4 ms·

The parameters within which HCQ is thought to work have been clearly stated. If a study is attempting to evaluate HCQ without following those parameters, then

by ColanR 6y ago

The parameters within which HCQ is thought to work have been clearly stated. If a study is attempting to evaluate HCQ without following those parameters, then the study is badly designed regardless of when it's being discussed.

peter422 6y ago
You came up with those parameters conveniently after the study was published. The people who created and executed these studies wanted to save lives. They created a method they thought would be most likely to work, and time and time again they didn’t. Different dosages, different timing, different places. No benefit. The fact that people aren’t running more studies is not because there is a global conspiracy. It’s because the drug doesn’t do anything and researchers don’t want to waste their time and their patients lives satisfying critics who don’t care about the science. Does HCQ work if you have some magic combination of zinc? Maybe. Is that more likely than another treatment given that HCQ has been heavily studied and shown no benefit and zinc had been heavily studied for a lot of things and shown no magical properties? Probably not. So researchers spend their time on things more likely to work.
- ColanR 6y ago
  It sounds like you're ignoring the other studies that did show benefit. The people who came up with those studies wanted to save lives, too, just like the people who still think that HCQ is being overlooked. > You came up with those parameters conveniently after the study was published. > The fact that people aren’t running more studies is not because there is a global conspiracy. > satisfying critics who don’t care about the science > magic combination...magical properties It seems like you've suddenly made a sharp u-turn from a good-faith discussion into crazy town. I thought we were hashing out differences, and now you're suddenly accusing me of making up excuses, believing in a global conspiracy, being anti-science, and thinking zinc is somehow a miracle drug. I think I should end the conversation here.
  - peter422 6y ago
    Please link me to a single RCT that shows HCQ as having a significant benefit. I also apologize if you felt I was maligning you, I’m not. However I am maligning the belief that a drug works when it’s been proven time and again to show it doesn’t.
- jeffreyrogers 6y ago
  I would have to check the dates, and I don't have time for that right now, but the parameters that Didier Raoult suggested have been around since April or May I believe. In any case, the author of this piece is acting as a journalist, not a scientist, and he chose to select a poorly designed study that does not measure what he purports it measures. This negatively affects the public perception of scientific communication more broadly.
  - fabian2k 6y ago
    The first study by Didier Raoult did treat already hospitalized patients and it didn't use zinc. That is quite different than the parameters here, so Didier Rauolt didn't suggest anything like that initially.
    - abecedarius 6y ago
      I know nothing about Raoult, but when I heard of hydroxychloroquine months ago, shortly before it became a culture-war football, it was proposed as above: early treatment, with zinc. (Azithromycin wasn't part of the idea as I heard of it then.)
rsynnott 6y ago
> The parameters within which HCQ is thought to work have been clearly stated. A lot of this HCQ stuff feels like God of the Gaps Theory at this point; as potential use cases are conclusively eliminated, so is the field of where it is "thought to work". Thought by whom, precisely?
- ColanR 6y ago
  The popular, layman's discussion of HCQ has been buzzwords and watered down, and that's where the idea of HCQ by itself comes from. Far as I know, the experts who think HCQ is viable have been pretty forthcoming from early on with the idea it should be used in combination with zinc & azithromycin.
  - rsynnott 6y ago
    The HCQ thing started, as far as I know, with Raoult, who advocated HCQ and azithromycin (but not zinc) (well, it was _used_ before that; some hospitals were throwing all sorts of things at the wall in the early days. But he seems to have been the first to claim evidence). The zinc thing seemed to emerge after initial attempts to reproduce his protocol didn't work. Who are these experts advocating zinc?
    - ColanR 6y ago
      Experts that actually advocate zinc? That's overstating it. The question is whether or not HCQ was the original theory, and zinc and azithromycin were added on later. So here's a collection of studies and trials conceived early on that involved at least both HCQ and zinc. As far as going back in time is possible, that seems pretty reasonable as an indication that the theorized parameters haven't been changed. March 30: https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04326725?cond=COVID&draw=2 https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04326725?cond=COV... March 30: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04326725?term=zinc&cond=COVID-19&draw=3&rank=16 https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04326725?term=zinc&co... April 6: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04334512?term=zinc&cond=COVID-19&draw=3&rank=17 https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04334512?term=zinc&co... May 8: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.02.20080036v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.02.20080036v... May 1: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04370782?term=zinc&cond=COVID-19&draw=3&rank=1 https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04370782?term=zinc&co...

by ColanR 6y ago

peter422 6y ago

You came up with those parameters conveniently after the study was published. The people who created and executed these studies wanted to save lives. They created a method they thought would be most likely to work, and time and time again they didn’t. Different dosages, different timing, different places. No benefit. The fact that people aren’t running more studies is not because there is a global conspiracy. It’s because the drug doesn’t do anything and researchers don’t want to waste their time and their patients lives satisfying critics who don’t care about the science. Does HCQ work if you have some magic combination of zinc? Maybe. Is that more likely than another treatment given that HCQ has been heavily studied and shown no benefit and zinc had been heavily studied for a lot of things and shown no magical properties? Probably not. So researchers spend their time on things more likely to work.

ColanR 6y ago
It sounds like you're ignoring the other studies that did show benefit. The people who came up with those studies wanted to save lives, too, just like the people who still think that HCQ is being overlooked. > You came up with those parameters conveniently after the study was published. > The fact that people aren’t running more studies is not because there is a global conspiracy. > satisfying critics who don’t care about the science > magic combination...magical properties It seems like you've suddenly made a sharp u-turn from a good-faith discussion into crazy town. I thought we were hashing out differences, and now you're suddenly accusing me of making up excuses, believing in a global conspiracy, being anti-science, and thinking zinc is somehow a miracle drug. I think I should end the conversation here.
- peter422 6y ago
  Please link me to a single RCT that shows HCQ as having a significant benefit. I also apologize if you felt I was maligning you, I’m not. However I am maligning the belief that a drug works when it’s been proven time and again to show it doesn’t.
jeffreyrogers 6y ago
I would have to check the dates, and I don't have time for that right now, but the parameters that Didier Raoult suggested have been around since April or May I believe. In any case, the author of this piece is acting as a journalist, not a scientist, and he chose to select a poorly designed study that does not measure what he purports it measures. This negatively affects the public perception of scientific communication more broadly.
- fabian2k 6y ago
  The first study by Didier Raoult did treat already hospitalized patients and it didn't use zinc. That is quite different than the parameters here, so Didier Rauolt didn't suggest anything like that initially.
  - abecedarius 6y ago
    I know nothing about Raoult, but when I heard of hydroxychloroquine months ago, shortly before it became a culture-war football, it was proposed as above: early treatment, with zinc. (Azithromycin wasn't part of the idea as I heard of it then.)

rsynnott 6y ago

> The parameters within which HCQ is thought to work have been clearly stated. A lot of this HCQ stuff feels like God of the Gaps Theory at this point; as potential use cases are conclusively eliminated, so is the field of where it is "thought to work". Thought by whom, precisely?

ColanR 6y ago
The popular, layman's discussion of HCQ has been buzzwords and watered down, and that's where the idea of HCQ by itself comes from. Far as I know, the experts who think HCQ is viable have been pretty forthcoming from early on with the idea it should be used in combination with zinc & azithromycin.
- rsynnott 6y ago
  The HCQ thing started, as far as I know, with Raoult, who advocated HCQ and azithromycin (but not zinc) (well, it was _used_ before that; some hospitals were throwing all sorts of things at the wall in the early days. But he seems to have been the first to claim evidence). The zinc thing seemed to emerge after initial attempts to reproduce his protocol didn't work. Who are these experts advocating zinc?
  - ColanR 6y ago
    Experts that actually advocate zinc? That's overstating it. The question is whether or not HCQ was the original theory, and zinc and azithromycin were added on later. So here's a collection of studies and trials conceived early on that involved at least both HCQ and zinc. As far as going back in time is possible, that seems pretty reasonable as an indication that the theorized parameters haven't been changed. March 30: https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04326725?cond=COVID&draw=2 https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04326725?cond=COV... March 30: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04326725?term=zinc&cond=COVID-19&draw=3&rank=16 https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04326725?term=zinc&co... April 6: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04334512?term=zinc&cond=COVID-19&draw=3&rank=17 https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04334512?term=zinc&co... May 8: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.02.20080036v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.02.20080036v... May 1: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04370782?term=zinc&cond=COVID-19&draw=3&rank=1 https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04370782?term=zinc&co...