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France, Italy, Belgium stop hydroxychloroquine use for Covid-19 on safety fears

reuters.com

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Re: France, Italy, Belgium stop hydroxychloroquine use for Covid-19 on safety fears

#21

Post by frenchyatwork »

cm2187 wrote: post #11
Alex3917 wrote: post #4

Meh. It wouldn't surprise me if these trials are being run by the makers of Remdesivir or some other drug, and they're purposely killing folks to make their treatment look more effective. It's a pretty common tactic in the pharma industry for drug makers to do trials with enormous doses of their competitors products to make them look more dangerous by comparison, and given that this whole thing has turned into a mult…

Particularly in the case of a 1950s drug that has been consumed by millions of people, and which as far as I know was available without prescription until covid. It’s like saying aspirin is dangerous. Sure. At a certain dosage.

The risk of treating patients with pain-reducing levels of ASA (aspirin) is actually a significant issue, and it's not hard to find papers covering this issue, and reporting data on it. It's usually in older populations who are more likely to be in pain and also more likely to die from a stomach bleed.

Re: France, Italy, Belgium stop hydroxychloroquine use for Covid-19 on safety fears

#22

Post by halflings »

lbeltrame wrote: post #2

A shame, since the Lancet paper has problems[1][2] in particular related to the baseline of the HCQ-treated vs non-HCQ treated patients. And by admission of the authors themselves, it is not a substitute of a RCT. And this before the results of the Minnesota trial are out. At this point I hope those are negative, so that it does not show that countries are overreacting. [1] https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2020…

Agree this isn't an RCT, but why would this be an "over-reaction"? It's not like the default reaction is to administrate millions of doses of a medicine that has yet to be proven effective. (and could potentially do more harm than good)

The studies supposedly proving HCQ's effectiveness have much bigger caveats (tiny sample size and/or manipulation of the groups in a dishonest way, like Raoult removing severe cases from the treatment group whereas the control group had none)

Re: France, Italy, Belgium stop hydroxychloroquine use for Covid-19 on safety fears

#23

Post by zackees »

acallaghan wrote: post #20
lbeltrame wrote: post #2

A shame, since the Lancet paper has problems[1][2] in particular related to the baseline of the HCQ-treated vs non-HCQ treated patients. And by admission of the authors themselves, it is not a substitute of a RCT. And this before the results of the Minnesota trial are out. At this point I hope those are negative, so that it does not show that countries are overreacting. [1] https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2020…

If it had any effect on covid-19, it'd be very obvious by now. There isn't some massive conspiracy here, it just doesn't work. The reason trials have stopped is because France, Italy, Belgium & the UK have seen worse outcomes generally, directly because of it. I don't get the 'it needs to be taken before symptoms!' argument - like we can possibly give a immunosuppressant with non-negligible side-effects (e.g. arrythm…

It HCQ doesn't work, why is it the common first line of defense used internationally? Why does scholar.google.com list so many papers showing that it's effective?

Re: France, Italy, Belgium stop hydroxychloroquine use for Covid-19 on safety fears

#24

Post by lbeltrame »

acallaghan wrote: post #20
lbeltrame wrote: post #2

A shame, since the Lancet paper has problems[1][2] in particular related to the baseline of the HCQ-treated vs non-HCQ treated patients. And by admission of the authors themselves, it is not a substitute of a RCT. And this before the results of the Minnesota trial are out. At this point I hope those are negative, so that it does not show that countries are overreacting. [1] https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2020…

If it had any effect on covid-19, it'd be very obvious by now. There isn't some massive conspiracy here, it just doesn't work. The reason trials have stopped is because France, Italy, Belgium & the UK have seen worse outcomes generally, directly because of it. I don't get the 'it needs to be taken before symptoms!' argument - like we can possibly give a immunosuppressant with non-negligible side-effects (e.g. arrythm…

Not before symptoms, but after exposure, or early on during the course of the disease, like other antivirals.

I reinstate, before people think I'm some sort of HCQ defender: I am not. The effect size is probably very small. It may be as well that it doesn't work, and I would be happy even if it doesn't.

I just want to see a proper RCT done and sealed.

Re: France, Italy, Belgium stop hydroxychloroquine use for Covid-19 on safety fears

#25

Post by cm2187 »

frenchyatwork wrote: post #21
cm2187 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Particularly in the case of a 1950s drug that has been consumed by millions of people, and which as far as I know was available without prescription until covid. It’s like saying aspirin is dangerous. Sure. At a certain dosage.

The risk of treating patients with pain-reducing levels of ASA (aspirin) is actually a significant issue, and it's not hard to find papers covering this issue, and reporting data on it. It's usually in older populations who are more likely to be in pain and also more likely to die from a stomach bleed.

Yeah. But like every drug in the world has contraindications. By this standard all drugs are dangerous and should be banned from trials.

Re: France, Italy, Belgium stop hydroxychloroquine use for Covid-19 on safety fears

#26

Post by halflings »

cm2187 wrote: post #11
Alex3917 wrote: post #4

Meh. It wouldn't surprise me if these trials are being run by the makers of Remdesivir or some other drug, and they're purposely killing folks to make their treatment look more effective. It's a pretty common tactic in the pharma industry for drug makers to do trials with enormous doses of their competitors products to make them look more dangerous by comparison, and given that this whole thing has turned into a mult…

Particularly in the case of a 1950s drug that has been consumed by millions of people, and which as far as I know was available without prescription until covid. It’s like saying aspirin is dangerous. Sure. At a certain dosage.

Aspirin can be deadly if used to treat patients with an hemorrhage. Likewise, treating patients that are infected by a virus is not like preventing malaria in heathy people might to be exposed to a deadly virus like malaria, especially when most deaths are from older people which might be more sensitive to side effects.

Re: France, Italy, Belgium stop hydroxychloroquine use for Covid-19 on safety fears

#27

Post by zackees »

Alex3917 wrote: post #4

Meh. It wouldn't surprise me if these trials are being run by the makers of Remdesivir or some other drug, and they're purposely killing folks to make their treatment look more effective. It's a pretty common tactic in the pharma industry for drug makers to do trials with enormous doses of their competitors products to make them look more dangerous by comparison, and given that this whole thing has turned into a mult…

This is not the only sabotaged study being done on HCQ.

As I pointed out on Twitter over a month ago, the bill gates foundation was doing a study on HCQ for preventing covid19.

The "inert" placebo they decided to use in the control group? VITAMIN C.

That's right, one of the most potent and documented immune boosters is now being assumed to be "inert".

https://depts.washington.edu/covid19pep/about/

Re: France, Italy, Belgium stop hydroxychloroquine use for Covid-19 on safety fears

#28

Post by ceejayoz »

lbeltrame wrote: post #17
mxcrossb wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like we’re in trouble if we try to pursue a drug that has to be administered early in the disease process. Such a large percentage of people recover on their own that even a very effective drug has limited returns. And of course you need the infrastructure to detect the disease early and deliver huge supplies. It makes me worry that all antivirals we try will fail.

> It seems like we’re in trouble if we try to pursue a drug that has to be administered early in the disease process. This is the same for remedisivir, and also for ritonavir/lopinavir/ribavirin: they must be given within 7 days of symptom onset to be effective. In fact, the latter was deemed unsuccesful in a first paper, because it was given late, then it was reconsidered when given earlier during the disease. This…

Remdesivir doesn't have the sudden cardiac death side effect, though, does it?

HCQ's issue may be a bad combination of "has to be taken early" and "has significant side effects".

Re: France, Italy, Belgium stop hydroxychloroquine use for Covid-19 on safety fears

#29

Post by ceejayoz »

zackees wrote: post #23
acallaghan wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it had any effect on covid-19, it'd be very obvious by now. There isn't some massive conspiracy here, it just doesn't work. The reason trials have stopped is because France, Italy, Belgium & the UK have seen worse outcomes generally, directly because of it. I don't get the 'it needs to be taken before symptoms!' argument - like we can possibly give a immunosuppressant with non-negligible side-effects (e.g. arrythm…

It HCQ doesn't work, why is it the common first line of defense used internationally? Why does scholar.google.com list so many papers showing that it's effective?

Because it's a highly effective and widespread malaria (and RA/lupus) treatment?

Re: France, Italy, Belgium stop hydroxychloroquine use for Covid-19 on safety fears

#30

Post by cm2187 »

mxcrossb wrote: post #15
lbeltrame wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of these analyses were done in late-stage COVID-19 patients, when any antiviral won't work (same results with remedisivir, lopinavir/ritonavir/ribavirin), that's why the discussion won't stop. Didier Raoult in his very controversial paper suggested prophylaxis after exposure to the virus. And guess what, no one (save the U of Minnesota trial, AFAICS) has done a RCT on that. EDIT: I think it's a "shame" because a…

It seems like we’re in trouble if we try to pursue a drug that has to be administered early in the disease process. Such a large percentage of people recover on their own that even a very effective drug has limited returns. And of course you need the infrastructure to detect the disease early and deliver huge supplies. It makes me worry that all antivirals we try will fail.

Agree but the rationale is that you reduce the contamination by testing people early and giving them drugs that reduce the viral charge, hence the contagiousness.
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