4 ms·

I can't believe the media has been downplaying chloroquine+ treatment since Trump tweeted about it. This medicine has shown nothing but promise for months now,

I can't believe the media has been downplaying chloroquine+ treatment since Trump tweeted about it. This medicine has shown nothing but promise for months now, since the first reports out of China.

WTFisGoingOn 7y ago
Lol cause people like the idiot in Arizona are going to die from self-medication.
- Khelavaster 7y ago
  I'd guess far fewer though than who'd die of Covid.
- twomoretime 7y ago
  The guy who died from self medicating did so by consuming chloroquine phosphate in a mixture designed for aquarium cleaning. The fact that the media put it on full blast was nothing but a smear campaign. For once Trump was not acting foolishly for tweeting about a medicine which is literally poised to save millions of people during a crisis. There were already at least two papers with positive results at the time of the tweet, and we have a mechanism by which the drug may function. Chloroquine is generally safe and well tolerated. And it is not hard to properly dose. People take it prophylactically when traveling to certain countries with non resistent malaria. The fact that some idiot killed himself should not be enough to limit our own rights to knowledge and potentially self treatment during a crisis where the government has unquestionably failed.
  - robertpelloni 7y ago
    They overdosed is my guess. The woman reported they each took "a spoonful" in soda. A teaspoon is 4 grams. An overdose is 2 grams. I don't know why this isn't reported anywhere. It was probably the right chemical, as far as I can tell there isn't an aquarium specific formulation, Chloroquine Phosphate is Chloroquine Phosphate. You could just as easily overdose on the prescription if you downed a handful of pills. I'm upset they didn't report this correctly because now people can still die from an overdose and people who might have had access to the aquarium chemical might have saved themselves with proper dosage.
    - belorn 7y ago
      As I understand it, the aquarium cleaning product in question is a mix of formaldehyde, hydrogen peroxide, copper sulphate and chloroquine. It is used to treat the fish parasite Amyloodinium ocellatum. Taking a spoonful of that stuff is always a very bad idea. Even if one could find "pure" Chloroquine Phosphate without all the other stuff, Chloroquine Phosphate is not the same as Chloroquine Phosphate. You can charge or remove electrons and still call it Chloroquine Phosphate, you can put it into different crystal formations, and I am probably forgetting other tricks that exist in chemistry to completely alter the behavior of a drug.
weare138 7y ago
Maybe because the actual studies done so far haven't confirmed the efficacy of chloroquine on COVID-19? I'd be interested in seeing Dr. Zelenko's peer reviewed paper on his study. Oh that's right, it's not an actual scientific study and doesn't exist.
- giardini 7y ago
  What studies are those? Please list all peer-reviewed double-blind controlled studies on the efficacy of chloroquine+zinc sulfate+azithromycin on Covid-19. I think you missed out that Zelenko's protocol is partially a result of the ideas presented in a paper "Chloroquine Is a Zinc Ionophore:" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4182877/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4182877/ In other words, one of Zelenko's ideas was 1)zinc stops the virus and 2) chloroquine allows zinc to much more easily enter the cell. Previous studies AFAIK used chloroquine alone, not zinc sulfate + chloroquine+azithromycin. You can read Zelenko's study years from now _if_ he submits for publication, _after_ the peer review process is completed and the drafts _checked_ for errors and the paper goes to a publisher and is _published_ on the Internet or is mailed to your local university which may or may not have the publication.
  - weare138 7y ago
    https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/27/we-dont-know-hydroxychloroquine https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/27/we-dont-know-hydroxychlo... https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-25/hydroxychloroquine-no-better-than-regular-covid-19-care-in-study https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-25/hydroxych... https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/are-hydroxychloroquine-and-azithromycin-an-effective-treatment-for-covid-19 https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/are-hydroxychloroquine-and-...
mrbrianhinton 7y ago
What are you basing these claims on? The only definitive research on these drugs for treatment: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2095809920300631?via%3Dihub https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S209580992... does not point to a large success. In fact many of the trial patients ended up in ICU, and their condition worsened. A single doctor who advertised that he had 600 patients, which only a few were tested and verified to have COVID-19 is not enough to data to base starting broad treatment. If they do work then by all means lets start medicating, but sadly nothing points to these drugs being that effective.
- giardini 7y ago
  mrbrianhinton says >" A single doctor who advertised that he had 600 patients, which only a few were tested and verified to have COVID-19 is not enough to data to base starting broad treatment."< Zelenko wrote (above) that he had: "669 PATIENTS SEEN IN MY MONROE, NY practice with either test proven or clinically diagnosed corona infection" That "test proven" part is easy to miss. Zelenko's study is not a randomized controlled double-blind study but, at 699 patients so far, it is definitely statistically significant. It will be months, if not years, and quite possibly never before a controlled experiment occurs. Such an experiment could be deemed medically unethical because it withheld a highly-successful treatment from the control group: "More than one way to measure": https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1069666/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1069666/
  - mrbrianhinton 7y ago
    Yes. "test proven or clinically diagnosed corona infection". Clinically diagnosed means that they had symptoms that COULD be COVID-19. But unless they are tested it's not definitive evidence of anything, and further puts into question the treatment. Many of the symptoms are just like the common flu. I understand people jumping, and hoping that this is some cure. Likely if anything it helps treat the secondary illnesses caused by COVID-19, and perhaps helps improve recovery in that way.

I can't believe the media has been downplaying chloroquine+ treatment since Trump tweeted about it. This medicine has shown nothing but promise for months now, since the first reports out of China.

WTFisGoingOn 7y ago

Lol cause people like the idiot in Arizona are going to die from self-medication.

Khelavaster 7y ago
I'd guess far fewer though than who'd die of Covid.
twomoretime 7y ago
The guy who died from self medicating did so by consuming chloroquine phosphate in a mixture designed for aquarium cleaning. The fact that the media put it on full blast was nothing but a smear campaign. For once Trump was not acting foolishly for tweeting about a medicine which is literally poised to save millions of people during a crisis. There were already at least two papers with positive results at the time of the tweet, and we have a mechanism by which the drug may function. Chloroquine is generally safe and well tolerated. And it is not hard to properly dose. People take it prophylactically when traveling to certain countries with non resistent malaria. The fact that some idiot killed himself should not be enough to limit our own rights to knowledge and potentially self treatment during a crisis where the government has unquestionably failed.
- robertpelloni 7y ago
  They overdosed is my guess. The woman reported they each took "a spoonful" in soda. A teaspoon is 4 grams. An overdose is 2 grams. I don't know why this isn't reported anywhere. It was probably the right chemical, as far as I can tell there isn't an aquarium specific formulation, Chloroquine Phosphate is Chloroquine Phosphate. You could just as easily overdose on the prescription if you downed a handful of pills. I'm upset they didn't report this correctly because now people can still die from an overdose and people who might have had access to the aquarium chemical might have saved themselves with proper dosage.
  - belorn 7y ago
    As I understand it, the aquarium cleaning product in question is a mix of formaldehyde, hydrogen peroxide, copper sulphate and chloroquine. It is used to treat the fish parasite Amyloodinium ocellatum. Taking a spoonful of that stuff is always a very bad idea. Even if one could find "pure" Chloroquine Phosphate without all the other stuff, Chloroquine Phosphate is not the same as Chloroquine Phosphate. You can charge or remove electrons and still call it Chloroquine Phosphate, you can put it into different crystal formations, and I am probably forgetting other tricks that exist in chemistry to completely alter the behavior of a drug.

weare138 7y ago

Maybe because the actual studies done so far haven't confirmed the efficacy of chloroquine on COVID-19? I'd be interested in seeing Dr. Zelenko's peer reviewed paper on his study. Oh that's right, it's not an actual scientific study and doesn't exist.

giardini 7y ago
What studies are those? Please list all peer-reviewed double-blind controlled studies on the efficacy of chloroquine+zinc sulfate+azithromycin on Covid-19. I think you missed out that Zelenko's protocol is partially a result of the ideas presented in a paper "Chloroquine Is a Zinc Ionophore:" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4182877/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4182877/ In other words, one of Zelenko's ideas was 1)zinc stops the virus and 2) chloroquine allows zinc to much more easily enter the cell. Previous studies AFAIK used chloroquine alone, not zinc sulfate + chloroquine+azithromycin. You can read Zelenko's study years from now _if_ he submits for publication, _after_ the peer review process is completed and the drafts _checked_ for errors and the paper goes to a publisher and is _published_ on the Internet or is mailed to your local university which may or may not have the publication.
- weare138 7y ago
  https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/27/we-dont-know-hydroxychloroquine https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/27/we-dont-know-hydroxychlo... https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-25/hydroxychloroquine-no-better-than-regular-covid-19-care-in-study https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-25/hydroxych... https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/are-hydroxychloroquine-and-azithromycin-an-effective-treatment-for-covid-19 https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/are-hydroxychloroquine-and-...

mrbrianhinton 7y ago

What are you basing these claims on? The only definitive research on these drugs for treatment: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2095809920300631?via%3Dihub https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S209580992... does not point to a large success. In fact many of the trial patients ended up in ICU, and their condition worsened. A single doctor who advertised that he had 600 patients, which only a few were tested and verified to have COVID-19 is not enough to data to base starting broad treatment. If they do work then by all means lets start medicating, but sadly nothing points to these drugs being that effective.

giardini 7y ago
mrbrianhinton says >" A single doctor who advertised that he had 600 patients, which only a few were tested and verified to have COVID-19 is not enough to data to base starting broad treatment."< Zelenko wrote (above) that he had: "669 PATIENTS SEEN IN MY MONROE, NY practice with either test proven or clinically diagnosed corona infection" That "test proven" part is easy to miss. Zelenko's study is not a randomized controlled double-blind study but, at 699 patients so far, it is definitely statistically significant. It will be months, if not years, and quite possibly never before a controlled experiment occurs. Such an experiment could be deemed medically unethical because it withheld a highly-successful treatment from the control group: "More than one way to measure": https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1069666/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1069666/
- mrbrianhinton 7y ago
  Yes. "test proven or clinically diagnosed corona infection". Clinically diagnosed means that they had symptoms that COULD be COVID-19. But unless they are tested it's not definitive evidence of anything, and further puts into question the treatment. Many of the symptoms are just like the common flu. I understand people jumping, and hoping that this is some cure. Likely if anything it helps treat the secondary illnesses caused by COVID-19, and perhaps helps improve recovery in that way.