Hydroxychloroquine, a Perspective

| May 31, 2020


Hydroxychloroquine Molecule

A simple, well understood medicine, approved for use in 1954 and declared an “essential medicine” by the World Health Organization, prescribed uncountable times by health care professionals is suddenly declared an anathema with its deadly side effects. What happened?

Poetrooper sends.

Hydroxychloroquine, Me, and the Great Divide

By Richard Moss, MD

I took hydroxychloroquine for two years. A long time ago as a visiting cancer surgeon in Asia, in Thailand, Nepal, India, and Bangladesh. From 1987 to 1990. Malaria is rife there. I took it for prophylaxis, 400 milligrams once a week for two years. Never had any trouble. It was inexpensive and effective. I started it two weeks before and was supposed to continue it through my stay and four weeks after returning. But I stopped it after two years. I was worried about potential side effects of which there are many, as with all drugs right down to Tylenol and aspirin. These, however, are rare. At a certain point, I was prepared to take my chances with mosquitoes and plasmodium, and so I stopped.

Cloroquine, the precursor of HCQ, was invented by Bayer in 1934. Hydroxycloroquine was developed during World War II as a safer, synthetic alternative and approved for medical use in the U.S. in 1955. The World Health Organization considers it an essential medicine, among the safest and most effective medicines, a staple of any healthcare system. In 2017, US doctors prescribed it 5 million times, the 128th most commonly prescribed drug in the country. There have been hundreds of millions of prescriptions worldwide since its inception. It is one of the cheapest and best drugs in the world and has saved millions of lives. Doctors also prescribe it for Lupus and Rheumatoid arthritis patients who may consume it for their lifetimes with few or no ill effects.

Then something happened to this wonder drug. From savior of the multitudes, redeemer and benefactor of hundreds of millions, it transformed into something else: a purveyor of doom, despair, and unspeakable carnage. It began when President Trump discussed it as a possible treatment for COVID-19 on March 19, 2020. The gates of hell burst forth on May 18 when Trump casually announced that he was taking it, prescribed by his physician. Attacks on Trump and this otherwise harmless little molecule poured in. The heretofore respected, commonly used, and highly effective medicinal became a major threat to life, a nefarious and wicked chemical that could alter critical heart rhythms, resulting in sudden cataclysmic death for unsuspecting innocents. Trump, more than irresponsible, was evil incarnate for daring to even mention it. While at it, the salivating media trotted out the canard about Trump’s nonrecommendation for injecting Clorox and Lysol or drinking fish-tank cleaner to combat COVID. It was Charlottesville all over again.

Because I get my health care advice from talking heads at CNN and MSNBC. Read the rest of the article here: American Thinker

Thanks, Poe.

Category: "Teh Stoopid", Guest Link, Media

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George V

What I’ve noticed about HCQ treatments for the virus is that the studies that are quoted seem to be designed to fail. As mentioned in the article, physicians in the field also use zinc and an antibiotic in combination with HCQ. What I have read is that it’s zinc that breaks down the virus, the HCQ carries the zinc through the cell wall to get to the virus. The antibiotic takes care of any bacterial infection that takes advantage of the immune system being otherwise occupied. I’ve also read that to be effective it must be administered early.

The studies never mention zinc and describe the patients as being near end stage, like that VA study of elderly men in the ICU. Or the study in Brazil which had two tracks, one with very high HCQ doses. The high dose track showed heart problems, there is no mention of the low dose track results.

So, I don’t trust any of the “science” coming from the media, nor do I trust what comes out of these studies or trials. Some of those are not actual trials but are statistical analysis of reports from hospitals. I read yesterday that the recent study showing HCQ being ineffective was such an analysis. It was NOT a full blown, double-blind trial as implied by the media reports.

LC

What I’ve noticed about HCQ treatments for the virus is that the studies that are quoted seem to be designed to fail.

At the risk of arguing semantics, it’s not that they’re designed to fail, it’s that as you point out, they aren’t blind studies — and that is a big problem for the science, but conducting the blind ones has been an ethical problem so long as the results are uncertain.

In essence, they’re giving HCQ to the most severely ill patients as a sort of “Hail Mary” play to save lives. Well, naturally, short of a wonder drug, you’re going to have higher mortality in those whose prognosis is most dire. That means the drug isn’t a miracle, but it doesn’t rule out it has some small positive effect.

The other side of this, however, is the poorly understood mechanisms behind COVID-19 infections – and namely, the early data showing it can affect the heart in addition to the lungs. HCQ has had known, rare effects with heart arrhythmias, but it’s possible that those are exacerbated by this virus, making them less rare and more severe.

In short, there’s definitely cause to be skeptical of the results, but it’s also fairly clear the drug doesn’t offer much help, if any.

LC

Also, just to add, here’s an article from the NYT two days ago about plenty of scientists questioning the recent Harvard study published in The Lancet:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/29/health/coronavirus-hydroxychloroquine.html

Ret_25X

“but it’s also fairly clear the drug doesn’t offer much help, if any”

That is an interesting opinion given the public statements of Chinese, Italian, German, Austrian, US, and Brazilian doctors.

If you get medical information from the NYTs you will be mislead. Its what they do.

If you go with the articles published by academics you will be mislead, they don’t practice actual medicine with patients (looking at you Fauci).

What is odd about this story is that the experience of patients and actual treating doctors is directly at odds with the statements of the US media and academia.

Remember, the media, academia, and left don’t care about effective treatments or strategies–they care about winning an election. Nothing more, nothing less.

Nothing they report, say, or publish is to be understood outside that fact.

LC

“but it’s also fairly clear the drug doesn’t offer much help, if any”

That is an interesting opinion given the public statements of Chinese, Italian, German, Austrian, US, and Brazilian doctors.

I could’ve phrased it better – it’s not going to save people who are very sick, else we’d have seen that in the data from the larger studies, despite their flaws. But it might offer some help to the less sick. Anecdotal stories from individual doctors isn’t proof of the drug’s effectiveness, it’s simply testament to the uncertainty of how this virus hits people.

I put more faith in data than I do peoples’ individual experiences. When I had cancer, a friend swore up and down that a doctor in Mexico had ‘cured cancer’ with magnets, but Big Pharma didn’t want people to know about it. She even knew someone who’d been treated by him. Those personal experiences of both doctor and patient don’t outweigh the huge amount of science and data we have that indicates that’s likely false, though.

We’re also going to disagree that everyone from the media to academics is conspiring to win an election. I know plenty of academics in medicine, and medical research, and they generally care about one thing: saving lives. Elections aren’t what drives them.

Poetrooper

Oh good grief…

You want to use the example of a rather obvious Mexican medical scam to refute the “anecdotal” results obtained in untold tens of thousands of cases of successful HCQ treatments?

Yet you try to align yourself with science by your association with academics in medicine and medical research.

You say: “I put more faith in data than I do peoples’ individual experiences.”

I’d say you CARE more about data than people…

MI Ranger

So Lars, if it is so ineffectual, why did Turkey use it so effectively?
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-52831017
I am not a medical doctor, but I am familiar with their methods of testing and analysis. What strikes me most in the news media is their constant reference to only a few studies. Those studies had definite lacks of control groups. In addition, as the BBC story on Turkey points out, they also tended to focus on patients with the most sever symptoms. Turkey focused treating all patients early with, as Dr. Moss points out, not just HCQ but also Zinc and an anti-biotic. Turkey found this to be a very effective approach.
The WHO dropping their study seems to also have some political influence, not founded in science. Possibly related to China.

11B-Mailclerk

Those “studies” are not providing the recommended combination therapy, thus they are designed to -not- validate or disprove the -combination therapy-

Observation by multiple doctors: A+B+C, given early enough, prevents almost all major negative outcomes.

Someone famous says “Hey, A might work.”

“Study”: Give end-state patients A. Observe little improvement. Announce that there is no evidence A works. If pressed, study A-only in earlier stage patients. Do not, not, not study the A+B+C combo therapy the doctors mentioned. No, no, no.

Only discuss studies of A in late stage patients. If cornered, discuss only-A studies in mid-stage patients. Denounce famous person for falsely advocating A. Keep bringing up A-only whenever someone tries to bring up all thosedoctors discussing their first-hand observations about A+B or A+B+C. Keep focus on A-only. Denounce famous person about the failures of A.

Does that not sum it up nicely, and explain why folks smell a rat?

11B-Mailclerk

And our on-target 5th/77th FA provides the additional point:

Denounce famous person for an alleged trivial financial interest in A, while holding -huge- financial interests in continuing to receive advertising money from new-other-than-A manufacturers.

That is a -big- rat I smell.

LC

I replied, but I think it’s caught up in the filter because I had three links in it. If it’s not up later, I’ll try to repost.

OldSoldier54

Sadly, they ARE designed to fail. I used to think that double-blind, randomized, placebo controlled studies were the cat’s pajamas.

Then, as an RN student in a 300 level Stats class, the Phd teaching pulled the curtain aside on “studies.”

It’s pretty bad. Even if all the Gold Standard protocols I mentioned are used, it turns out that the stats are manipulated, the sample population is too small, or not diverse in age, gender, general health, etc, and the first question should always be, “Who paid for it?”

Every time I hear the media trumpet about how some study says that HCQ is non-effective for the Wuhan Virus, I always look to see if Azythromicin and Zinc Sulfate were also administered. They are never mentioned. When they want to destroy the credibility of something, this is what they do.

Because so many people don’t understand just how corrupt the mutinational pharmas are, they get away with it.

They did the same thing with mega dose IV vitamin C. It’s sickening.

Wireman611

HCQ is less than a dollar a dose, and the newest wonder drug is like a thousand dollars per dose. Wonder if the media is in the pocket of big pharma as well.

5th/77th FA

Oh I don’t know if big pharma has the media in their pocket. It’s not like 80% of the commercials that come on during a newscast are about a new drug that you should “ask your doctor”. The rest of the commercials are from lawers. Go figure.

Hadn’t thought about this in nearly 50 years now, but the article triggered some fuzzy brain cells. Right before I left AIT at Ft Sill in Nov 71, they gave me a supply of pills and told me to take one a day till I reported to Jackson from leave. At that point in time I was on orders for the Viet of the Nam. When our flight woke up in Germany at 0God30 hrs didn’t think much of it till I was inprocessing. The doc said, “well you won’t be needing this anymore, anytime soon.” Wondering now, if these were the HCQ pills. I never had any side effects during the 3 weeks I took them.

Or, it could be as we’ve all said before. Trump could announce that you need to drink H20 every day and a bunch of people would die of thirst.

Follow the money and connect the dots. There’s more to all of this than we know.

rgr769

I noted fascist Fauci was an early naysayer about HCQ. Apparently, he and Bill Gates stand to make millions off the patents for the vaccines they are researching to inoculate for this virus. Think about the profits from a vaccine administered to about several billion people at even a hundred dollars a dose.

11B-Mailclerk

I am familiar with the US pharma business.

The costs to bring a drug to market are staggering. Easily 40-100 million dollars just for phase 1 2 and 3 studies.

The long-term risk is also huge. Today’s wonder drug may be a time bomb. Litigation of the consequences can be catastrophic.

Almost no one wants to do drug studies of pregnant women or children. The litigation risks for honest mistakes are astronomical. The ethical issues are also daunting. The lack of data makes prescribing treatments risky.

The success rate of “interesting molecule” to “we can sell this” is two in one thousand.

You can get all the way to “approved, used, and five year track record” and find out “oh shit! This is bad.” And have to pull it.

We don’t want another Thalidomide.

If we don’t allow the expensive recoup of costs via high prices, no new drugs.

If we nationalize it, it goes completely to crap.

Properly rationalizing the litigation needs to go hand-in-hand with criminalizing fraud and misconduct and actual punishment for same. Fake a study? Prison. Hide adverse events? Prison.

The Other Whitey

Follow the money, as they say.

Poetrooper

The primary reason I sent this to Ed is Dr. Moss’s summary in his article showing how a person’s negative attitude toward HCQ and COVID-19 is almost certainly linked to political ideology and not science:

“And so, the world was aflame once again with a nonstory driven by the COVID media. The HCQ divide within the nation is only a continuation of innumerable divides that have surfaced since the pandemic began — and before. One will know the politics of an individual based on his position on any number of pandemic issues: lockdowns, sheltering in place, face masks, social distancing, “elective surgery,” and “essential businesses.” The closing of schools and colleges. Blue states and Red states. Governor Cuomo or Governor DeSantis. Nationwide injunctions or federalism. The WHO and Red China. Or, pre-pandemic, Brexit, open borders, DACA, and amnesty. CBD oil, turmeric, and legalizing marijuana. Russia Collusion, Trump’s taxes, the 25th amendment, Stormy Daniels, the Ukraine non-scandal, and impeachment. Or Obamagate. And now HCQ.

“HCQ is only another bellwether. It represents the latest nonevent in a long string of fabricated media nonscandals. If a nation can be divided over HCQ it can be divided over anything. It shows neatly, as many of the other non-issues did, whether one embraces the U.S., our history, culture, and constitutional system, or rejects it. Whether one believes in Americanism or despises it. It is part of the ongoing civil war, thus far cold, but who knows? The passions today are no less jarring than they were in 1860. One would have thought that a man taking a medicine prescribed by his physician, even a President, would be a private matter. But no. Not today.”

By the way, my own young ENT doctor, who has been outstanding in guiding me through my battle with throat cancer, agrees with Dr. Moss on this.

George V

Poe,
I agree, the polarization of literally everything is the real story. Sorry I diverted things with a discussion of the reporting on the effectiveness of the drugs. But, maybe that’s another sign of the polarization also.

Ex-PH2

It’s been that way from the beginning of Trump’s term in office, Poetrooper. He could wave his hand and heal the sick and the large detractor crowd will find fault with it.

I hope he’s as thick-skinned as he seems to be.

Poetrooper

As a TAH Editor/Admin?

This from the guy who was bragging recently about serving in the Sissy Service?

“Make mine three, no, four hots-and-a-cot, hot showers, air conditioned comfort and per diem to boot.
Poor doggies.
*grin*”

Woof, woof…

😜🐕😜😜🐕😜

CDR_D

The warnings and cautions about possible side effects that are provided with any medication could scare anyone until they realize that these effects have only been experience by a minimal number of people. My wife has lupus, and took this stuff for years with no problems. It only became a deadly cyanide/strychnine-like death cocktail because of Orange Man.

11B-Mailclerk

Look at how hard the media worked to not much publicize our return to manned space flight, something eyeball-drawing they would normally be all over. Also, something far more important that another round of Pro-Fa blackheads violently helping looters.

No. Hope.
No. Optimism.
No. Good.

Orange. Era. Bad.

Fear and obey!

Commissar

The only reason you are touting this is because Trump did.

That is a bullshit reason.

Let the science decide how effective it is. So far the science has not been positive.

It sure as shit is no cure all.

Nor is it simple or even well understood,

Hell, we don’t even fully understand how aspirin works.

OWB

Liar. Trump has nothing to do with it.

My own father took it for years, with no visible ill effects. With a heart condition and following bypass surgery. Guess he would have lived longer without it, huh? Age 94 didn’t seem like it was all that premature at the time.

How’s about if you don’t take it iffin you don’t want to? Meanwhile, each of us is more than capable of making our own decisions about what is in our medical best interests.

Poetrooper

“Meanwhile, each of us is more than capable of making our own decisions about what is in our medical best interests.”

An impossibility to the minds of Lars and other leftbots who want to make those decisions for you. Remember, like them, he wants the Communist Chinese virus to take out all us oldtimers and HCQ might interfere with that.

5th/77th FA

Here ya go dippy!

Poetrooper

Damn, KOB! I think you found him!

5th/77th FA

Tanks Poe! I curried combed thru every damn squawking seagull video I could, looking for the perfect one that describes the foul mouth vulgar asinine POS. Imma gonna try to book mark the damn thing so I can find it quicker. I plan on not wasting anymore keyboard ribbon ink on this POS, just post his trademark video. The one thing I want to look down on Earth to from Valhalla is the Marxist, Socialist, Communists standing this useful idiot mofo POS against the wall. He will probably ask to orally gratify the Commander of the execution squad before they put the bullet in the back of his head.

Bitch really needs to read a history book. No, Bitch really needs to just STFU!

Poetrooper

Gee, KOB, I’m getting the impression you don’t value Larsie Boy’s opinions, hmm?

😁😁😁

11B-Mailclerk

Actually, some of us keep bringing it up to shine more light on the anti-liberty antics of some folks who seem to think they are a needed aristocracy.

Commissar

Screw it, AW1Ed, my posting is a waste of time form both of us.

SFC D

Here ended the lesson.

rgr769

You need to spend more time with your Antifa buddies, anyway. They need your guidance about how to conduct unconventional (guerrilla) warfare, since they are about to be classified as domestic terrorists.

11B-Mailclerk

These upheaval events should have happened in August or September. They will burn out way too soon. Something screwed up the agitators’ timing. This happening now helps end the “dem-panic” and hands Trump an opportunity for another win with a chance to peel off more Black votes.

There is a missing “coincidental” event.

11B-Mailclerk

Or, try to post civilly, and others may try to reply civilly.

Or not. You whizzed in the lister bag long and hard. Don’t gripe the water tastes bad.

Poetrooper

“…my posting is a waste of time…”

There, FIFY

The Other Whitey

Then why are you still here?