conversation with the other drugs.

Acetaminophen doesn’t belong in this conversation with the other drugs. I don't see why not? It's a good example where the max therapeutic dose (4000mg/day) is within 2X of the toxic dose range (7500mg-10000mg/day). And even the max therapeutic dose can be toxic to the liver. And it's exceptionally easy to accidentally overdose if you don't read product labels, since you could be taking multiple products that contain…

Almost no one should be taking 4g of acetaminophen a day. That’s definitely going to be toxic given enough time.

It doesn’t belong in convo with other drugs because it requires far less monitoring. It’s also not taken chronically like the other drugs. Or shouldn’t be, at least.

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#250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They didn't take the drug, they took an aquarium cleaner... http://bannerhealth.mediaroom.com/chloroquinephosphate >A man has died and his wife is under critical care after the couple, both in their 60s, ingested chloroquine phosphate, an additive commonly used at aquariums to clean fish tanks. Within thirty minutes of ingestion, the couple experienced immediate effects requiring admittance to a nearby Banner Health…

Apparently chloroquine phosphate is the right drug and it's a synonym for chloroquine the drug. https://www.webmd.com/drugs/2/drug-8633/chloroquine-oral/det... Also all the wikipedia references are about chloroquine phosphate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chloroquine#References Looks like they did take the right drug, but OD'd or something.

chloroquine phosphate might be one of many compounds of a cleaning product for aquariums. One other very common part of cleaning products, and extremely toxic, is chlorine. Was this specific cleaning product intended to be used when the fish are still in the tank?

Its things like this which is the reason why Sweden has almost banned every cleaning product that has the word alcohol as one of its ingredient, and those that still have it usually must have something that cause vomiting if ingested. People poison themselves (which is I think the more technical correct term than overdosing), and if people will look at something like a cleaning product and think "I will drink this" then there is not much options available.

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