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Chloroquine, past and present

blogs.sciencemag.org

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Re: Chloroquine, past and present

#311

Post by gumby »

zamalek wrote: post #259
aaavl2821 wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fwiw, Plaquenil is hydroxychloroquine, a less toxic derivative of chloroquine. It has a different safety profile than chloroquine The French study of HCQ had several limitations. Including that it was very small and some patients who got HCQ and progressed to go to the ICU were excluded from the study. Thus making the drug look better than it is HCQ is not likely to be a miracle cure. It may be useful in combo with o…

> It may be useful in combo with other drugs Weren't the first studies done in combination with azithromycin (which is bizzare, as that's an antibiotic)?

Azithromycin has been shown to have some antiviral effect though it has not been characterized and the mechanism of action is unknown.

I assume they chose that as a broad spectrum prophylaxis for and opportunistic concurrent infection but perhaps they chose it specifically for this reason.

Re: Chloroquine, past and present

#312

Post by lurquer »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #291
roenxi wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not knowing the evidence doesn't make someone unscientific. Most scientists don't know most evidence. If he had the evidence explained to him and then just assumed it would be different in France that would be unscientific, but we'd all need to read French to ague about that.

In February the situation in China was public knowledge. It's difficult to understand why a country would go on lockdown and build emergency hospitals for something nor worse than seasonal flu...

A reasonable explanation: there was a release (either intentional or accidental) from a facility housing a multitude of lethal viruses. The gov't locked down out of abundance of caution as it was not entirely clear what might have been released. Perhaps the virus they were REALLY worried about WAS contained. It would certainly explain the bizarre and unprecedented reaction at Wuhan. Let's face reality... but for the Chinese flipping out, this covid-19 story would be a run-of-the-mill story on page 3 similar to H1N1, SARS, MERS, Zika, west Nile, etc...

Re: Chloroquine, past and present

#313

Post by headmelted »

DanBC wrote: post #295
headmelted wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve been trying to buy some since early January and haven’t found a single pharmacist who will sell it to me. If you know of one, please let me know.

No-one carries it because they'd have hydroxychloroquine instead. Hydroxychloroquine is prescription only. You're not going to be able to get a registered professional to give you anything for off-label experimentation, especially not something with potentially serious side effects like chloroquine.

I agree but I wanted it as a precaution. In Northern Ireland the hospital system has a vanishingly low capacity and we only test for COVID if someone is dying and we don’t know why (I think 200 tests total), so it was precautionary.

There’s a non-zero chance this virus gets into my home and a high-90’s chance the health care system will just turn us away if we got in trouble.

Re: Chloroquine, past and present

#314

Post by mytailorisrich »

lurquer wrote: post #312
mytailorisrich wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In February the situation in China was public knowledge. It's difficult to understand why a country would go on lockdown and build emergency hospitals for something nor worse than seasonal flu...

A reasonable explanation: there was a release (either intentional or accidental) from a facility housing a multitude of lethal viruses. The gov't locked down out of abundance of caution as it was not entirely clear what might have been released. Perhaps the virus they were REALLY worried about WAS contained. It would certainly explain the bizarre and unprecedented reaction at Wuhan. Let's face reality... but for the…

Please this is not the moment to spread loony conspiracy theories.

Re: Chloroquine, past and present

#315

Post by arrrg »

pbreit wrote: post #173
arrrg wrote: 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…

OP called it "quite flawed". But it is most definitely evidence.

“Quite flawed” is wild praise for this trash.

I don’t think it’s intentionally bad but it’s still bad. In the end it’s easier to make things worse … and chloroquine could, we don’t know. So I wouldn’t touch it.

Re: Chloroquine, past and present

#316

Post by lurquer »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #314
lurquer wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A reasonable explanation: there was a release (either intentional or accidental) from a facility housing a multitude of lethal viruses. The gov't locked down out of abundance of caution as it was not entirely clear what might have been released. Perhaps the virus they were REALLY worried about WAS contained. It would certainly explain the bizarre and unprecedented reaction at Wuhan. Let's face reality... but for the…

Please this is not the moment to spread loony conspiracy theories.

What conspiracy?

You don't think the US wouldn't lock down Maryland if there were suddenly 100+ people within a mile or two of Ft. Dietrick (a repository for some very lethal viruses) came down with sudden fevers and pneumonia?

It's is a theory... not a conspiracy theory.

Why do you think China suddenly had s massively unusually change in policy for this particular bug? You think the proximity to the Wuhan bioresearch facility had NOTHING to do with Bejing's swift and unprecedented lockdown?

Re: Chloroquine, past and present

#317

Post by Recurecur »

mcguire wrote: post #155
axguscbklp wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not suggesting immediately starting to dose millions of people with it. I'm suggesting massively ramping up production so that if it turns out to be useful, we can at that point immediately start dosing millions of people with it. I think it likely that the cost of massively increasing hydroxychloroquine production would be a drop in the bucket compared to the total resources being spent on tackling the crisis. S…

Note that if hydroxychloroquine is not effective, your production facilities will be tied up if you do find something else that is effective.

Not really, you just switch in the same agile manner you did to produce quinine...

I have a feeling things are about to come up roses for President Trump yet again! :-)

Re: Chloroquine, past and present

#318

Post by Recurecur »

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…

How is this possible? It requires a prescription, no?

SMH...

Re: Chloroquine, past and present

#319

Post by jki275 »

Munky-Necan wrote: post #270
jki275 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, I don't think that he's saying it should be banned -- he's saying that we need a lot more testing before claiming this is a cure based on one study with a tiny number of participants. His statement is accurate. And the quinine derivatives have some very subtle neurological effects that last a lifetime. Suicidal ideations -- for life and incurable -- are a well known side effect of mefloquine at least. May…

Bingo, we need nonbiased blinded drug trials otherwise the data could be seriously flawed. There's drug trials for reasons, and even in this pandemic we should respect the rationale for why we established those trials. Also, I'm finding that this forum is full of incredibly intelligent individuals who demonstrate the a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. It amazes me how often y'all will talk about medicine like y…

Dunning-Kruger is a thing unfortunately.

Re: Chloroquine, past and present

#320

Post by banannaise »

duchenne wrote: post #231

Since this 13th of February, the Koreans recommend the use of hydrochloroquine for patients infected by the covid-19 [1]. The Covid-19 fatality ratio in Korea is one of the lowest in the world, around 1%. The study in France showing a spectacular drop in covid-19 viral load after only 6 days of hydrochloroquine treatment has been directed by Pr Didier Raoult who is the most cited researcher on infectious disease in t…

Presently, I would think fatality rates mostly measure testing penetration, not treatment effectiveness. A country that's testing everyone will show a much lower fatality rate than a country testing only the sickest people, because the latter countries have few to no confirmed minor cases.
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