5 ms·

ah yes, the flavor of the month drug. What makes you think it'd work on Lyme.

• mrfusion 7y ago
  Did we have any reason to think it would work on corona? (I really don’t know)
  • James_Henry 7y ago
    Yes, it is an antiviral.
    • wetpaws 7y ago
      It also failed clinical trials for covid
      • James_Henry 7y ago
        Which trials has it failed? I've really only read through the French one and the one from Wuhan. There are plenty that are still ongoing, of course.
        • hannob 7y ago
          As far as I'm aware there has been only one small RCT overall on hydroxychlroquine from china and there it failed. All the other things that were cited in HCQs favor were essentially garbage. That's not to say it doesn't work. It was a small trial with issues. But right now it's the best evidence there is.
        • wetpaws 7y ago
          Zheijang study does not show any detectable effectiveness https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04261517 https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04261517
          • James_Henry 7y ago
            Thanks for the link. In case you are interested, here is a larger study from in Wuhan that showed lower time to recovery on hydroxychloroquine: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.22.20040758v2 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.22.20040758v...
            • hannob 7y ago
              I wasn't aware of this one yet. Though... it seems it has plenty of issues as well, see the comments on pubpeer: https://pubpeer.com/publications/71E74AD5896DCF99981A47917DE097 https://pubpeer.com/publications/71E74AD5896DCF99981A47917DE... In the trials registry [1] this was registered as a three arm trial with 100 patients each, so 300 overall. Yet the paper mentions ony two groups with 31 patients each. That alone looks very dubious... [1] http://www.chictr.org.cn/showprojen.aspx?proj=48880 http://www.chictr.org.cn/showprojen.aspx?proj=48880
              • James_Henry 7y ago
                It's not necessarily dubious to change a protocol, but it is concerning that they didn't report on the changes along with their reasoning. It would make sense, if they couldn't get 300 research subjects, that there would be a change of protocol. Also, I think it could have been a good idea to switch from viral load and t cell recovery time to something more meaningful and quick to measure like TTCR and pulmonary condition, but again, they don't explain the change so for all we know the change was to get their names on a more exciting paper. I see no reason why they would drop the placebo either. We really do have to wait for the bigger and better trials.
    • thomasmeeks 7y ago
      It is an anti-parasitic and immune-regulation drug. Not really an antiviral. I guess the theory is that it’d regulate an immune over-response. But I don’t think the science is m showing that to be true in this case.
      • James_Henry 7y ago
        Yes, it is an antimalarial. It also seems to be an antiviral, too. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8546725 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8546725 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1043466614002427 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S10434...
  • danielmg 7y ago
    We still have no good evidence that is does work for SARS-CoV-2.