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Chloroquine, past and present

blogs.sciencemag.org

171–180 of 320 posts

Re: Chloroquine, past and present

#171
post #91

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…

1. it's prescription only.

2. it's already available for compassionate use.

The FDA is allowing chloroquine and remdesivir to be used for 'compassionate use' to treat the coronavirus.

https://www.businessinsider.com/chloroquine-remdesivir-compa...

Re: Chloroquine, past and present

#172

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…

Agree with all except wondering what you mean by the safety profile being not great?

It's been around for 70 years, taken by millions over very long periods of time with relatively minimal negative side effects.

Re: Chloroquine, past and present

#173
post #98

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…

OP called it "quite flawed".

But it is most definitely evidence.

Re: Chloroquine, past and present

#174
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

On the 26th February, in an interview, one of the researchers behind the French study said that he wasn't worried about Covid-19 and that it was just a flu...

Do you have a link?

Re: Chloroquine, past and present

#175

It seems to me that we should immediately move to massively increase production of hydroxychloroquine. If it turns out to be part of a solution, great. If not, I doubt that more than a tiny fraction of the total resources dedicated to the pandemic would have been used up by the effort. There is no time to take things slowly in our situation. In any case, from what I've read on places like r/medicine, many people who…

Supply is not an issue: https://www.fiercepharma.com/pharma/new-commitments-mylan-an...

We need testing that the medical community will accept.

Re: Chloroquine, past and present

#176

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…

I don't know about the efficacy of Chloroquine in treating COVID-19 but I would imagine that we already know a lot about the safety of dosing people with the drug. Any one growing up in the tropics during the 70s or 80s took regular doses for malaria treatment. The main adverse reaction that often happened was a crazy amount of itching (it would last for 3 days and would not let up even when you were trying to fall a…

from what dr fauci said, they wanted to be sure there weren’t any adverse affects for people who already have covid. But that they know it’s safe under normal circumstances

Re: Chloroquine, past and present

#177
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Lets stay home instead. For a couple of weeks, fine. However on the other end of this spectrum is "Millions starve". At some point we need to ask is that fair to the youth? (note: I'm an old fart)

Youth also doesn't want to deal with this disease. I'm 23 y.o., healthy as far as I know, but I still don't want to catch this disease. Why spend 2 weeks on the bed dealing with the worst flu, risk getting hospitalized? After all, even young patients can be hospitalized, even though fatality rate is lower. I vote everyone stay home for the time being.

they also don’t want to spread it to their parents or grandparents and kill them

Re: Chloroquine, past and present

#178
post #98

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…

[deleted]

Re: Chloroquine, past and present

#179

Also take a look at thymoquinone, which supposedly inhibits mouse coronavirus, which is very similar to SARS-coronavirus. The effects of Nigella sativa (Ns), Anthemis hyalina (Ah) and Citrus sinensis (Cs) extracts on the replication of coronavirus and the expression of TRP genes family https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3933739/ Thymoquinone is also generally protective of lung health in several models: htt…

Pardon the dumb question, but has anyone just tried quinine? I've been wondering if a hefty gin and tonic would help matters.

Re: Chloroquine, past and present

#180
post #5

I was under the impression that chloroquine was used to facilitate cellular absorption of zinc and that the zinc was responsible for any antiviral behavior: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dT6mHi_8V5E

I was under the same impression. Zinc acts to disrupt cellular replication of viral cells, and this is true for MANY viruses. Cloroquine acts as a zinc ionophore providing a pathway for zinc to cross the cellular wall at much lower concentrations, greatly improving its effectiveness.
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