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Politics are heading in dangerous direction. I take hydroxychloroquine to keep my autoimmune disease under control. It’s not a perfect drug, but it works grea

Politics are heading in dangerous direction. I take hydroxychloroquine to keep my autoimmune disease under control. It’s not a perfect drug, but it works great. It’s insane watching people being attacked over a 65 year old drug. There is the doctor video going around talking it, and people are being banned or given warnings for sharing it. Science is being tossed out the window in favor of hysteria. This is something that is cheap and could save hundreds of thousands of lives. But because of hatred towards an early supporter, we can’t even have a discussion on its effectiveness anymore. Related survey on people afraid to speak. https://www.cato.org/publications/survey-reports/poll-62-americans-say-they-have-political-views-theyre-afraid-share https://www.cato.org/publications/survey-reports/poll-62-ame...

52-6F-62 6y ago
As far as I understood, the distaste for the support of the drug in the context of Covid-19 was that it hasn’t been proven to be the “miracle cure” some people have touted it to be. Said touting was causing shortages at pharmacies where people like you who require the drug were not able to get access to it suddenly because of hordes of “supporters” buying up entire stocks. Not because of who pushes it. It’s the consequences of uninformed broadcasting like calling it a final cure that have people shook.
- treeman79 6y ago
  That’s not what is going on. News broadcasters are denouncing it as dangerous, and we can’t talk about it. Social media is banning videos by actual doctors. A drug with a 10-50% success rate will still save a lot of lives. This drug already saves millions of lives. My life is much better on it then before. It’s already reached miracle cure status. Question is, will it do it again. Cases and deaths averted. It is estimated that a cumulative 1.2 billion fewer malaria cases and 6.2 million fewer malaria deaths occurred globally between 2001 and 2015 https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/200018/9789241565158_eng.pdf?sequence=1 https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/200018/9789...
  - notacoward 6y ago
    > News broadcasters are denouncing it as dangerous It is dangerous. Proper dosage and monitoring are necessary to guard against risk of QT prolongation and retinopathy. It's possible for it to be true both that it saves millions of lives and that it's dangerous to take unsupervised. > A drug with a 10-50% success rate will still save a lot of lives. There is zero evidence that it has anywhere near that level of effectiveness, even when combined with zinc and azithromycin for the most favorable population and conditions. It might have some effect, but touting it as a miracle cure when other treatments are already known with greater effect and lower risk is irresponsible.
    - DudeInBasement 6y ago
      Genius level here.... Drugs are dangerous. www.henryford.com/news/2020/07/hydro-treatment-study
      - wlesieutre 6y ago
        See also: https://www.statnews.com/2020/07/08/a-flawed-covid-19-study-gets-the-white-houses-attention-and-the-fda-may-pay-the-price/ https://www.statnews.com/2020/07/08/a-flawed-covid-19-study-... >The study that sparked the latest controversy was anything but randomized. Not only was it not randomized, outside experts noted, but patients who received hydroxychloroquine were also more likely to get steroids, which appear to help very sick patients with Covid-19. That is likely to have influenced the central finding of the Henry Ford study: that death rates were 50% lower among patients in hospitals treated with hydroxychloroquine. >One study, the RECOVERY study conducted in the U.K., compared 1,542 patients on a particularly high dose of the drug to 3,132 control patients and found no difference in how long patients lived. A second, conducted by the National Institutes of Health, also found no benefit from hydroxychloroquine at higher doses.
      - salasrod 6y ago
        It is dangerous, and the organization you linked to has been under heavy scrutiny for their so called "study". https://www.deadlinedetroit.com/articles/25726/controversial_detroit_study_helps_fuel_white_house_s_renewed_push_for_hydroxychloroquine https://www.deadlinedetroit.com/articles/25726/controversial...
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > As far as I understood, the distaste for the support of the drug in the context of Covid-19 was that it hasn’t been proven to be the “miracle cure” some people have touted it to be. No, it's that in the various clinical trials, it keeps showing no improvement over existing treatments. It's not just not a miracle cure, the evidence is that it's not a useful treatment for COVID-19.
  - 52-6F-62 6y ago
    Thanks. I was trying to be as diplomatic as possible because I didn't have all of the information on hand to get into a medical debate. It's outside my lane.
- mariodiana 6y ago
  Serious question: Who ever said it was a "miracle cure"? Going by memory, the most notorious kind words on the subject of hydroxychloroquine were: "It may be a game-changer. Or, maybe not." For some reason—I can't say what, exactly—that got spun by the media into something else entirely.
fabian2k 6y ago
The data indicates that Hydroxychloroquine doesn't work for COVID19. It is by far the most studied existing drug for this purpose, and it didn't pan out. The study that indicates first that it was dangerous was retracted, that one was bad science and probably outright fraud. But several other studies later have shown that it does not work. This has nothing to do with Trump, though him pushing the drug without evidence is just fundamentally wrong. This is about the science, and that simply does not support using Hydroxychloroquine for COVID19. Here's one of the larger trials for hospital use of Hydroxychloroquine that didn't find any benefit: https://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m2263?ijkey=355d5085a0aeed4493a778233d1ae2127edd2cc4&keytype2=tf_ipsecsha https://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m2263?ijkey=355d5085a0ae...
- dariusj18 6y ago
  The danger is that Trump will say whatever he wants, no matter how dangerous for short term gain, because nothing seem to stick to him long term. He can tell people that the moon is cheese, and there will be an overreaction of media "blasting" him, and a similar overreaction of his supporters defending him. But two weeks later he'll say something else, and the same people will react the same way. The insidiousness about his strategy is that one in a hundred times he guesses right, and then he gets all smug and his supporters feel like they have ammunition to use against those "elites" with their "being right all the time." (Not to mention all the times he just lies about what he was wrong about to frame it as if he was right all along.)
- CWuestefeld 6y ago
  The data indicates that Hydroxychloroquine doesn't work for COVID19. That's not what the data says, and it's people who claim to be championing science but are actually regurgitating headlines that are causing this problem. "doesn't work for COVID-19" covers a lot of ground, and only some of it has actually been studied. I believe it's now been shown that it doesn't provide significant benefit for those already suffering from severe cases. However, I don't believe there's any real data on prophylactic use at all thus far, just some anecdotal stuff. Science is complicated, and doing it right requires a kind of finesse that just can't be captured in headlines - or apparently at all by our current media establishment.
martythemaniak 6y ago
So you think that fighting medical quackery and disinformation is politics heading in the wrong direction? Isn't "politics heading in the wrong direction" the fact that some obscure drug was picked up randomly by a know nothing politician, baselessly sold as a miracle cure and had elaborate conspiracies formed around it, all so that said politician could pummel his political opponents and win reelection?
- ColanR 6y ago
  > fighting medical quackery and disinformation I would rather we fight the people who are preventing medical discussions from taking place. If you want to call the use of hydroxychloroquine "quackery" and "disinformation", then you should be able to definitively prove that it's completely ineffective. Because right now, there's indications that it can save lives, and the actual problem we're facing is that potentially life-saving information is being shut down.
mcphage 6y ago
> I take hydroxychloroquine to keep my autoimmune disease under control. > It’s not a perfect drug, but it works great. I'm genuinely glad it helps with your autoimmune disorder, but that really has nothing to do with Covid-19.
mnm1 6y ago
So your argument is that because it works for your disease, it must work for covid. You provide zero evidence that it works at all for covid, zero evidence to counter the studies that show it doesn't. Then you claim some conspiracy that hcq is not being used because trump touted it. And this is supposed to be evidence of what, that society keeps you from sharing your stupid, idiotic opinions that have no basis in reality and can easily be disproved? If that's the case, good. Society is doing its job. You spoke stupidity and were shunned and unwelcomed. That's exactly how free speech is supposed to work when you say something this stupid.
- ColanR 6y ago
  > So your argument is that because it works for your disease, it must work for covid. That's a strawman if I ever heard one.
  - mnm1 6y ago
    How is it a strawman? That's literally his argument. He writes: "This is something that is cheap and could save hundreds of thousands of lives." in the context of covid while providing nothing but his anecdotal experience with a different disease. How could I possibly interpret the argument any other way?
atomi 6y ago
> ... results are not statistically conclusive and for 4 or more days after exposure there is no statistical evidence that hydroxychloroquine is effective in reducing the appearance of symptoms. https://arxiv.org/abs/2007.09477 https://arxiv.org/abs/2007.09477
perl4ever 6y ago
>I take hydroxychloroquine to keep my autoimmune disease under control. What would you do if suddenly all the available drug is used for people who have or want to protect against COVID-19?

52-6F-62 6y ago

As far as I understood, the distaste for the support of the drug in the context of Covid-19 was that it hasn’t been proven to be the “miracle cure” some people have touted it to be. Said touting was causing shortages at pharmacies where people like you who require the drug were not able to get access to it suddenly because of hordes of “supporters” buying up entire stocks. Not because of who pushes it. It’s the consequences of uninformed broadcasting like calling it a final cure that have people shook.

treeman79 6y ago
That’s not what is going on. News broadcasters are denouncing it as dangerous, and we can’t talk about it. Social media is banning videos by actual doctors. A drug with a 10-50% success rate will still save a lot of lives. This drug already saves millions of lives. My life is much better on it then before. It’s already reached miracle cure status. Question is, will it do it again. Cases and deaths averted. It is estimated that a cumulative 1.2 billion fewer malaria cases and 6.2 million fewer malaria deaths occurred globally between 2001 and 2015 https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/200018/9789241565158_eng.pdf?sequence=1 https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/200018/9789...
- notacoward 6y ago
  > News broadcasters are denouncing it as dangerous It is dangerous. Proper dosage and monitoring are necessary to guard against risk of QT prolongation and retinopathy. It's possible for it to be true both that it saves millions of lives and that it's dangerous to take unsupervised. > A drug with a 10-50% success rate will still save a lot of lives. There is zero evidence that it has anywhere near that level of effectiveness, even when combined with zinc and azithromycin for the most favorable population and conditions. It might have some effect, but touting it as a miracle cure when other treatments are already known with greater effect and lower risk is irresponsible.
  - DudeInBasement 6y ago
    Genius level here.... Drugs are dangerous. www.henryford.com/news/2020/07/hydro-treatment-study
    - wlesieutre 6y ago
      See also: https://www.statnews.com/2020/07/08/a-flawed-covid-19-study-gets-the-white-houses-attention-and-the-fda-may-pay-the-price/ https://www.statnews.com/2020/07/08/a-flawed-covid-19-study-... >The study that sparked the latest controversy was anything but randomized. Not only was it not randomized, outside experts noted, but patients who received hydroxychloroquine were also more likely to get steroids, which appear to help very sick patients with Covid-19. That is likely to have influenced the central finding of the Henry Ford study: that death rates were 50% lower among patients in hospitals treated with hydroxychloroquine. >One study, the RECOVERY study conducted in the U.K., compared 1,542 patients on a particularly high dose of the drug to 3,132 control patients and found no difference in how long patients lived. A second, conducted by the National Institutes of Health, also found no benefit from hydroxychloroquine at higher doses.
    - salasrod 6y ago
      It is dangerous, and the organization you linked to has been under heavy scrutiny for their so called "study". https://www.deadlinedetroit.com/articles/25726/controversial_detroit_study_helps_fuel_white_house_s_renewed_push_for_hydroxychloroquine https://www.deadlinedetroit.com/articles/25726/controversial...
dragonwriter 6y ago
> As far as I understood, the distaste for the support of the drug in the context of Covid-19 was that it hasn’t been proven to be the “miracle cure” some people have touted it to be. No, it's that in the various clinical trials, it keeps showing no improvement over existing treatments. It's not just not a miracle cure, the evidence is that it's not a useful treatment for COVID-19.
- 52-6F-62 6y ago
  Thanks. I was trying to be as diplomatic as possible because I didn't have all of the information on hand to get into a medical debate. It's outside my lane.
mariodiana 6y ago
Serious question: Who ever said it was a "miracle cure"? Going by memory, the most notorious kind words on the subject of hydroxychloroquine were: "It may be a game-changer. Or, maybe not." For some reason—I can't say what, exactly—that got spun by the media into something else entirely.

fabian2k 6y ago

The data indicates that Hydroxychloroquine doesn't work for COVID19. It is by far the most studied existing drug for this purpose, and it didn't pan out. The study that indicates first that it was dangerous was retracted, that one was bad science and probably outright fraud. But several other studies later have shown that it does not work. This has nothing to do with Trump, though him pushing the drug without evidence is just fundamentally wrong. This is about the science, and that simply does not support using Hydroxychloroquine for COVID19. Here's one of the larger trials for hospital use of Hydroxychloroquine that didn't find any benefit: https://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m2263?ijkey=355d5085a0aeed4493a778233d1ae2127edd2cc4&keytype2=tf_ipsecsha https://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m2263?ijkey=355d5085a0ae...

dariusj18 6y ago
The danger is that Trump will say whatever he wants, no matter how dangerous for short term gain, because nothing seem to stick to him long term. He can tell people that the moon is cheese, and there will be an overreaction of media "blasting" him, and a similar overreaction of his supporters defending him. But two weeks later he'll say something else, and the same people will react the same way. The insidiousness about his strategy is that one in a hundred times he guesses right, and then he gets all smug and his supporters feel like they have ammunition to use against those "elites" with their "being right all the time." (Not to mention all the times he just lies about what he was wrong about to frame it as if he was right all along.)
CWuestefeld 6y ago
The data indicates that Hydroxychloroquine doesn't work for COVID19. That's not what the data says, and it's people who claim to be championing science but are actually regurgitating headlines that are causing this problem. "doesn't work for COVID-19" covers a lot of ground, and only some of it has actually been studied. I believe it's now been shown that it doesn't provide significant benefit for those already suffering from severe cases. However, I don't believe there's any real data on prophylactic use at all thus far, just some anecdotal stuff. Science is complicated, and doing it right requires a kind of finesse that just can't be captured in headlines - or apparently at all by our current media establishment.

martythemaniak 6y ago

So you think that fighting medical quackery and disinformation is politics heading in the wrong direction? Isn't "politics heading in the wrong direction" the fact that some obscure drug was picked up randomly by a know nothing politician, baselessly sold as a miracle cure and had elaborate conspiracies formed around it, all so that said politician could pummel his political opponents and win reelection?

ColanR 6y ago
> fighting medical quackery and disinformation I would rather we fight the people who are preventing medical discussions from taking place. If you want to call the use of hydroxychloroquine "quackery" and "disinformation", then you should be able to definitively prove that it's completely ineffective. Because right now, there's indications that it can save lives, and the actual problem we're facing is that potentially life-saving information is being shut down.

mcphage 6y ago

> I take hydroxychloroquine to keep my autoimmune disease under control. > It’s not a perfect drug, but it works great. I'm genuinely glad it helps with your autoimmune disorder, but that really has nothing to do with Covid-19.

mnm1 6y ago

So your argument is that because it works for your disease, it must work for covid. You provide zero evidence that it works at all for covid, zero evidence to counter the studies that show it doesn't. Then you claim some conspiracy that hcq is not being used because trump touted it. And this is supposed to be evidence of what, that society keeps you from sharing your stupid, idiotic opinions that have no basis in reality and can easily be disproved? If that's the case, good. Society is doing its job. You spoke stupidity and were shunned and unwelcomed. That's exactly how free speech is supposed to work when you say something this stupid.

ColanR 6y ago
> So your argument is that because it works for your disease, it must work for covid. That's a strawman if I ever heard one.
- mnm1 6y ago
  How is it a strawman? That's literally his argument. He writes: "This is something that is cheap and could save hundreds of thousands of lives." in the context of covid while providing nothing but his anecdotal experience with a different disease. How could I possibly interpret the argument any other way?

atomi 6y ago

> ... results are not statistically conclusive and for 4 or more days after exposure there is no statistical evidence that hydroxychloroquine is effective in reducing the appearance of symptoms. https://arxiv.org/abs/2007.09477 https://arxiv.org/abs/2007.09477

perl4ever 6y ago

>I take hydroxychloroquine to keep my autoimmune disease under control. What would you do if suddenly all the available drug is used for people who have or want to protect against COVID-19?