Hacker News Reader

Comment by meheleventyone | Hacker News Reader

I’d suggest it’s the other way around and those that suggest Zinc is important need to actually demonstrate that. I’d also suggest a dose of humility if you’re promoting it particularly if you aren’t able to quickly find out what a macrolide is and whether Zinc would be one.

View on HN

"Results: The addition of zinc sulfate did not impact the length of hospitalization, duration of ventilation, or ICU duration. In univariate analyses, zinc sulfate increased the frequency of patients being discharged home, and decreased the need for ventilation, admission to the ICU, and mortality or transfer to hospice for patients who were never admitted to the ICU"

HCQ is an enabler; zinc does the heavy lifting but only if administered early.

See my other comment downvoted to oblivion below.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.02.20080036v...

Hydroxychloroquine is just one of several zinc ionophores that inhibit viral replication. "Zinc Ionophores Pyrithione Inhibits Herpes Simplex Virus Replication" https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23867132/

"... the virus replicative cycle can be divided into 10 steps (Fig. 52-1): (1) adsorption, (2) penetration, (3) uncoating, (4) early transcription, (5) early translation, (6) replication of the viral genome, (7) late transcription, (8) late translation, (9) assembly, and (10) release of new virus particles."

If using HCQ as a zinc ionophore which targets replication, "antiviral drug treatment should be started early, before irreversible tissue damage occurs. Such timely treatment is not possible without early and accurate diagnosis, which is difficult for many viral infections (such as infections of the respiratory tract)" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK8119/

Your precious study is full of holes:

https://twitter.com/JamesTodaroMD/status/1266108861259210753...

Admit you were wrong.

Effectiveness of Zinc against RNA viruses is demonstrated multiple times already. For example: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2973827/

Well that one is in vitro so still needs to be demonstrated in humans. Also what relevance does it have to the efficacy of the treatments attempted in the study?

Recent Indian studies did that.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3... is an overview of the counter criticism on it, with a link to the study.

I am programmer not a medical professional, how do you expect me to find that out for myself? Not sure how ask a simple question about something I am not an expert at means I need more humility. Nice projection though.

It’s not the question that requires humility (although tbf this is a pretty easily Googlable one if you combine it with a high school level of chemistry) but the conclusion you drew that the study “doesn’t deserve much credit” as you baselessly claim Zinc is important.

I based my conclusion to not give the study much credit because it didn’t involve the inclusion of zinc or use of the therapy as a prophylactic. Which, from my understanding, is the actual claim that started the HCQ discussion in the first place. I am sure this paper is accurate in regards to the data they did look at. I am just saying I think it is the wrong data to look at to answer this question.

Just because the study doesn't answer the questions you want doesn't mean its without credit.

Exactly, you aren't a medical professional and you don't have the skills or knowledge to be evaluating the soundness of this journal article (for that matter neither do I), yet you said this:

> If zinc is not a `macrolide` I wouldn’t give this paper much credit as they didn’t test the treatment properly.

wow, ok. I never said that zinc and HCQ works or should be taken by anyone. I wouldn’t risk it myself. I also never said anything about the technical soundness of the journal. I was simply saying the HCQ+zinc was the treatment that first gained anecdotal notoriety. It doesn’t take a medical professional tp understand that in order for an experiment to be useful it should test the exact actual treatment that had anecdotal success.

This isn’t an experiment it’s a survey of clinical outcomes from 671 hospitals across six continents where patients were given one of the treatments looked at within 48 hours of diagnosis. Also anecdote is not a sound way to conduct medicine.

@mehelevetyone I realize the study wasn’t an experiment in and of itself. The data they looked at though represented what essentially were experiments on real patients. It is a distinction without a difference so I see you’re more concerned with nitpicky details like this because you don’t have an actual response to my points.

Also where did I claim anecdote was a good way to conduct medical research? I did not. Anecdotal evidence is a completely valid source to find ideas that might be worth trying and testing with actual research.

Right but until this actual research surfaces I wouldn't be too concerned about the anecdote particularly when the data from actual research shows two out of three parts of the suggested treatment to be actively harmful.

I don't need any answer your points because you've not given any evidence to suggest they should be taken seriously versus the evidence that two-thirds of the treatment you suggest is still quite harmful.

Zinc is part of the theory of how HCQ is supposed to work. Medical practitioners are generally aware of this, and most of them were giving HCQ with zinc.

> If zinc is not a `macrolide` I wouldn’t give this paper much credit as they didn’t test the treatment properly.

A computer programmer suggesting a medical study shouldn't be given much credit based on a question they self-admittedly don't understand is pretty far from my definition of humility.

"Asking a simple question" is different from "asking a question and supplying your own assumed answer and throwing the whole thing out as a result."

@CydeWeys I never claimed to be an expert. I am human trying to survive on this planet like everyone else. I take in as much information as I can, with an open mind, and make the best choices I am able to.

Are you suggesting I should trust everything the government, media, or scientists says whole cloth simply because I am not an expert? Sorry, that is not how I operate or ever will operate. I take information on all sides of every topic seriously and come to the best conclusion I can for myself and I share what I’ve seen and learned with others.

If you don’t like that move to China and enjoy the CCP.

I totally agree with what you are saying here. It's funny how people who push science so hard also tell you to trust authority for anything you don't understand.

If you were an alien on another planet, would you blindly trust the local populace about things you did not understand? If not, why does that suddenly change when you are your own planet among your own people?

If you can't understand the logic of a solution posed to you, then logically you must not accept it as absolute fact.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com