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Re:Low-dose Hydroxychloroquine Therapy and Mortality in Hosp... by bradford on Tuesday August 25, 2020 @02:19PM (#24274308)
Right, It's not a new drug, but its efficacy for treating COVID-19 has not been established. Using it to treat COVID-19 prior to completion of medical trials is premature and has the potential to cause more harm than good.

"widely available globally" and "has been used as an antiviral therapeutic" is not the correct criteria to use here.

Re:Low-dose Hydroxychloroquine Therapy and Mortality in Hosp... by gizmo on Tuesday August 25, 2020 @03:54PM (#24275355)
When you're dealing with a new disease there are no best practices for treatment. This is tautologically true. That's why doctors have to use their best judgement and try different things and write down what seems to work and what doesn't. Often they get it wrong, with very bad consequences. For instance putting covid patients prematurely on mechanical ventilators had catastrophic health implications. When this became apparent ventilator policy changed. People died and now we know better. It's ugly, but that's how you learn about treating a new(ish) disease. Waiting for the results of multiple randomized controlled trials is, frankly, fantasy. Covid has almost entirely ran its course and we aren't close to having solid treatment results from randomized controlled trials. Premature and ad-hoc treatment is how we've muddled through the pandemic, and it's how we'll muddle through the next pandemic, too.
Re:Low-dose Hydroxychloroquine Therapy and Mortality in Hosp... by manicdee on Thursday August 27, 2020 @02:07AM (#24290588)
> When you're dealing with a new disease there are no best practices for treatment.

That doesn't give you carte blanche to claim that your drug does wonderful things for condition X when the evidence supporting your claim is non-existent, extremely weak, or obviously fraudulent.

> That's why doctors have to use their best judgement and try different things and write down what seems to work and what doesn't.

Which is completely different to POTUS recommending HCQ because he or his friends have financial interest in a company that makes that drug.

It's also extremely negligent to try popularising a particular drug which is already in short supply and needed by people with existing life-threatening conditions. If something looks promising, you finance some trials to provide more certainty, and then you look at ways to ramp up production because you know demand is going to increase.

Re:Low-dose Hydroxychloroquine Therapy and Mortality in Hosp... by ikerdanzel on Thursday August 27, 2020 @04:28AM (#24291298)
I suggest you try to get in touch with those people working in Asian sides using it as treatment. Most don't publish their results there but do use it. And you can see a significant low mortality compare to western countries that largely choose not to use it. South and Eastern Asian side has very high infection rates way more than western counterpart and yet mortality is significantly lower both in terms of absolute value or by percentage.
Re:Low-dose Hydroxychloroquine Therapy and Mortality in Hosp... by ryathal on Tuesday August 25, 2020 @03:30PM (#24275090)
Off label uses of drugs has been common for decades. Trials aren't just spun up without some evidence of anecdotes to support them being worth the effort. If anything a drug with well understood side effects and a plausible method of actually being helpful is probably worth trying while formal trials can be conducted.