Posted on 03/28/2020 8:04:47 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
A stampede for an unproven “cure” for Covid-19 is clearing the pharmacy shelves of a medicine that is vital for up to 5 million people around the world suffering from lupus, as countries bow to populist pressure and abandon the trials that would show whether hydroxychloroquine works against coronavirus infection.
Both Italy and France have said doctors can now prescribe hydroxychloroquine – a less toxic version of the malaria drug chloroquine – even though there is no robust evidence to prove that it is effective against Covid-19.
Popular pressure for access to the drug has been ramped up by pronouncements from presidents Donald Trump in the US and Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, both of whom have claimed it is a cure. An Australian businessman, the former politician Clive Palmer, has pledged to fund 1m doses “to ensure all Australians would have access to the drug as soon as possible”.
But the drug is already running out for people with lupus, a disorder of the immune system, who rely on it to stay well. Shortages are being reported from the UK to Thailand to France. India, which manufactures the raw ingredient, has banned all exports of the chemical to safeguard its own supplies and recommended all health workers to take the drug to protect themselves from the virus.
“We are incredibly concerned at the moment,” said Paul Howard of Lupus UK. “We started receiving inquiries from patients across the UK about a week ago. That’s been rapidly increasing – more and more people each day.”
For 90% of the more than 60,000 people in the UK with lupus, hydroxychloroquine is the mainstay of their treatment, preventing their immune system making too many antibodies, which can otherwise attack the body’s organs – mainly the kidneys and the skin,
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
Fortunately, this drug hasn’t been used for malaria in many years. Malaria became resistant to it years ago. Its use is deprecated for Malaria.
I took this drug or its cousins for Malaria prophylaxis a long time ago.
Still got Malaria.
I read an Israel company is sending us 6 million pills.
new yorker on hcq march 27
That can only happen if nobody makes more.
I have noticed that the sheep who bleat the loudest about the short supply never want to get involved in expanding the supply.
Exactly, the pushback has been over the top.
As Trump says, a lot of people out there (about 48% of the US) want him to fail, which means this drug can’t be the cure.
We all know it works. The NY drug trial started last Wednesday, and by early this week, they won’t be able to stifle the stories of its success. They will try.”We need a controlled Phase 1, Phase 2, Phase 3 process.” BS - people are dying. Roll it out!
There are several manufacturers, hopefully they are in full production.
Trump gets this and will force their hands (and for God’s sake, get rid of Fauci. What a mush.)
It is not ‘helpful’ to progressives for hydroxychloroquine to work.
Seems they want/need piles of dead.
Almost ghoulish.
“Both Italy and France have said doctors can now prescribe hydroxychloroquine – a less toxic version of the malaria drug chloroquine – even though there is no robust evidence to prove that it is effective against Covid-19.”
Media likes to say things like this about it because Trump.
Note how now they’re saying “no _robust_ evidence”. Now, not no evidence.
And what do they think? Brand new virus, there are zero clinical trials on any drug to treat this, or SARS or MERS.
This headline or argument about “no evidence” in clinical would be true for anything anyone tries to use.
But they only harp on chloroquine.
They don’t harp on azithromycin. Only chloroquine.
I do not know it all, and i am not in a panic... i do know about manufacturing processes and the time involved. I know this because i fed my family with this knowledge.
It is painfully obvious that you, sir, cannot present a knowledgeable argument for or against what I have stated.
I will not piss off...
You, however, are free to do so
We no longer even make the equipment to make the equipment to do so.
Hopefully someone is beginning to do so in a hurry. We can’t afford to let this kind of stuff be outsourced outside our borders.
RE:They a massively ramping up production of ventilators, but why not chloroquine?
But they are ramping up production of chloroquine
See here:
Bayer donates millions of tablets of chloroquine to help in COVID-19 fight
Novartis, Mylan and Teva to supply tens of millions of chloroquine tablets to fight COVID-19
It’s not “unproven.”
And for this used as a curative you only need a two-week dose time. You might need a longer use time if used as prophylaxis, but that use really "is" unproven.
MORE here:
https://www.pharmtech.com/suppliers-plan-chloroquine-capacity
Following reports that hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine are under evaluation in clinical trials as a potential treatment of COVID-19, drug companies are donating doses and planning for ramping up supply.
Where are those donated tablets produced?
For Lupus and RA users, doing without a couple of weeks dose isn't likely to be terminal....for someone in a hospital with COV it quite likely is....the answer, IMO, is YES.
"The supply is very limited. What is the solution?"
We have no idea what the total supply in the US is, as we don't know how much the DOD has in stock...which now, thanks to Trump, can be released for civilian use due to his activation of emergency powers.
I am hopeful about this drug, so why aren’t any Red state governors making it available? I keep reading about Blue state governors banning it, like it’s some kind of plot to kill people to hurt Trump..... That would make sense of every governor was a Democrat, but that’s not the case.... This whole thing is very strange
If the real objective was to make sure that lupus and arthritis patients continue to get theirs, then a simple directive to pharmacies, saying to fill long term users before flu patients, would accomplish that.
But that’s not their real objective. A cheap and effective treatment would undermine Big Pharma.
Except that hydroxychloroquine IS both widely used and widely produced, plus being stockpiled by the military.
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