The repeated recommendation to use a drug which has not been properly tested by the president of the most powerful nation on this planet seems inappropriate to me.
http://bannerhealth.mediaroom.com/chloroquinephosphate
>A man has died and his wife is under critical care after the couple, both in their 60s, ingested chloroquine phosphate, an additive commonly used at aquariums to clean fish tanks. Within thirty minutes of ingestion, the couple experienced immediate effects requiring admittance to a nearby Banner Health hospita
I gather that the therapeutic dose is on the order of 500 mg/day. So did they eat 10x that, 100x that, or what?
Also all the wikipedia references are about chloroquine phosphate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chloroquine#References
Looks like they did take the right drug, but OD'd or something.
Its things like this which is the reason why Sweden has almost banned every cleaning product that has the word alcohol as one of its ingredient, and those that still have it usually must have something that cause vomiting if ingested. People poison themselves (which is I think the more technical correct term than overdosing), and if people will look at something like a cleaning product and think "I will drink this" then there is not much options available.
Last year I watched as a homeless man squirted hand sanitizer into a cup then drink it. Before a woman yelled at him and started calling 911. He disappeared pretty quickly after that, so not sure what ever happened to him.
Fun fact: The hand sanitizer stand he used was one of the ones installed around public areas in Toronto after the last SARS outbreak.
I remember many years ago that there was a campaign to inform the public of this fact as people still continued for a while to ingest those products under the idea that they still had alcohol in them. Many products also had for a while big lables that said "No alcohol". As far as I know the regulation has been quite a success.
The CDC recommends using alcohol sanitizer over non-alcohol ones:
> Many studies have found that sanitizers with an alcohol concentration between 60–95% are more effective at killing germs than those with a lower alcohol concentration or non-alcohol-based hand sanitizers. Hand sanitizers without 60-95% alcohol 1) may not work equally well for many types of germs; and 2) merely reduce the growth of germs rather than kill them outright.
https://www.propublica.org/article/coronavirus-hand-sanitize...
A friend who lived in Sweden told me the stores there shut down early and it was hard to find a place to buy alcohol (the Swedish state-run liquor store closes at 3pm on Saturday and is completely closed on Sunday). So if your flight arrives late to the city you might miss out.
Culture plays a big role in getting support for this sort of thing... Ontario used to be more like Sweden but recently expanded the hours of our state-run liquor store (until 11pm) and let grocery stores sell beer/cider.
Drugs often come as a salt made from some active ingredient (here, chloroquine) and a counterion (phosphate). This often makes the active ingredient more soluble than the charged active ingredient alone.
>Keep in mind if you decide to use the tablets, there are some inactive ingredients, which you may have to deal with, e.g., Camauba Wax, Colloidal Silicon Dioxide, Dibasic Calcium Phosphate, Hydroxypropyl Methylcellulose, Magnesium Stearate, Microcrystalline Cellulose, Polyethylene Glycol, Polysorbate 80, Pregelatinized Starch, Sodium Starch Glycolate, Stearic Acid, and Titanium Dioxide. And as mentioned earlier in this chapter there are occasions where some medicines are not in their pure form (100% pure), i.e., mixed with a substance called a 'carrier,' which should be noted on its label.
https://www.nano-reef.com/forums/topic/406204-chloroquine-ph...
This comment is harshly worded but explains the subtly well: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22670152
But still, let this be a lesson to those who would follow bad leaders to their own demise; or rather, let it be a lesson to their offspring who watch them follow the bad leaders.
I suspect humanity follows cycles of enlightenment, complacency, and self-destruction (or irrelevance, which is equally damning depending on the individual). We appear to be between stage 2 and 3 at this point.
This theory would agree (and it makes sense to me): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strauss%E2%80%93Howe_generatio...
Richest underdeveloped country? Most powerful failed state?
a.k.a 90% of the population. At such point, you're just complaining about human stupidity, instead of any specific group. And our children will be just as stupid as us, but their leader will say dumb things about other issues instead of chloroquine.
Anecdotally I can identify two of the four living generations of my family having observed and corrected _obvious_ failures of their elder generation. What's perhaps harder to recognize is the new bad traits that get introduced.
To be fair, though, each generation has increasingly different circumstances than the previous one. The human circumstance seems to be varying more with each generation as of the industrial age.
Ideally we would collect and review all the previous lessons learned. But we tend to get fascinated by new shiny things (or Netflix series), so we aren't evolving optimally...
The amount for an overdose is only around 3X a regular dose (2g vs 600mg) In contrast, most drugs for which you overdose need to be at much higher dosage multiples compared to the prescribed dose.
> NHS coronavirus advice
> There is currently no strong evidence that ibuprofen can make coronavirus (COVID-19) worse.
> But until we have more information, take paracetamol to treat the symptoms of coronavirus, unless your doctor has told you paracetamol is not suitable for you.
> If you are already taking ibuprofen or another non-steroidal anti-inflammatory (NSAID) on the advice of a doctor, do not stop taking it without checking first.
> Updated: 17 March 2020
Over-the-counter use of paracetamol (aka acetaminophen) for fever reduction is entirely standard medical advice, not specific to coronavirus at all.
At one point it was the only drug they recommended for fever reduction, but they retracted their statement about avoiding ibuprofen
https://www.livescience.com/ibuprofen-coronavirus-symptoms.h...
> To help yourself stay well while you're at home [...] take paracetamol to help ease your symptoms
Strictly speaking it's on the self-isolation if symptomatic or living with someone who does page, and not necessarily aimed directly at confirmed cases, but you also get the same advice at the end of the NHS online advice service if you present with (mild) COVID-19 symptoms:
> How to look after your symptoms at home[:...] take paracetamol
> Asked about the study, WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier told reporters in Geneva the UN health agency's experts were "looking into this to give further guidance."
> "In the meantime, we recommend using rather paracetamol, and do not use ibuprofen as a self-medication. That's important," he said.
Paracetamol = acetaminophen: https://www.drugs.com/paracetamol.html
Perhaps for over the counter medication. This statement is false when we consider drugs requiring a prescription especially those used mainly in acute care or hospital situation. There are all sorts of medications in that class for which a double dose will straight up kill you.
In discussing such situations we often use terms like "patient safety" and "medical malpractice".
The arguments for against this drug seem center around the person recommending it, not its actual efficacy.
See this paper for a very interesting discussion of the topic: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4412688/
TCAs barely used any longer.
Acetaminophen doesn’t belong in this conversation with the other drugs.
I don't see why not? It's a good example where the max therapeutic dose (4000mg/day) is within 2X of the toxic dose range (7500mg-10000mg/day). And even the max therapeutic dose can be toxic to the liver.
And it's exceptionally easy to accidentally overdose if you don't read product labels, since you could be taking multiple products that contain it.
It doesn’t belong in convo with other drugs because it requires far less monitoring. It’s also not taken chronically like the other drugs. Or shouldn’t be, at least.
Acetaminophen overdose is the leading cause for calls to Poison Control Centers (>100,000/year) and accounts for more than 56,000 emergency room visits, 2,600 hospitalizations, and an estimated 458 deaths due to acute liver failure each year.Data from the U.S. Acute Liver Failure Study Group registry of more than 700 patients with acute liver failure across the United States implicates acetaminophen poisoning in nearly 50% of all acute liver failure in this country. Available in many single or combination products, acetaminophen produces more than 1 billion US dollars in annual sales for Tylenol products alone. It is heavily marketed for its safety compared to nonsteroidal analgesics. By enabling self-diagnosis and treatment of minor aches and pains, its benefits are said by the Food and Drug Administration to outweigh its risks. It still must be asked: Is this amount of injury and death really acceptable for an over-the-counter pain reliever?
If you think acetaminophen is qualitatively the same as warfarin or lithium, you need to go to med school.
That said, any physician who sees a patient taking 4g of acetaminophen a day chronically is going to tell them to reduce their dosage, switch to another drug, or stop.
It’s not safe in the long run.
Acetaminophen has a therapeutic index of close to 8, much better than chloroquine.
Two points on the topic of OTC drugs in the US:
1. Unfortunately you can buy Lithium as a supplement in the US. I have seen bottles of it for sale on Amazon.
2. Having seen enough accidental (not to mention intentional) overdoses from Acetaminophen, I wouldn't be so fast to act like the therapeutic index is wide enough to be treated as "safe". Anything with a narrow therapeutic window needs to be weighed carefully before use. I hope your take away from my comment wasn't that I think chloroquine is "safe": merely that there are a lot of drugs with narrow windows, and there are trade-offs associated with their use. I included that paper because it discusses this very explicitly.
You are correct that there is a "gray market" for some compounds. The FDA won't come after you for selling lithium carbonate as long as you're not touting it as a medicine. I assume that if it became widespread enough and people got injured, those products would be pulled off the market pretty quickly.
My comments of the TI for acetaminophen was more that it was larger than that for chloroquine. No drug is "safe", but some are safer than others.
Stupidity = behavior that shows a lack of good sense or judgment.
Personal responsibility = the idea that human beings choose, instigate, or otherwise cause their own actions.
Stupidity = behavior that shows a lack of good sense or judgment.
Reports from China, South Korea and France have suggested efficacy in humans against COVID-19.
Chloroquine is a particularly funny example because they have already tried it as an antiviral drug several times without any efficacy.
I've seen the one situation of chloroquine showing promise in vitro against SARS CoV but no others. Is there literature on others?
No mate, post a precise link. This one goes nowhere and I still don't believe you.
But that has nothing to do with HIV, neither do garlic and beetroot have anything to do with nitric oxide.
"Potent activation of nitric oxide synthase by garlic: a basis for its therapeutic applications."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7555034
...
Whether nitric oxide has much to do with health is anothre question. I believe one of the reasons viagra works is due to nitric oxide, so perhaps it's we should be viagring instead.
And we're taking purified alicin at nearly toxic doses. In vitro. Yes, garlic can kill. And it was described to be active in vascular tissue not lungs.
Now Viagra is an interesting bet, but it also does not reach lungs or non-vascular cells.
Other poster is apparently talking about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIV/AIDS_denialism_in_South_Af...
For any virus. I didn't say it was safe or effective, I said there is a plausible mechanism of action.
"Nitric Oxide Inhibits the Replication Cycle of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus"
https://jvi.asm.org/content/79/3/1966
...
Enhancing NO signaling in cells is hard. The best initial bet there would be using certain class of beta-blockers. (Ones typically used for black patients.) But please do not take unproven drugs with known side effects.
The paper is talking about S-nitroso-N-acetylpenicillamine in vitro. This compound is not something anyone wants to actually take.
NO evidence is pretty weak for COVID. Even if it was true, we’d give NO or other related compounds and certainly not unregulated dietary supplements.
Garlic is literally one of the most widely used medical treatments in the entire world. It's used medically by 0.8% of all US adults, according to the NIH.
https://nccih.nih.gov/research/statistics/NHIS/2012/natural-...
It's use was advocated for my Hippocrates. You know, the "father of medicine" guy.
It is listed below echinacea and cranberry pills (two supplements with substantial evidence for NON-efficacy) on the National Institute for Complementary and Alternative Medicine’s ranking of SUPPLEMENTS taken in the US. If it was real effective medicine, it wouldn’t be considered an “alternative” medicine (a polite phrase for horseshit).
Do you realize how ridiculous that is as evidence for anything? The fact that misguided people buy it in supplement form does not mean it is a treatment for anything, let alone COVID. People also buy lots of Diet Coke.
And then to top it off you reference Hippocrates (literally thousands of years ago). Did you know most Med schools don’t even take the Hippocratic oath any longer? Do you believe that doctors should treat people by keeping the 4 humors in balance?
Completely ridiculous
Knowing what people are using medically is critically important, regardless of whether you think they should be using it or not.
It is not a "medical" treatment unless it treats, prevents, or otherwise modifies some actual disease or state of health.
I agree it is important to know what ridiculous, non-evidence-based dietary supplements people are taking.
Regardless, you can't get out of your extremely irresponsible claims by arguing about semantics.
Please stop giving anyone your incompetent and potentially harmful medical advice. Luckily most people with COVID won't try to treat it with garlic supplements alone because they aren't stupid, but you have to realize that in panic-inducing times like this people might actually take your advice and you could end up with blood on your hands.
How does saying "there is a plausible mechanism of" qualify as either irresponsible or medical advice?
> you have to realize that in panic-inducing times like this people might actually take your advice and you could end up with blood on your hands.
What advice? I literally haven't offered any advice.
You have claimed 1) there is plausible evidence for garlic (no) 2) garlic is a widely used medicine (no)
On the basis of those claims it is quite easy to see how you are suggesting people take garlic. Classic motte-and-bailey argument strategy.
Convenient that you also dropped discussion of “beet root”
This INSISTENCE people keep having on politicizing this is infuriating and it’s going to get people killed. Stop doing this. Now is not the time for political point gathering.
Like the man that the article is about?
He's talking complete nonsense about quarantine and how bad it is to close the stock exchange while saying the quarantine is a bigger problem than the virus because he's created so many jobs and that it'll cause 'tremendous death.'
¯\(°_o)/¯
What is nonsense about that?
The President needs to stop talking generalities.
The USA, in stark contrast, had a gutted CDC (thanks to the hard work of the GOP to shrink the government), an abolished White House Pandemic Response office (used to be part of the national security group), and a President who first ignored and then downplayed repeated warnings from his own country's Intelligence Community because he thought it was a "hoax".
That is why the time for "nuanced" approaches is past, and drastic actions are needed. You can check this website for some sobering charts: https://covidactnow.org/
Regarding the economy, tell me this: do you seriously think our economy can handle millions of deaths within the span of several months?
The CDC budget has not been gutted (https://mises.org/wire/cdcs-budget-larger-now-under-obama). Perhaps you meant that he proposed reductions. Sure, but that didn't happen so you can't use a reduced budget as the cause for anything.
The Pandemic Response Office was consolidated as part of the restructuring of the NSC. The office might have been eliminated but the function was not. (https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/465320-reducin...)
And as for your "hoax" comment. You are just parroting false accounts of what the President said. His reference to a "hoax" was to the particular types of criticisms being made by the Democrats not to the virus. It is obvious on its face that he hasn't thought it was a hoax since he has continued to make executive decisions that would make no sense if he thought it was a hoax (e.g. banning travel from China in mid January)
Unfortunately, you have been suckered into believing lots of things that just aren't true. The press continues to embarrass itself during this crisis.
> Regarding the economy, tell me this: do you seriously think our economy can handle millions of deaths within the span of several months?
Well it is a bit of a false choice you are forcing on me, but it is quite possible that a destroyed world economy could lead to more deaths than could be caused by the virus alone. As bad as things are, they could get a whole lot worse.
We aren’t rationally weighing costs and benefits right now. We really should be talking more about what we’re doing to the economy, and if there are better ways to move forward.
People freak out. "Preliminary doesn't mean proven!"
Man self-medicates with HCQ and dies.
President's fault??
“I like this stuff. I really get it. [...] People are really surprised I understand this stuff. Every one of these doctors said, ‘How do you know so much about this?’ Maybe I have a natural ability.”
“Anybody who wants a test will get a test, that’s the bottom line. [...] The tests are all perfect, like the letter was perfect, the transcription was perfect, right? This was not as perfect as that, but pretty good.”
I know which party I blame.
"We saw Trump on TV -- every channel -- & all of his buddies and that this was safe," she said. "Trump kept saying it was basically pretty much a cure." https://twitter.com/HeidiNBC/status/1242238268277755905
NBC: "Did you at any point hear that the FDA had not approved of it for coronavirus purposes or--?"
AZ Woman: "Yeah. But you know they kept saying that it was approved for other things...Trump kept saying it was basically pretty much a cure." https://twitter.com/VaughnHillyard/status/124225471769609420...
Additionally you are responding to an article about people who took the drug to treat Covid-19. Peoples lives are at stake on both sides, a politician with no medical training should know better than to run his mouth about something he knows nothing about.
No, they did not. They took an aquarium cleaning chemical with a similar name.
For example they total stuffed it up with their handling of Oxycontin:
https://www.knoxnews.com/story/news/crime/2018/07/13/purdue-...
/sarcasm
Stop acting like there is. It’s insane at this point. It might work, but frankly it’s unlikely given the history of chloroquine’s failures as an antiviral.
The pushback on chloroquine is completely insane. It's a 90 year old, well-understood drug used safely by millions with mild side effects.
The in-vitro results for chloroquine as an antiviral have been positive for many viruses, but it has never worked out in RCTs.
Claiming there is good evidence from in-vivo studies is scientifically illiterate. Please post links to well-done RCTs if you believe they exist.
There is a reason the WHO is running a 5-arm clinical trial for COVID.
Edit: Your response to me literally says “In-Vitro” in the title.
Edit 2: “There is absolutely evidence” ... But no links. No, sorry, you are still just wrong.
I take it you are not familiar with epidemiology, clinical evaluation of drug efficacy, or medical statistics. That’s fine! No one is saying you need to be. But you shouldn’t be extremely confident of your conclusions when experts are telling you that you’re wrong.
The French chloroquine+azithromycin trial was terrible and no one in the medical world believes it. There’s a reason no respectable journal would publish it. SIX of the people in the C+A arm died and were removed from the analysis, which is absurd. The outcome was viral titers, which were different for different arms. Just maddening.
I am not extremely confident in what is not even a conclusion. I am simply shocked at the pushback and resistance to a promising treatment with minimal downsides.
Medecine appears to be the only profession in the world that only accepts one form of evidence. That is what is maddening.
The FDA, CDC, and WHO’s position is the same as mine.
That view is “insane”, or at least strongly misinformed and medically/scientifically illiterate.
In fact, there is no strong evidence that supports this and substantial prior evidence that contradicts it.
Unfortunately, this belief leads to bad outcomes, such as people literally dying, as is the case here.
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1239650597906898947?s=20
On one side his voice should be heard, it may give people hope and help to move stuff
On the other side, some people who don't know what balance is, might use it in the wrong way.
The double standards here are shocking.
The people in this story didn't get their hands on prescription drugs, they found an aquarium chemical with a similar name.
That's more than "a similar name". It's the same name.
From what I've read, both chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine are used to treat inflammation.
So is it chloroquine vs hydroxychloroquine that you're referring to?
They may also contain non-active ingredients that are not harmful to fish but kill humans. Who knows?
In other words, don't take aquarium chemicals and think they're medication.
But still, fish aren't people. So using anything except pharmaceutical grade is dangerous.
0) https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/chloroquine-phosphate.1923...
But Elon Musk is not a responsible man. He is Mr Foot-in-Mouth on Twitter many times over.
The negative reaction to the French study has been pretty intense.
As one of the most famous people in the world, with his own agendas, and no medical qualifications... it is extremely irresponsible for Musk to make any sort of public comments about anything medical in nature. No matter what he says, a significant number of people will take it to heart and ignore medical advice, science, and their own common sense.
In times like this we should advocate for more information and getting facts out.
He didn't say "drink an additive commonly used at aquariums to clean fish tanks."
http://bannerhealth.mediaroom.com/chloroquinephosphate
I don't see why every story needs to be about him.
Just because he didn't say anything 100% explicitly the cause it and may have been misinterpreted is honestly besides the point. When you are given the power of the presidency, you should either treat your public words with care of just quit forever for all our sakes.
This is just how having power _works_. It's a two-way street, and the idealistic American Way.
EDIT: Anyone care to explain the downvotes? This is my opinion on those gifted with power in all situations. It goes for companies as well. If you're the CEO, VPE, whatever. There should be checks to balance that gifted power. One check is a higher standard of public speaking due to your newfound influence.
Once a drug is approved by the FDA for one disease, it can be used off-label for other purposes.
Like I could go and say "The FDA has approved Rogaine." It's true, but it's a useless statement in the context of Covid-19.
Surely you've noticed that some folk take the President's public statements at face value.
Edit: Yes, I realize what he probably meant. I know how meds work. I still think he should have chosen his wording more carefully.
It goes without saying that like all prescription drugs which have been proven safe, chloroquine should only be taken when prescribed by a doctor, at the recommended dosage. Obviously if you self-medicate with any safe prescription drug, you risk harming yourself by overdosing.
He's talking to a broad, panicked audience and anyone doing so ought to choose their words carefully. Something like "Great news is that we've already had safety data for this stuff, so we're going straight to efficacy trials!" would convey plenty of optimism without encouraging yahoos to do dumb things.
I don't think it's a good idea to take the President's happy talk at face value, but then I also didn't think it was ever a good idea to spend money on Trump University, or donating to Trump charities; on the other hand, enough people did that the matters ended up in court and the two branded entities mentioned above were both found to be liable for misinforming their customers/donors.
There are a lot of stupid folk among the public, and it is to them that scam artists like Jim Bakker or Alex Jones market quack cures. There's an appetite for quack cures because they seem affordable relative to the often-inaccessible costs of basic medical treatment, because we don't have a universal public health system in the USA. The sad fact is that people sell snake oil because there are fat profits to be made by doing so, even though most of us recognize such products as little better than placebos at best or dangerous at worst.
This is why we have product regulation, credentialing and so on; it's hard for people to personally assess the quality of every product or service and there are unscrupulous people who are willing to exploit that difficulty.
This doesn't mean it's safe to take, it just means that taking it as prescribed is believed to lead to better outcomes than trying to survive Malaria without taking it.
There's any number of things that chemotherapy or radiation might help with, but unless it is terminal cancer, chances are you are better off without those treatments.
In medical terms, 'safe' is almost always relative. Tylenol is 'safe', and yet it kills many people every year.
I'm not sure the difference between this and the dosages and chemical makeup of the actual drug being touted by Trump but I imagine anyone with a lick of sense would avoid consuming chemicals designed for fish tanks.
Both counterions get used in medicines, but it's tough to say in general if it matters: sometimes it makes a difference, other times it's just whatever's easier/cheaper to make.
Instead, it says: "Do not take more than your recommended dose. An Advil overdose can damage your stomach or intestines. Use only the smallest amount of medication needed to get relief from your pain, swelling, or fever."
People come up with crazy, brain dead ideas all the time. There are flat earthers for crying out loud.
Look, I've been highly critical of Trump's handling of the crisis but you can't really pin this particular incident on him.
From a pharmaceutical company, this would be patently illegal advertising since it's mentioning an off-label use of a drug. From a politician with zero medical knowledge, it's vastly irresponsible given the size of audience who listens to him and trusts him.
Obviously, self medicating a prescription drug is irresponsible. None of what the president says changes that. He said the FDA approved it. Independent of the truth value of that statement, it would still be approved of as a prescription drug.
Sorry, no matter what the president says, self-medicating is nuts.
And even that information was wrong. That's the point I'm trying to make.
Agreed.
> no matter what the president says,
That doesn't mean giving prominent authority figures a pass on outright falsehoods. He said the FDA approved chloroquine to be prescribed for Covid-19. The FDA said they had not done that.
It doesn't matter, because chloroquine is already FDA approved to treat COVID 19. Let me explain: chloroquine is an FDA approved drug for malaria, which means doctors can prescribe it for whatever they want. It has been approved as a legal prescription drug and doctors can prescribe anything for any reason whatsoever.
That does not mean it's now okay to take it without a prescription.
So everything below him explicitly telling everyone to obtain and consume chloroquine doesn't count, right? He's the goddamn president. I expect his words to be very carefully weighted.
By now we know that's not the reality the US lives in.
> When you go with a brand-new drug, you don’t know that that’s going to happen. You have to see and you have to go — long test. But this has been used in different forms — very powerful drug — in different forms. And it’s shown very encouraging — very, very encouraging early results. And we’re going to be able to make that drug available almost immediately. And that’s where the FDA has been so great. They — they’ve gone through the approval process; it’s been approved. And they did it — they took it down from many, many months to immediate. So we’re going to be able to make that drug available by prescription or states.
> I spoke with Governor Cuomo about it at great length last night, and he wants to be right on — on the — he wants to be first on line. And so I think that’s a tremendous — there’s tremendous promise, based on the results and other tests. There’s tremendous promise. And normally the FDA would take a long time to approve something like that, and it’s — it was approved very, very quickly and it’s now approved, by prescription. Individual states will handle it. They can handle it. Doctors will handle it. And I think it’s going to be — I think it’s going to be great.
> Then we’re quickly studying this drug, and while we’re continuing to study it — but the studying is going to be also done in — as it’s given out to large groups of people, perhaps in New York and other places. We’ll study it there.
From his March 19 statement: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-pres.... In total, he mentioned the drug by name 11 times during that statement (according to Ctrl+f).
That's just completely unheard of in Australia. You cannot advertise prescription drugs to consumers, period.
Maybe Americans are just more likely to self-diagnose and self-medicate in general? Or visit the doctor with an agenda for a drug, and see the doctor's prescription as mere paperwork?
* Or maybe I misunderstood them. I could always be the one reading into things.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.businessinsider.com/trump-u...
https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu//NSAEBB/NSAEBB80/new/doc%2012/Pre...
Can we agree that it's not great to be giving out incomplete or incorrect information on such a prominent stage?
"It's shown very encouraging -- very, very encouraging early results...Normally the FDA would take a long time to approve something like that, and it's -- it was approved very, very quickly and it's now approved, by prescription."
However, the FDA after the briefing issued a statement saying it had not approved the drug for use against Covid-19 and is still studying its effectiveness against the disease.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/23/africa/chloroquine-trump-nige...
The quote (heavily pruned, but you can look it up in the link to verify I didn't change the meaning) is:
> Now, a drug called chloroquine ... is a common malaria drug. It is also a drug used for strong arthritis... in a somewhat different form ... But the nice part is, it’s been around for a long time, ... it’s not going to kill anybody.
> When you go with a brand-new drug, you don’t know that that’s going to happen. ... But this has been used in different forms — very powerful drug ... And it’s shown very encouraging — very, very encouraging early results. And we’re going to be able to make that drug available almost immediately. [The FDA has] gone through the approval process; it’s been approved. ... So we’re going to be able to make that drug available by prescription or states.
There is more, and it's similar in tone. So I don't think he said "Please go take the following drug without advice from your doctor" but he did say that it was powerful, safe, and already approved by the FDA. So I think it's fair to say that he was incautious in talking about a potentially dangerous, experimental treatment.
And yeah, his language is imprecise enough that you could pick it apart and find a reasonable motivation behind it if you looked hard enough. But even a really charitable reading can only upgrade his remarks from “flagrantly dangerous” to “unnecessary and not very helpful”, and we should expect more from the president than that.
We can have no civil society without these oaths being taken seriously, and holding people accountable for breaking them. It does not matter if they are CEOs, CFOs, CIOs, senators, representatives, or presidents. We are lost if they are treated as mere scraps of paper or words people say as blasé ritual.
https://epidemio.wiv-isp.be/ID/Documents/Covid19/COVID-19_In...
But now we have the president of the United States recommending you to make your own drug cocktail during a global pandemic. If someone had written that in the script it would've been thrown out as too unreal.
most powerful nation on this planet
Also, this wasn't even somebody taking too much of a prescribed drug. The man who died drank aquarium cleaner.
Two people having a bad reaction suggests highly improper usage.
Do you dislike it mainly because Trump mentioned it?
Possibly the least presidential president we've had in awhile.
The President can make that decision, it is part of his powers as President. He isn't prohibited from doing that. Perhaps you don't think something in particular should have been released. If so make that case, but just complaining about this in general is illogical.
> fighting with his intelligence agencies
You mean the intelligence agencies that have worked very hard to delegitimize his presidency, mislead the FISA court and so on? Those agencies have a lot to answer for and shouldn't be treated as infallible.
> suppressing the press
Really? The press seems quite free to say whatever they want under Trump. It just seems silly to say that Trump is limiting the press.
* Instructed the FDA to perform a clinical trial
* Said the FDA has approved it for treatment of Coronavirus in “compassionate use” circumstances
* Said he thinks it will be effective
* Said he can’t be sure how it will turn out
All of his quotes on the topic can be put into one of those categories. The first two are simply statements of fact, the second two are statements of opinion (and presented as such), opinions that are shared by many doctors and medical officials (including the ones who initially suggested and popularized this idea).
Trump has made absolutely no statements at all saying:
* This will certainly work out
* It’s a good idea to self medicate
So, if there’s so many quotes proving you to be correct, I’m sure you could provide one. Instead of just making an unfounded and unsubstantiated claim that you’re correct.
This will certainly work out*
"But the nice part is, it’s been around for a long time, so we know that if it — if things don’t go as planned, it’s not going to kill anybody."
Full quote in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22669656
Look, I know you want to nuance your way out of this, but it's not gonna fly because remarks like the above are taken at face value by foolish people and that's something that public figures have a responsibility to take into account. As I keep pointing out, that's why pharma ads have to have so many warnings in them. You think they wouldn't rather just say 'try this, it'll cure what ails ya!' But bitter experience has shown that people need to reminded about side effects and safe dosage and listening to their doctor over and over and over again.
In case you follow up on this thread, please listen to this - an interview with the woman whose husband died, describing how they came to try the medication: https://twitter.com/VaughnHillyard/status/124225399700566425...
And the drug does show promise. Trump could cure cancer and people will be mad about it. If Obama had mentioned this drug people would react completely differently. During H1N1, 4000 Americans died from that; it isn’t like Obama had a stellar track record in quelling a pandemic either.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/lisettevoytko/2020/03/22/new-yo...
https://www.insidernj.com/press-release/top-doctors-join-pen...
All of this concern that this treatment is “unproven” — well of course it is, this is all happening very fast, but to immediately oppose this drug because Trump is just political nonsense. It seems almost as if people want it to take years to find a solution to this thing. This constant anti-Trump vitriol is getting tired and old. People are dying right now, yet we are going to quibble on a drug that is showing promise just because Trump suggested it?
https://veltnews.com/no-deaths-at-lennox-hill-hospital-from-...
This is hardly what I call a recommendation.
The point was to give the American people some hope that we are on the right track to finding something that helps.