5 ms·
>They're miraculous. Where are you seeing that? Because what I see is a very non-rigorous, non-randomized study. Also, what about this part: >A total of 26 pa
by cycrutchfield 7y ago
>They're miraculous.
Where are you seeing that? Because what I see is a very non-rigorous, non-randomized study. Also, what about this part:
>A total of 26 patients received hydroxychloroquine and 16 were control patients. Six hydroxychloroquine-treated patients were lost in follow-up during the survey because of early cessation of treatment. Reasons are as follows: three patients were transferred to intensive care unit, including one transferred on day2 post-inclusion who was PCR-positive on day1, one transferred on day3 post-inclusion who was PCR-positive on days1-2 and one transferred on day4 post-inclusion who was PCRpositive on day1 and day3; one patient died on day3 post inclusion and was PCR-negative on day2; one patient decided to leave the hospital on day3 post-inclusion and was PCR-negative on days1-2; finally, one patient stopped the treatment on day3 post-inclusion because of nausea and was PCR-positive on days1-2-3.
Really easy to have "miraculous" results when 20+% of your treatment group were excluded and also happened to be the ones with the most severe symptoms.
- prostheticvamp 7y agoMedical doctor and statistician weighing in just to say: I agree fully with what you wrote. No miracles observed.
- blhack 7y agoI don't mean and disrespect to you as a physician, but there appear to be many experts who disagree with you to the point of acting out their disagreement at scale. Chloroquine has become a standard part of treatment for this disease in several countries, and its continued use seems to imply its efficacy.
- endtime 7y agoI don't think he said no one is using (or should use) it, just that the results aren't "miraculous".
- SpikeDad 7y agoHaha. Continued use seems to imply it's efficacy. This might be the most illogical post on Hacker News in some time. I think we could have a whole website of things that were continued to be used without a shred of evidence of effectiveness.
- prostheticvamp 7y agoWe could also have a whole website of things people strongly believed were effective that RCTs absolutely demolished.
- krona 7y agoMiracle (noun): an extraordinary and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore attributed to a divine agency.
- jshevek 7y ago>there appear to be many experts who disagree with you to the point of acting out their disagreement at scale. Chloroquine has become a standard part of treatment for this disease in several countries, and its continued use seems to imply its efficacy. The fact that experts agree that this drug should be used doesn't mean they agree that it is miraculous. And this certainly doesn't suggest they disagree with the parent MD/statistician.
- blhack 7y agoIt seems like such a strange nit to pick here over my use of the term miraculous. I don’t know what else you would call the results of the study I linked (supported by the reaction of many national health orgs). Yeah, maybe this isn’t the cure to this disease, and of course we need more testing, but the result as reported are incredibly hopeful. It seems to have hit a nerve with some people that I used the term “miraculous”, but I will continue to defend that term. We are looking at a virus that has disrupted the global order. Here is a study claiming incredible efficacy. That isn’t a miracle in the divine sense, but if definitely reports as being extremely helpful during a dire need.
- jshevek 7y agoYou were wrong when you presented alleged evidence/argument that experts must necessarily disagree with the MD/statistician, above.
- blhack 7y agoIf doctors are using this, and not seeing an effect, why do they continue using it? Doctors are humans, and prone to irrationality of course, but they're also scientists. Maybe my faith in the collective ability of the world medical professionals to evaluate their treatment techniques is misplaced, but I still have faith that these people are acting in accordance with their scientific training. Maybe that's wrong, and I shouldn't be trusting these people. But if I'm not trusting doctors (and especially infectious disease experts who are writing papers about their findings), then who should I trust? I think a lot of this distrust in institutions and doctors is going to get us into a lot of trouble. I wish people would start listening to these orgs.
- prostheticvamp 7y agoIts use in the presence of a plausible mechanism, and in the absence of any good supporting data, does not indicate efficacy. It indicates that when a patient is circling the drain you throw things at the wall that could plausibly have some benefit.
- pombrand 7y agoIf the control group still is positive for corona after 7 days in 90% of cases and we anticipate the intervention to get that number to 50%, with an alpha of 0.05 and a size of 24 in the intervention group, the study has a power of 0.957 and answers the question whether chloroquine stops viral shedding by day 7. This isn't cardiology where we need 50000 patients to find the significance.
- batmansmk 7y agoExactly! Reading the study, I don't see any hard evidence. Sounds like the next Forsythia.
- jacquesm 7y ago> Sounds like the next Forsythia. For those that don't get the reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contagion_(2011_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contagion_(2011_film) And that's exactly what it is.
- blhack 7y agoOh come on that isn't fair. Just do a simple google search for countries which have made chloroquine part of their standard treatment. The reference you're making here is to a person trying to exploit people during a pandemic with what was an obvious lie. This is not that.
- SpikeDad 7y agoA country using an unproven treatment to quell panic is hardly unprecedented nor out of the realm of many governments and sorry for me to say the US as well. "Lets all pray for God to cure us" comes to mind.
- jacquesm 7y agoYou are harping on the theme of 'a miracle cure' in this thread. I think you're highly irresponsible.
- lurquer 7y agoI wonder if anyone has tried forsythia against covid? I’m just saying... we’d all feel pretty foolish if we find out in a couple years that it is effective. Edit: yeah, yeah... you downvote me, but I bet you secretly wiki'd forsythia to see if it's a real thing.
- jshevek 7y agoThis one study is weak, agreed. However, some form of chloroquine+iodine has been used successfully in South Korea. I don't agree with the "miracle" hyperbole, but there is reason to be hopeful.
- ukabwlsbeux 7y agoMean age of control group is 15 years older than experimental too.
- cameldrv 7y agoIt's the other way around. The experimental group is older. That would suggest that HCQ would do even better if the ages were matched.
- swsieber 7y agoLuckily, it seems like a randomized study is underway.
- blhack 7y agoThe findings they're claiming are nothing short of miraculous, and I think the people who were behind the trial, as well as everybody else even remotely interested in this (the entire world, I would say) should and likely does support a broader trial.