Doctor: About 50% of Coronavirus Patients at RGH Prescribed Hydroxychloroquine (Rochester NY)

spectrum local news ^ | April 8 2020 | WENDY WRIGHT

[rintintin]

Doctors around the country are prescribing the drug, hydroxychloroquine, to many of their to coronavirus patients. The drug is also being used in the Rochester area.

Chief of Infectious Disease at Rochester General Hospital, Dr. Maryrose Laguio-Vila, says the drug is being prescribed to about 50 percent of the hospital’s positive COVID-19 patients.

“The reason I think that it requires so much discussion among providers, because there is not a bounty of scientific evidence.... What we do is we evaluate them on a case by case basis,” said Laguio-Vila.

Hydroxychloroquine, also known as Plaquenil, has been around for decades. Once a common anti-malaria drug, it is now used by rheumatologists to treat various inflammation, auto-immune or arthritis conditions.

“These are serious conditions. The strategy of using hydroxychloroquine, in these rheumatologic diseases are for the anti-inflammatory benefit," said Dr. Laguio-Vila.

The drug is being touted by officials at high levels as a drug that could be used as a potential cure for COVID-19 in certain patients.

[stinkerpot65]

It’s all about power and ego and money.

[Sarah Barracuda]

Its all about two things..orange man bad said its a good drug, give it a shot, so they have to say its bad otherwise if Trump says he found a cure, it will help in his re-election..and number two, its all about money, hydroxy is cheap, 5 cents a pill, a vaccine will make companies BILLIONS of dollars, follow the money

[PlateOfShrimp]

I got an idea -

Why doesn’t someone in the administration organize a conference call with Raoult, Zelenko, and some of the other doctors, and try to come up with a standardized protocol? Sounds like so many of these other doctors are not adding the antibiotic and/or zinc.

[Go_Raiders]

These doctors are all behind the curve.

It’s the blood, dummies. COVID-19 is ripping red blood cells apart, and the liberated iron ions are killing lung tissue. HCQ provides some protection against the virus attacking the red blood cells, as well as inhibiting virus replication in other cells by transporting zinc into those cells.

Anti-inflammatory property of HCQ is NOT the mechanism that makes the difference, and these doctors are not contributing to the solution, they are part of the problem.

[null and void]

Hmmmm, that's perilously close to a controlled study, half get it, half don't...

Which cohort will have a better outcome?

Bring Out Your Dead

Post to me or FReep mail to be on/off the Bring Out Your Dead ping list.

The purpose of the “Bring Out Your Dead” ping list (formerly the “Ebola” ping list) is very early warning of emerging pandemics, as such it has a high false positive rate.

The false positive rate was 100%.

At some point we may well have a high mortality pandemic, and likely as not the “Bring Out Your Dead” threads will miss the beginning entirely.

*sigh* Such is life, and death...

If a quarantine saves just one child's or one old fart’s life, it's worth it.

[ltc8k6]

Again no mention of prescribing Azithromycin (or Zinc).

[_Jim]

re: “ and try to come up with a standardized protocol? “

This info is out there, in various journals ...

[Uncle Miltie]

Not randomly assigned, but perhaps a good clue nonetheless.

[Jane Long]

Whatever happened to CuCuCuomo’s NY state trial of HCQ/Zpak, that was supposed to start a few weeks ago?

Where’s the feedback on that?

[HangnJudge]

https://www.evms.edu/media/evms_public/departments/internal_medicine/EVMS_Critical_Care_COVID-19_Protocol.pdf

Some useful Go-To protocols out there

Vitamin C 500 mg BID and Quercetin 250-500 mg BID
• Zinc 75-100 mg/day (acetate, gluconate or picolinate). Zinc lozenges are preferred. After 1-2
months, reduce the dose to 30-50 mg/day.
• Melatonin (slow release): Begin with 0.3mg and increase as tolerated to 1-2 mg at night
• Vitamin D3 1000-4000 u/day (optimal dose unknown). Likely that those with baseline low 25-
OH vitamin D levels and those > living at 40o latitude will benefit the most.

[romanesq]

HCQ combination therapy with Zpac & zinc sulfate.

President Trump mentioned it with zinc in the presser. Not seeing the attacks on him for doing it in the Dem Media are we?

I think they are trying to focus on anti HCQ stories only at this point to try and see dead as many Americans.

That’s their focus.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

It is unfortunate the “reporters” don’t know enough to ask if there is a cocktail of drugs being administered, specifically the Z-Pak and zinc.

The last sentence is odd: “Experts say people who are already taking hydroxychloroquine for other ailments are not immune to COVID-19. RGH has seen users of the drug contract coronavirus.”

So Plaquenil is not a vaccine? Who knew?

[MuttTheHoople]

Anecdotal™

[iontheball]

While this article admits HCQ is being used, it is still a foot dragging response in that it fails to report what the doctors are observing, save one instance, of patients who are/have recovered with the drug. Why is that? It’s so frustrating. It’s as if there is a concerted effort afoot to delay spreading the positive results of HCQ in order to push the pandemic down the road to November.

[SeekAndFind]

This begs the question — what about the other 50%, what are they being treated with?

[lepton]

Whatever happened to CuCuCuomo’s NY state trial of HCQ/Zpak, that was supposed to start a few weeks ago?

---

In the sense of how things go in medical trials, this is amusing - especially in a disease which takes weeks to resolve even on average, and up to about 7 weeks generally. Then the patients have to be monitored for longer-term effects. Actual trials and studies take months. The effort here is to at least get *sufficiently* reliable data to take a risky path which is hoped to be less risky than waiting until we actually can know what the effects are, and until we can determine optimal dosing.

[Norski]

Is there any news about whether the WV plant gearing up to produce HCQ is now on-line? And news re wher the “29 million doses”of HCQ promised by Teva in Israel being sent?

Thank you,

Norski

[lepton]

While this article admits HCQ is being used, it is still a foot dragging response in that it fails to report what the doctors are observing, save one instance, of patients who are/have recovered with the drug. Why is that?

---

Because the normal process takes years, and even a rushed version takes a minimum of a couple of months for preliminary results.

[mmichaels1970]

Experts say people who are already taking hydroxychloroquine for other ailments are not immune to COVID-19. RGH has seen users of the drug contract coronavirus.

Seems like that may be something they should be expounding a bit more on, no?