5 ms·

And to put this interpretation into perspective, people that need this drug for diseases that it has proven to have a large effect on are losing access to it be

And to put this interpretation into perspective, people that need this drug for diseases that it has proven to have a large effect on are losing access to it because it may or may not help with COVID-19.

beaner 7y ago
Is there a source for this claim?
- DangerousPie 7y ago
  There were lots of newspaper articles a few weeks ago about lupus patients struggling to access HCQ. Eg: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/06/opinion/coronavirus-hydroxychloroquine-lupus.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/06/opinion/coronavirus-hydro... or https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/04/13/how-false-hope-spread-about-hydroxychloroquine-its-consequences/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/04/13/how-false...
- eesmith 7y ago
  Wikipedia links to two WaPo articles at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydroxychloroquine#Regulatory_approval https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydroxychloroquine#Regulatory_... Guardian article - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/27/vital-drug-people-lupus-coronavirus-covid-19-link-hydroxychloroquine https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/27/vital-drug-peo... . It cites someone from Lupus UK. Their page at http://www.lupusuk.org.uk/uk-azathioprine-supply/ http://www.lupusuk.org.uk/uk-azathioprine-supply/ says "we have received reports from a number of people with lupus who have been unable to fulfil their prescription of azathioprine" and that "stocks are in the process of being replenished and should be available in the UK in mid-April". Comment from an HN'er: "For several weeks my mother hasn't been able to fill her regular prescription for hydroxychloroquine that has been an important part of managing her lupus for >30 years." - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22793293 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22793293
  - beaner 7y ago
    Is this shortage universal? Have there been shortages before, either universal or local? Is there evidence that this particular local shortage is due specifically to coronavirus demand? It may be that the answer to these questions is "yes," but that answer seems to be being assumed right now.
    - eesmith 7y ago
      I believe my citations answer your questions sufficiently. Since the questions #1 and #2 can be answered both "yes" and "no", with equal merit, I suggest that perhaps they are not useful questions. That is, not every pharmacy in every country is out, and sometimes a pharmacy is out of a medicine. If that's what you mean by "universal" and "local shortage before" then you're being absurd. Bear in mind that I was answering beaner's question, not making some broader statement.
      - beaner 7y ago
        I think characterizing my questions as absurd is itself revealing of a bias. There is no judgment in my questions, I'm just trying to get at the answers.
        eesmith 7y ago
        I did not characterize your questions as absurd. I pointed out that your first two questions can be answered both "yes" and "no" with equal validity, and presented the absurd case to demonstrate why. Did you really mean "universal" to mean every pharmacy in the world, and did you really mean "Have there been shortages" to include a single pharmacy somewhere running out? No. But how am I supposed to know what you do mean? Your questions did not seem informed by the information in the links I presented, which suggests a different sort of bias.
    - perl4ever 7y ago
      This is perhaps anecdotal, but one of the articles I saw, said that a person who was denied their medication was specifically told it was because it was being reserved for COVID-19 victims. So while you could doubt such a story for other reasons, the causal linkage is being made explicitly in at least some instances.
3fe9a03ccd14ca5 7y ago
HCQ is an off-patent drug that is produced in every major country in the world. In fact, many countries have stockpiles of it because of its efficacy at preventing malaria. If there’s a risk of a supply run, it would definitely not last very long. For many people there’s alternatives for treating arthritis and lupus. If it’s shown even to improve the patient’s outcome by even just 10% or more (as this study suggests), every country should be ramping up production of it right now instead of letting it be politicized.
- rozab 7y ago
  Face masks have been shown to be effective at controlling pandemics, and apparently no one (in many western countries) thought to stockpile those.
  - 3fe9a03ccd14ca5 7y ago
    Facemasks are only produced in a handful of countries. In fact we basically don’t even have the skill set or machinery here to convert factories to producing facemask even if we wanted to. Garment work was moved offshore decades ago. Unlike off-patent prescription drugs.
    - URSpider94 7y ago
      Which handful are you thinking of? We do make them here in the US... https://www.wired.com/story/surreal-frenzy-inside-us-biggest-mask-maker/ https://www.wired.com/story/surreal-frenzy-inside-us-biggest...
    - perl4ever 7y ago
      Unlike...? "Covid-19 Could Bring Generic Drug Manufacturing Back to the U.S., Analyst Writes" https://www.barrons.com/articles/covid-19-could-bring-generic-drug-manufacturing-back-to-u-s-51586267074 https://www.barrons.com/articles/covid-19-could-bring-generi...
  - Piezoid 7y ago
    During the H1N1 crisis France made a strategic reserve. Latter governments reduced the inventory. It was not renewed in the end.
dang 7y ago
(This subthread was originally a reply to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22880291 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22880291)
- bcrosby95 7y ago
  You may as well delete it. My point was to caution against the continued enthusiam of using this drug for COVID-19 despite the consequences of doing so. The original article has no such problem. Yet the person I replied to could be interpreted as "wait, maybe its still good!". My comment makes zero sense as a reply to the original article.
  - dang 7y ago
    That's why I included a pointer to your comment's original context. This is mostly a technical problem of how comment trees that get extremely heavy having no natural way to divide themselves. Sometimes we prune them, and when we do that, we try to do it in a non-lossy way.

beaner 7y ago

Is there a source for this claim?

DangerousPie 7y ago
There were lots of newspaper articles a few weeks ago about lupus patients struggling to access HCQ. Eg: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/06/opinion/coronavirus-hydroxychloroquine-lupus.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/06/opinion/coronavirus-hydro... or https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/04/13/how-false-hope-spread-about-hydroxychloroquine-its-consequences/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/04/13/how-false...
eesmith 7y ago
Wikipedia links to two WaPo articles at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydroxychloroquine#Regulatory_approval https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydroxychloroquine#Regulatory_... Guardian article - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/27/vital-drug-people-lupus-coronavirus-covid-19-link-hydroxychloroquine https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/27/vital-drug-peo... . It cites someone from Lupus UK. Their page at http://www.lupusuk.org.uk/uk-azathioprine-supply/ http://www.lupusuk.org.uk/uk-azathioprine-supply/ says "we have received reports from a number of people with lupus who have been unable to fulfil their prescription of azathioprine" and that "stocks are in the process of being replenished and should be available in the UK in mid-April". Comment from an HN'er: "For several weeks my mother hasn't been able to fill her regular prescription for hydroxychloroquine that has been an important part of managing her lupus for >30 years." - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22793293 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22793293
- beaner 7y ago
  Is this shortage universal? Have there been shortages before, either universal or local? Is there evidence that this particular local shortage is due specifically to coronavirus demand? It may be that the answer to these questions is "yes," but that answer seems to be being assumed right now.
  - eesmith 7y ago
    I believe my citations answer your questions sufficiently. Since the questions #1 and #2 can be answered both "yes" and "no", with equal merit, I suggest that perhaps they are not useful questions. That is, not every pharmacy in every country is out, and sometimes a pharmacy is out of a medicine. If that's what you mean by "universal" and "local shortage before" then you're being absurd. Bear in mind that I was answering beaner's question, not making some broader statement.
    - beaner 7y ago
      I think characterizing my questions as absurd is itself revealing of a bias. There is no judgment in my questions, I'm just trying to get at the answers.
      - eesmith 7y ago
        I did not characterize your questions as absurd. I pointed out that your first two questions can be answered both "yes" and "no" with equal validity, and presented the absurd case to demonstrate why. Did you really mean "universal" to mean every pharmacy in the world, and did you really mean "Have there been shortages" to include a single pharmacy somewhere running out? No. But how am I supposed to know what you do mean? Your questions did not seem informed by the information in the links I presented, which suggests a different sort of bias.
  - perl4ever 7y ago
    This is perhaps anecdotal, but one of the articles I saw, said that a person who was denied their medication was specifically told it was because it was being reserved for COVID-19 victims. So while you could doubt such a story for other reasons, the causal linkage is being made explicitly in at least some instances.

3fe9a03ccd14ca5 7y ago

HCQ is an off-patent drug that is produced in every major country in the world. In fact, many countries have stockpiles of it because of its efficacy at preventing malaria. If there’s a risk of a supply run, it would definitely not last very long. For many people there’s alternatives for treating arthritis and lupus. If it’s shown even to improve the patient’s outcome by even just 10% or more (as this study suggests), every country should be ramping up production of it right now instead of letting it be politicized.

rozab 7y ago
Face masks have been shown to be effective at controlling pandemics, and apparently no one (in many western countries) thought to stockpile those.
- 3fe9a03ccd14ca5 7y ago
  Facemasks are only produced in a handful of countries. In fact we basically don’t even have the skill set or machinery here to convert factories to producing facemask even if we wanted to. Garment work was moved offshore decades ago. Unlike off-patent prescription drugs.
  - URSpider94 7y ago
    Which handful are you thinking of? We do make them here in the US... https://www.wired.com/story/surreal-frenzy-inside-us-biggest-mask-maker/ https://www.wired.com/story/surreal-frenzy-inside-us-biggest...
  - perl4ever 7y ago
    Unlike...? "Covid-19 Could Bring Generic Drug Manufacturing Back to the U.S., Analyst Writes" https://www.barrons.com/articles/covid-19-could-bring-generic-drug-manufacturing-back-to-u-s-51586267074 https://www.barrons.com/articles/covid-19-could-bring-generi...
- Piezoid 7y ago
  During the H1N1 crisis France made a strategic reserve. Latter governments reduced the inventory. It was not renewed in the end.

dang 7y ago

(This subthread was originally a reply to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22880291 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22880291)

bcrosby95 7y ago
You may as well delete it. My point was to caution against the continued enthusiam of using this drug for COVID-19 despite the consequences of doing so. The original article has no such problem. Yet the person I replied to could be interpreted as "wait, maybe its still good!". My comment makes zero sense as a reply to the original article.
- dang 7y ago
  That's why I included a pointer to your comment's original context. This is mostly a technical problem of how comment trees that get extremely heavy having no natural way to divide themselves. Sometimes we prune them, and when we do that, we try to do it in a non-lossy way.