Study shows hydroxychloroquine leads to more deaths -- so don't take it

Science and reason should be trusted hugely more than anecdotal reports. I've been saying that hydroxychloroquine shouldn't be taken to prevent or treat COVID-19. A recent study shows this caution is deserved.

So don't pay attention to people who claim that hydroxychloroquine is effective. Further research is needed, but so far those who advocate for its use are akin to faith-based religious believers who make assertions without evidence.

Here's the Politico story, "More deaths, no benefit from malaria drug in VA virus study."
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A malaria drug widely touted by President Donald Trump for treating the new coronavirus showed no benefit in a large analysis of its use in U.S. veterans hospitals. There were more deaths among those given hydroxychloroquine versus standard care, researchers reported.

The nationwide study was not a rigorous experiment. But with 368 patients, it’s the largest look so far of hydroxychloroquine with or without the antibiotic azithromycin for COVID-19, which has killed more than 171,000 people as of Tuesday.

The study was posted on an online site for researchers and has been submitted to the New England Journal of Medicine, but has not been reviewed by other scientists. Grants from the National Institutes of Health and the University of Virginia paid for the work.

Researchers analyzed medical records of 368 male veterans hospitalized with confirmed coronavirus infection at Veterans Health Administration medical centers who died or were discharged by April 11.

About 28% who were given hydroxychloroquine plus usual care died, versus 11% of those getting routine care alone. About 22% of those getting the drug plus azithromycin died too, but the difference between that group and usual care was not considered large enough to rule out other factors that could have affected survival.

Hydroxychloroquine made no difference in the need for a breathing machine, either.

Researchers did not track side effects, but noted hints that hydroxychloroquine might have damaged other organs. The drug has long been known to have potentially serious side effects, including altering the heartbeat in a way that could lead to sudden death.

Earlier this month, scientists in Brazil stopped part of a hydroxychloroquine study after heart rhythm problems developed in one-quarter of people given the higher of two doses being tested.

Many doctors have been leery of the drug.

At the University of Wisconsin, Madison, “I think we’re all rather underwhelmed” at what’s been seen among the few patients there who’ve tried it, said Dr. Nasia Safdar, medical director of infection control and prevention.

Patients asked about it soon after Trump started promoting its use, “but now I think that people have realized we don’t know if it works or not” and needs more study, said Safdar, who had no role in the VA analysis.

The NIH and others have more rigorous tests underway.

Comments

[someonedunit]

I don't think I'd take this hydroxychloroquine drug either, but I definitely would not take any vaccine designated by the Gates / WHO organizations which I am almost convinced is 100% untrustworthy.

If I happen to contract this 'killer' virus (if it's not in our system in some form or another already as these viruses have been around awhile in various random genome strains), I'll take my chances with my own immune system fighting it off without these quack concoctions infecting me further.

And if it don't, so be it. I'll trust nature before I trust some genocide inducing Dr Who injecting me with his biological hit and miss population manipulating anecdote, thanks but no thanks Dr. No.

[Dogribb]

Do take this ICU Doctors advice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NM2A2xNLWR4

[Sonia]

@someonedunit

What about cancer? Would you take chemo treatments?

This study hasn’t even been peer reviewed. There have been studies showing opposite results. https://techstartups.com/2020/03/18/hydroxychloroquine-found-potent-chloroquine-vitro-treatment-coronavirus-sars-cov-2-new-study-published-nih-shows/

More studies are necessary.

But by all means, do us all a favor and please do not take this “quack” Trump red pill when you catch the corona virus. I beg you, let nature take its course. It will make life a lot easier.

[Gatemaybestrangebutheisnotdrstrange]

100 percent untrustworthy? Geez, are we in the Gates conspiracy game once again?

Anti-Vaxxers need to go look at the history of what vaccines have done for us....

Polio?
Small Pox?

And why would it be that Gates wants to harm people with vaccines that don't work?

What logic is that?

[Sonia]

And I’m certain you will contract the virus. It will be virtually impossible for anyone to avoid being exposed to COVID-19 over the course of this year. Not unless you lock yourself up in your hobbit hole and completely avoid the outside world for the rest of your days. I wouldn’t come out till there’s a vaccine if I were you.

[Sonia]

@someonedunit

If I didn’t know any better I’d swear you are Georgy Porgy’s new alias. You remind me of him. I almost miss him a little, minus the weekly beratings.

Regardless, since everything is predetermined, if you’re going to die from COVID-19 then there’s nothing you can do to change that. It doesn’t matter what you do or don’t take. It’s in the cards...

[anami]

How do vaccines work? With nature. They show the immune system how to recognize a pathogen and defend against it without having to suffer and possibly die from the disease...
https://www.publichealth.org/public-awareness/understanding-vaccines/vaccines-work/

[Jesse]

"scientific studies" are a dime a dozen these days, with one disproving the other until it too is disproved by yet another study a week later.

If we're supposed to trust experts and "reason," then which expert should we choose? The fact is that "experts" don't agree, and wasn't it you who just said last week to not take this medicine without a prescription? Now you, not even an expert and having no access to any info all of us don't have access to, are giving medical advice again?

Plus, the studies cited in that non scientific Trump centred media piece had a pretty miniscule sample size. Probably not valuable.

Maybe we should just listen to Sweden and Iceland. Their experts are correct more often.

[j]

"So don't pay attention to people who claim that hydroxychloroquine is effective."

If I'm not mistaken, I believe it was physicians who prescribed this drug to their Wuhan flu patients. Why were these physicians so terrible irresponsible?

One is that the FDA approved the use of this drug for treating the Wuhan virus.

Why was the FDA so terribly irresponsible?

At the time the FDA made their decision, there was no drug proven to be safe and effective for treating the Wuhan virus. Another reason is obvious: many people in the late stages of Wuhan flu either die or are close to death.

That's still true today. Wuhan virus is still lethal for some people, and there is still no drug that is proven to be a cure for the Wuhan virus, and none of the drugs that physicians currently give for patients with this disease are 100% safe, like homeopathic water remedies.

By the way, why am I being so terribly un-PC and calling this disease Wuhan virus? I do so because the idea of calling it COVID-19 was done at the behest of Communist China through their W.H. O. puppet.

"We now have a name for the disease and it's Covid-19," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters in Geneva.

[Noconspiracyneeded]

Actually, it is a precise acronym:
coronavirus disease of 2019.

"While it’s unlikely that the “Spanish Flu” originated in Spain, scientists are still unsure of its source. France, China and Britain have all been suggested as the potential birthplace of the virus, as has the United States, where the first known case was reported at a military base in Kansas on March 11, 1918. Researchers have also conducted extensive studies on the remains of victims of the pandemic, but they have yet to discover why the strain that ravaged the world in 1918 was so lethal."

[Sonia Taylor]

The official name for the virus is
SARS-CoV-2 (see CDC website). But you can call it whatever you want. We’ll probably refer to it in the context of 2020 several years from now.

[j]

""While it’s unlikely that the “Spanish Flu” originated in Spain"...what does the Spanish flu have to do with the geological genesis of the Wuhan virus?

The only reason the virus has the official name of COVID 19 and not Wuhan flu is because of aggressive lobbying by China, the country in which the virus originated and was allowed to spread worldwide. This isn't the first time China has been responsible for generating a deadly virus through recklessly unsanitary conditions and political negligence. China is also the country that threw the whistleblower doctor in prison for daring to warn people about the virus. China also tried to claim the U.S. is to blame for the virus.

China is playing on our PC strings and many Americans are only too glad to dance to the tune, when they're not busy doing simran of twump twump.

[drtrumpandthefox]

J,

Again, calling it the Covid 19 virus because it is transparent to its etymology and thus part of a virus family as in:
Human Coronavirus Types
Coronaviruses are named for the crown-like spikes on their surface. There are four main sub-groupings of coronaviruses, known as alpha, beta, gamma, and delta.

Human coronaviruses were first identified in the mid-1960s. The seven coronaviruses that can infect people are:

Common human coronaviruses
229E (alpha coronavirus)
NL63 (alpha coronavirus)
OC43 (beta coronavirus)
HKU1 (beta coronavirus)
Other human coronaviruses
MERS-CoV (the beta coronavirus that causes Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, or MERS)
SARS-CoV (the beta coronavirus that causes severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS)
SARS-CoV-2 (the novel coronavirus that causes coronavirus disease 2019, or COVID-19)
People around the world commonly get infected with human coronaviruses 229E, NL63, OC43, and HKU1.

Sometimes coronaviruses that infect animals can evolve and make people sick and become a new human coronavirus. Three recent examples of this are 2019-nCoV, SARS-CoV, and MERS-CoV.

Now, the reason the Spanish flu was mentioned was because it is misleading.

We are now seeing that the virus was in this country much earlier than thought.

Therefore, it may be wise to wait and see exactly where, when, and how this disease emerged.

It turns out, for instance, that so-called "patient zero" wasn't really the originator of HIV. As this explains,
Newly published research is rewriting the earliest chapter of the historical account of how the AIDS epidemic began in the United States.

The work, detailed in a study released Wednesday, discounts the long-held notion that a French-Canadian flight attendant, whose story was highlighted in the seminal book “And the Band Played On,” brought the virus to the United States.

“This individual was simply one of thousands infected before HIV/AIDS was recognized,” said Richard McKay, one of the authors and a professor in the department of the history and philosophy of science at the University of Cambridge, in Britain."

The virus is here now and talking about China, China, China, isn't a solution.... and doing simran of
Not-Trump, Not-Trump, won't help either.

Intelligence can be practiced even in quarantines. That is the right solution.

[drtrumpandthefox]

Of course, given Dr. Trump's latest advice maybe we should just get some Lysol and spray it down our throats.
Or we could go get a really good flash light and burn the virus out.

Who knew he was so scientific?

Perhaps a good dose of Hydrogen Peroxide? Chlorine?

Ah, maybe some Hai Karate After shave?

That's the ticket

[Sonia 🧟‍♀️ 😐]

@someonedunit

If I didn’t know any better I’d swear you are Georgy Porgy’s new alias. You remind me of him. I almost miss him a little, minus the weekly beratings.

Regardless, since everything is predetermined, if you’re going to die from COVID-19 then there’s nothing you can do to change that. It doesn’t matter what you do or don’t take. It’s in the cards...

Posted by: Sonia | April 21, 2020 at 08:46 PM

@someonedunit

I owe you an apology (and Georgy). No excuses...

🧟‍♀️ <— side effects of hydroxychloroquine maybe...

[Read The Fine Print]

"The FDA has cleared some emergency use of the drugs, but the agency said Friday they have not been approved to prevent or treat the coronavirus."

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/24/fda-issues-warnings-on-chloroquine-and-hydroxychloroquine-after-serious-poisoning-and-death-reported.html

[Read it]

Here is the actual study they are referring to:
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2765270

I’ve always said high doses are dangerous. Like most people with certain autoimmune diseases, I take 200mg per day, every single day for months at a time. Most with Lupus (unless they have kidney disease) take is 365 days a year. If I took more than 200 mg within an 8 hour period I would have serious reactions. It’s a very weird drug and it’s not designed to treat COVID-19 (or autoimmune diseases for that matter).

The clinical trial referenced was focused on dosage amount.

Here’s the abstract (click the link to read the really fine print):

Key Points
Question How safe and effective are 2 different regimens of chloroquine diphosphate in the treatment of severe coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)?

Findings
In this phase IIb randomized clinical trial of 81 patients with COVID-19, an unplanned interim analysis recommended by an independent data safety and monitoring board found that a higher dosage of chloroquine diphosphate for 10 days was associated with more toxic effects and lethality, particularly affecting QTc interval prolongation. The limited sample size did not allow the study to show any benefit overall regarding treatment efficacy.

Meaning
The preliminary findings from the CloroCovid-19 trial suggest that higher dosage of chloroquine should not be recommended for the treatment of severe COVID-19, especially among patients also receiving azithromycin and oseltamivir, because of safety concerns regarding QTc interval prolongation and increased lethality.

Abstract
Importance There is no specific antiviral therapy recommended for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). In vitro studies indicate that the antiviral effect of chloroquine diphosphate (CQ) requires a high concentration of the drug.

Objective To evaluate the safety and efficacy of 2 CQ dosages in patients with severe COVID-19.

Design, Setting, and Participants This parallel, double-masked, randomized, phase IIb clinical trial with 81 adult patients who were hospitalized with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection was conducted from March 23 to April 5, 2020, at a tertiary care facility in Manaus, Brazilian Amazon.

Interventions Patients were allocated to receive high-dosage CQ (ie, 600 mg CQ twice daily for 10 days) or low-dosage CQ (ie, 450 mg twice daily on day 1 and once daily for 4 days).

Main Outcomes and Measures Primary outcome was reduction in lethality by at least 50% in the high-dosage group compared with the low-dosage group. Data presented here refer primarily to safety and lethality outcomes during treatment on day 13. Secondary end points included participant clinical status, laboratory examinations, and electrocardiogram results. Outcomes will be presented to day 28. Viral respiratory secretion RNA detection was performed on days 0 and 4.

Results Out of a predefined sample size of 440 patients, 81 were enrolled (41 [50.6%] to high-dosage group and 40 [49.4%] to low-dosage group). Enrolled patients had a mean (SD) age of 51.1 (13.9) years, and most (60 [75.3%]) were men. Older age (mean [SD] age, 54.7 [13.7] years vs 47.4 [13.3] years) and more heart disease (5 of 28 [17.9%] vs 0) were seen in the high-dose group. Viral RNA was detected in 31 of 40 (77.5%) and 31 of 41 (75.6%) patients in the low-dosage and high-dosage groups, respectively. Lethality until day 13 was 39.0% in the high-dosage group (16 of 41) and 15.0% in the low-dosage group (6 of 40). The high-dosage group presented more instance of QTc interval greater than 500 milliseconds (7 of 37 [18.9%]) compared with the low-dosage group (4 of 36 [11.1%]). Respiratory secretion at day 4 was negative in only 6 of 27 patients (22.2%).

Conclusions and Relevance
The preliminary findings of this study suggest that the higher CQ dosage should not be recommended for critically ill patients with COVID-19 because of its potential safety hazards, especially when taken concurrently with azithromycin and oseltamivir. These findings cannot be extrapolated to patients with nonsevere COVID-19.

Trial Registration ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT04323527

[Sonia]

Just remember, dosage for any drug and the user and the stage of illness are key. Quite honestly, I’m not a doctor but I would never give hydroxychloroquine to someone in advanced stages of COVID-19.

Let me repeat, I would never advise taking this drug if you are in any sort of critical health condition—injury or illness. It is not very safe for a weak body. Why they wait to give it to people once they’re at the point of critical care is beyond me.

It is not safe at all once you’ve reach a late stage of the disease. I think it’s ok when you first have symptoms if you don’t have any underlying heart or kidney problems—even then it should be monitored.

But once you have to be hospitalized with COVID-19, your chances of survival using any drug or treatment aren’t super high and personally I wouldn’t recommend it for anyone in ICU... ever.

[Sonia]

And since this keeps coming up, I want to be a little more clear. I think hydroxychloroquine could potentially be a great treatment for people when they first have signs of flu (if they could get tested right away and confirm it’s COVID-19). There need to be studies done on that.

However, once you have to be ADMITTED to the hospital—you’re in a very serious situation and I don’t think hydroxychloroquine is best approach in that situation. It might be OK but it certainly won’t be as effective at helping anything once someone is that ill.

Jesus, you might as well take chemo at that point... it would be about as safe as hydroxychloroquine. Hydroxychloroquine is a very strong drug. Could possibly be really good early stages but I have very low expectations for its efficacy in late stage COVID-19 development.

[Sonia]

Testing—that’s where we really screwed up in this country. South Korea did a great job. If we had tested early and treated then, using whatever they’re using or something else approved then we’d be a lot better off.

But as it is...

[Humpty Dumbty]

Put it this way when the virus came out , there was a French / Chinese study pointing to this drug effectiveness. An anti malarial in common usage for 30+ years. Statistically pretty low side effects mostly relating to patients with heart issues.

But if your choice was drowning in your own excretions or popping this pill - I reckon most would get too popping.

[8]

perhaps correct ? this??