Hydroxychloroquine: Trump's Covid 'Gamechanger'

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Hydroxychloroquine: Trump's Covid 'Gamechanger' May 25, 2020 19:22:14 GMT

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Post by Admin on May 25, 2020 19:22:14 GMT

President Trump said the hydroxychloroquine he has been taking for several weeks has been getting “rave reviews” despite health experts claiming the anti-malarial drug can be dangerous or even fatal for people infected with coronavirus.

“Hydroxy has had tremendous rave reviews,” Trump told “Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson” during an interview that was scheduled to air Sunday on Sinclair Broadcasting. “I believe in it enough that I took a program because I had two people in the White House that tested positive.”

The president announced earlier this month that he began taking the drug after consulting with the White House physician.

Katie Miller, the spokeswoman for Vice President Mike Pence, and the president’s military valet tested positive for COVID-19.

At a White House news conference May 18, Trump said he heard “good stories” about the drug, adding “if it is not good, I will tell you, right. I’m not going to get hurt by it. It has been around for 40 years for malaria, for lupus, for other things.”

A study in the medical journal Lancet published last week said a study of coronavirus patients found that those treated with hydroxychloroquine have a higher risk of developing an irregular heart beat.

In the Sinclair interview Trump also ripped Columbia University after it published a study claiming that if the lockdown had been in effect two weeks earlier, as many as 54,000 lives would have been saved.

“Columbia University is a liberal, disgraceful institution, to write that,” he said.

“I saw that report from Columbia University and it is a disgrace that they would play right to their little group of people to tell them what to do,” he continued.

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Hydroxychloroquine: Trump's Covid 'Gamechanger' May 29, 2020 19:00:56 GMT

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Post by Admin on May 29, 2020 19:00:56 GMT

The White House continued on Thursday to promote the use of hydroxychloroquine, the antimalarial drug that President Trump and some of his supporters have held out as a treatment for the coronavirus, against the advice of the Food and Drug Administration and in the face of studies that have shown it can be harmful in some cases.

The drug, which is also used by lupus patients, has become a flash point in the politicization of the pandemic response, along with the wearing of face masks. Routinely touted by prominent conservative allies of the president, including primetime Fox News anchor Laura Ingraham, it has been denounced by members of the medical establishment as an unproven therapy that poses the risk of potentially fatal heart complications.

The FDA recommends that COVID-19 patients, if they choose to use it, do so only in a hospital or under medical supervision in a clinical trial.

The divide between medical experts and the president’s lay advisers and media supporters seems all but certain to persist, even as COVID-19 is showing signs of slowing nationally (while spiking in some parts of the country).

Speaking during a press briefing on Thursday, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany strongly endorsed the “prophylactic” use of hydroxychloroquine: that is, to prevent contracting the coronavirus. That’s different from someone using the drug once already sick with COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus. McEnany did not appear to be referring to this second type of use.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany during a briefing on Thursday. (Evan Vucci/AP Photo)

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Hydroxychloroquine: Trump's Covid 'Gamechanger' May 31, 2020 5:36:34 GMT

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Post by Admin on May 31, 2020 5:36:34 GMT

A massive study that raised health concerns over hydroxychloroquine, the anti-malaria drug touted by President Trump as a coronavirus treatment, is coming under scrutiny from scientists who are demanding to see the data behind it.

The scientists expressed concerns over a high-profile study from The Lancet, which surveyed 96,000 hospitalized COVID-19 patients across six continents and concluded that the drug was ineffective in fighting the coronavirus and caused serious heart problems and even death for patients who had the disease.

An open letter from more than 180 scientists around the world raised concerns over what they said was inconsistent data in the report, noting that the average daily doses of hydroxychloroquine were higher than the those recommended by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

They also pointed out that data the magazine said was from Australian patients did not seem to match data from the Australian government, among other things.

Another major concern was that the study’s authors did not release their code or data despite signing a pledge to share information on the coronavirus.

The report “has led many researchers around the world to scrutinize in detail the publication in question. This scrutiny has raised both methodological and data integrity concerns,” the scientists wrote, adding that they were asking the Lancet to make available the peer review process that “led to this manuscript being accepted for publication.”

The report’s research team corrected some of its data Friday but maintained its conclusions had not changed.

The report in the Lancet was one of several that linked hydroxychloroquine to cardiac issues, but it was the first to link it with a higher rate of deaths. The study found that hospitalized patients who were given hydroxychloroquine were at least 33 percent more likely to die than patients who did not receive the drug.

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Hydroxychloroquine: Trump's Covid 'Gamechanger' Jun 6, 2020 20:09:35 GMT

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Post by Admin on Jun 6, 2020 20:09:35 GMT

Several authors of a large study that raised safety concerns about malaria drugs for coronavirus patients have retracted the report, saying independent reviewers were not able to verify information that’s been widely questioned by other scientists.

Thursday’s retraction in the journal Lancet involved a May 22 report on hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine, drugs long used for preventing or treating malaria but whose safety and effectiveness for COVID-19 are unknown.

The study leaders also retracted an earlier report using the same company’s database on blood pressure drugs published by the New England Journal of Medicine. That study suggested that widely used blood pressure medicines were safe for coronavirus patients, a conclusion some other studies and heart doctor groups also have reached.

Even though the Lancet report was not a rigorous test, the observational study had huge impact because of its size, reportedly involving more than 96,000 patients and 671 hospitals on six continents.

Its conclusion that the drugs were tied to a higher risk of death and heart problems in people hospitalized with COVID-19 led the World Health Organization to temporarily stop use of hydroxychloroquine in a study it is leading, and for French officials to stop allowing its use in hospitals there.

“Not only is there no benefit, but we saw a very consistent signal of harm,” study leader Dr. Mandeep Mehra of Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston told The Associated Press when the work was published.

The drugs have been controversial because President Donald Trump repeatedly promoted their use and took hydroxychloroquine himself to try to prevent infection after some White House staffers tested positive for the virus. The drugs are known to have potential side effects, especially heart rhythm problems.

The Lancet study relied on a database from a Chicago company, Surgisphere. Its founder, Dr. Sapan Desai, is one of the authors.

Dozens of scientists questioned irregularities and improbable findings in the numbers, and the other authors besides Desai said earlier this week that an independent audit would be done. In the retraction notice, those authors say Surgisphere would not give the reviewers the full data, citing confidentiality and client agreements.

“Based on this development, we can no longer vouch for the veracity of the primary data sources” and must retract the report, they wrote.

“I no longer have confidence in the origination and veracity of the data, nor the findings they have led to,” Mehra said in a separate statement Thursday.
The Lancet’s notice said “there are many outstanding questions about Surgisphere and the data that were allegedly included in this study,” and “institutional reviews of Surgisphere’s research collaborations are urgently needed.”

Desai and Surgisphere did not immediately respond to request for comments sent to phone numbers and email address listed on the company’s materials.