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Comment by cycrutchfield | Hacker News Reader

Thank goodness that we are actually getting some RCT results. There has been a huge confirmation bias towards any positive results for chloroquine, no matter how specious or flawed the underlying science was. Everybody wants this to work because the drug is well-tested on humans, cheap, and broadly available. It would be a panacea, a miracle drug. My concern is that the desire for this drug to be effective has clouded people's judgment (even seasoned researchers) and led to bad science.

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>It would be a panacea, a miracle drug.

Not really, a panacea is a drug that cures everything. If chloroquine was found to be an effective antiviral, it would only be a drug that cured two things. That's common enough to not warrant excessive skepticism taken alone.

While that may be the precise definition of a panacea, the vernacular definition is a breakthrough or unexpected good thing.

This study really isn’t sufficient proof for anything. Not even weak evidence. We need far better studies before deciding to give up on a drug.

It is definitely orders of magnitudes better than that flawed French study.

Don't forget the time pressure. It's a real balance act. The ideal panacea would be an already approved drug that is easy to manufacture, scale and distribute.

If fighting covid means we need new drugs then we look at a long development time that will likely stretch the availability of a therapeutic behind the availability of a vaccine.

Obviously everyone knows that these things are needed NOW, all bureaucratic road blocks are removed save the really important and necessary ones. You cannot just hand out a drug to millions of people or inject them with vaccines without thoroughly testing their safety first.

Imagine if the "cure" to covid was long term harmful in a broad population, e.g. it affects 5% of the people negatively. The health, societal and economic impact could wipe the floor with covid.

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