4 ms·

> So we don't know the implications of rolling it out to millions of people worldwide. It’s 70+ years old. It’s a well-understood drug. It’s an experimental

• threeseed 7y ago
  > It’s a well-understood drug For treating the issues it was designed for. Not for treating COVID-19.
  • xienze 7y ago
    You could technically say that about Tylenol, but I doubt there’d be anyone jumping up and down about how dangerous it would be for a Covid 19 patient to take 500mg of it daily as part of a treatment regimen. There’s literally NO drugs approved specifically for Covid 19, but there are drugs, like HCQ, which are promising and well-understood in general.
    • kevingadd 7y ago
      Tylenol is an odd choice of example here given that it poses a risk of liver damage and for some subsets of the population it's actively dangerous to take it. We literally lace some drugs with Tylenol to make them "abuse-deterrent" because we know taking too much of it would harm you.
      • Fjolsvith 7y ago
        500mg of Tylenol daily poses a risk of liver damage?
        • kevingadd 7y ago
          Listed contra-indications for tylenol include: caloric undernutrition acute liver failure liver problems severe renal impairment a condition where the body is unable to maintain adequate blood flow called shock acetaminophen overdose acute inflammation of the liver due to hepatitis C virus Obviously doctors are experts and will make the right decision based on risks and advantages, but tylenol is a poor choice of example for 'effectively risk-free drug'. I've seen multiple people mention that their meds are laced with it even though it's contra-indicated for them
          • Fjolsvith 7y ago
            But would Tylenol at 500mg daily be a good choice? That's what parent was giving as an example, not your overdose contra-indications.
    • ceejayoz 7y ago
      We treat COVID-19-like illnesses with Tylenol all the time. We do not use HCQ in the same way.
• kevingadd 7y ago
  Being 70 years old and widely prescribed does not mean the function and associated risks of the drug are well-understood. I literally saw a physician mention today in a video ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILowf7Tw7QY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILowf7Tw7QY ) that the exact mechanisms at work here are not fully understood. He explained a half dozen different things HCQ/CQ might be doing in this scenario that are all biologically plausible based on what we believe we know. HCQ/CQ aren't unique in this either. Lithium is widely used as a psychiatric treatment and has been in use for a long time even though for most of that time period we haven't had a good detailed understanding of how exactly it works. Gaps in understanding like that can lead to disaster unless we apply enough caution to match. Another way to put this: We know some things the drug does, but that doesn't mean we know the complete set of what it does. We know some of the side effects and some of the risks, but unless we have a complete end-to-end understanding of everything happening here there is always going to be a risk worth considering.