Free Republic

A new study out of New Jersey shows that the controversial antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine could help people with mild symptoms of COVID-19. Hackensack Meridian Health published a new study that found outpatients who received the anti-inflammatory drug last year were much less likely to be hospitalized, NorthJersey.com reported. Andrew Yip, the director of the Division of Outcomes and Value Research at the John Theurer Cancer Center, cautioned people against jumping to conclusions about the drug, as it needs to be studied further before it is approved for use. “If you’re going to say it’s a cure, that’s definitely crazy,” Ip...

Preprint. August 23, 2020. Key Words: hydroxychloroquine, COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, Wuhan Abstract Three population surveys were performed, seeking information about the drugs prescribed for COVID-19 patients. The August 16 national survey (USA-0816, 868 valid responses) and the August 3 national survey (USA-0803, 1,059 valid responses) covered the entire US. Another smaller survey (TX-0711, 116 valid responses) covered the state of Texas. All responses to all three surveys are attached in anonymized form for further analysis by the scientific community as one of the deliverables. The analysis was focused on Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ). This study has found that Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) was used for...

According to new research published in the preprint server medRxiv* in July 2020, the use of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) among outpatients in clinical trials, without high-risk factors for cardiac arrhythmia, is safe, with gastrointestinal side-effects being the most common side effects and no fatal adverse outcomes. As the COVID-19 pandemic continues all around the world, with over 630,000 deaths so far, scientific research has focused on finding effective medications against the virus. A strong contender, right from the very beginning, has been HCQ, mainly because of the heavy backing given by political heavyweights. Positive Profile, Negative Side Effects HCQ has been...

Is hydroxychloroquine a generally safe drug? The politically charged atmosphere surrounding the drug in the context of COVID-19 can present a distorted picture. But the best evidence suggests that it has few adverse effects, although it does present some risks for patients with heart conditions. Dr. Alieta Eck, who prescribed hydroxychloroquine for her patients who had COVID-19 symptoms, was confident the drug was safe. "My feeling was that it was not going to do any harm, which is true. It’s a very safe medicine," said Eck, an internist in New Jersey. The Food and Drug Administration approved the use of...

The persisting political climate has made any objective discussion about hydroxychloroquine "impossible," two Henry Ford Health System executives wrote in an open letter dated Aug. 3. Adnan Munkarah, MD, executive vice president and chief clinical officer at the Detroit-based system, along with Steven Kalkanis, MD, senior vice president and chief academic officer for Henry Ford, penned the letter in response to comments by Anthony Fauci, MD, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, that their study on hydroxychloroquine was "flawed." The situation is a bellwether for the kind of tension other systems may face when their clinical...

According to new research published in the preprint server medRxiv* in July 2020, the use of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) among outpatients in clinical trials, without high-risk factors for cardiac arrhythmia, is safe, with gastrointestinal side-effects being the most common side effects and no fatal adverse outcomes. As the COVID-19 pandemic continues all around the world, with over 630,000 deaths so far, scientific research has focused on finding effective medications against the virus. A strong contender, right from the very beginning, has been HCQ, mainly because of the heavy backing given by political heavyweights. Positive Profile, Negative Side Effects HCQ has been...

A statistically significant difference For those who are not convinced of the observational result, we conducted a statistical difference test by comparing the three periods: May 28th – June 8th, June 9th – 22nd, June 23rd – July 6th . The period from June 9th till the 22nd is that in which the index increased some 13 days after the suspension of hydroxychloroquine. There is of course an effect of delay between stopping the prescription of the drug and possible deaths, which explains the delay of 13 days. We therefore observe that for the period from the 28th of May...

A new study has found that the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine helped patients survive COVID-19 while in the hospital, countering the establishment media’s criticism of President Donald Trump when he suggested the same thing. The study was conducted by a team at Henry Ford Health System in Southeast Michigan and published in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases on Thursday. Researchers studied a group of 2,541 hospitalized patients and found mortality rates were substantially reduced when patients were treated with hydroxychloroquine. The study found that 13 percent of patients treated with just hydroxychloroquine died compared with 26.4 percent not treated with...

The anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine lowers the death rate of COVID-19 patients, U.S. researchers have said. Researchers conducted a retrospective analysis of over 2,500 patients hospitalized between March 10 and May 2 in the Henry Ford Health System in Michigan. Over 2,000 of the patients were given hydroxychloroquine or the anti-malarial with azithromycin, an antibiotic. The study found 13 percent of those who received hydroxychloroquine alone died compared to 26.4 percent who didn’t receive the drug. Hydroxychloroquine alone decreased the mortality hazard ratio by 66 percent and the anti-malarial with the antibiotic decreased the ratio by 71 percent, researchers said. The...

The large-scale analysis, conducted by Henry Ford Health System, was published Thursday in the peer-reviewed International Journal of Infectious Diseases. The study examined 2,541 patients who had been hospitalized in six hospitals between March 10 and May 2, 2020. More than twenty-six percent (26.4%) of patients who did not receive hydroxychloroquine died. But among those who received hydroxychloroquine, fewer than half that number — 13% — died. More than 90% of the patients received hydroxychloroquine within 48 hours of admission to the hospital. Scientists say giving the drug early during illness may be a key to success. The study’s authors...

DETROIT – Treatment with hydroxychloroquine cut the death rate significantly in sick patients hospitalized with COVID-19 – and without heart-related side-effects, according to a new study published by Henry Ford Health System. In a large-scale retrospective analysis of 2,541 patients hospitalized between March 10 and May 2, 2020 across the system’s six hospitals, the study found 13% of those treated with hydroxychloroquine alone died compared to 26.4% not treated with hydroxychloroquine. None of the patients had documented serious heart abnormalities; however, patients were monitored for a heart condition routinely pointed to as a reason to avoid the drug as a...

Hydroxychloroquine+azithromycin has been widely misrepresented in both clinical reports and public media, and outpatient trials results are not expected until September. Early outpatient illness is very different than later hospitalized florid disease and the treatments differ. Evidence about use of hydroxychloroquine alone, or of hydroxychloroquine+azithromycin in inpatients, is irrelevant concerning efficacy of the pair in early high-risk outpatient disease. Five studies, including two controlled clinical trials, have demonstrated significant major outpatient treatment efficacy. Hydroxychloroquine+azithromycin has been used as standard-of-care in more than 300,000 older adults with multicomorbidities, with estimated proportion diagnosed with cardiac arrhythmias attributable to the medications 47/100,000...

Last week, Lancet had to retract the most highly-touted hydroxychloroquine study to date, which was used as evidence for entire countries to change their stance on the drug. The study, which was obviously flawed on its face (I commented well before it was exposed that the groupings made no sense), turned out to be produced by a shell company, with unverified data gathered by non-scientists.But when that study flopped, another study was immediately latched onto. It’s called the RECOVERY trials and was done in the UK. Supposedly, this study was the counter to the fake study published by Lancet. It...

IHU- Méditerranée Infection, Marseille, is a significant French research institute that has continued its work on CV 19. For the record, here are excerpts from some recent work, headlined from threads where such would be buried: EXH 1: >>COVID-IHU #15 Version 1 du 27 Mai 2020 Early diagnosis and management of COVID-19 patients: a real-life cohort study of 3,737 patients, Marseille, France Abstract Background: In our institute in Marseille, France, we proposed early and massive screening for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Hospitalization and early treatment with hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin (HCQ-AZ) was proposed for the positive cases. Methods: We retrospectively report...

Science’s COVID-19 reporting is supported by the Pulitzer Center. Through the fog of alleged misconduct, hope, hype, and politicization that surrounds hydroxychloroquine, the malaria drug touted as a COVID-19 treatment, a scientific picture is now emerging. Praised by presidents as a potential miracle cure and dismissed by others as a deadly distraction, hydroxychloroquine was spared a seeming death blow last week. On 4 June, after critics challenged the data, The Lancet suddenly retracted a paper that had suggested the drug increased the death rate in COVID-19 patients, a finding that had stopped many clinical trials in their tracks. But now...

A British research team has concluded that hydroxychloroquine is not an effective treatment for COVID-19 and has halted its use in the United Kingdom's RECOVERY trial. That trial was established in March to evaluate the efficacy of various medicines for the treatment of COVID-19. The Independent Data Monitoring Committee for the trials conducted an unblinded review of the hydroxychloroquine data. Based on that review, the researchers have concluded that "there is no beneficial effect of hydroxychloroquine in patients hospitalised with COVID-19." Martin Landray, one of the principal investigators, told reporters: "This is not a treatment for COVID-19. It doesn't work."...

The authors 'can no longer vouch for the veracity of the primary data sources' A major medical magazine has retracted a study it published that claimed to have found increased mortality in coronavirus patients who took the drug hydroxychloroquine. The Lancet issued the retraction Thursday afternoon after successive days of questions regarding the study and the data underpinning it, both of which came from the medical analytics company Surgisphere. That study, published on May 22, determined that hydroxychloroquine – a drug repeatedly touted by President Trump as a possible viable treatment for the coronavirus – was "associated with an increased...

The authors of two major medical studies on coronavirus patients— including one that raised global concerns about the use of the hydroxychloroquine — retracted their papers on Thursday. The journals that published the studies said the authors were unable to get full access to the database behind their work to verify the raw data. The Lancet retracted an influential paper published in May that claimed to analyze data from nearly 96,000 coronavirus patients in six continents.

Three authors have retracted a study on the risks of hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for the COVID-19 virus that had been highly influential. The article, published in the journal Lancet, had found that hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malaria drug, increased mortality and heart problems in patients suffering from the coronavirus. It had been cited in criticizing President Trump's promotion of the drug as a remedy for the disease. ...

A malaria drug President Donald Trump took to try to prevent COVID-19 proved ineffective for that in the first large, high-quality study to test it in people in close contact with someone with the disease. Results published Wednesday by the New England Journal of Medicine show that hydroxychloroquine was no better than placebo pills at preventing illness from the coronavirus. The drug did not seem to cause serious harm, though — about 40% on it had side effects, mostly mild stomach problems. "We were disappointed. We would have liked for this to work," said the study leader, Dr. David Boulware,...