Hydroxychloroquine could have caused 17,000 deaths during Covid | Hacker News Reader

Hydroxychloroquine could have caused 17,000 deaths during Covid

politico.eu

28 pointshondo7728 comments

I don't understand this. HCQ is taken for malaria prophylaxis as recommended by the CDC. Are we saying that the CDC is recommending a drug that could potentially kill people? And they recommend it for use in all trimesters of pregnancy?

HCQ clearly did nothing for COVID, but I feel like we're maligning an otherwise quite useful medication. But to the original point, if 17K people did die of it, we should pull it IMMEDIATELY.

https://www.cdc.gov/malaria/travelers/drugs.html

> HCQ is taken for malaria prophylaxis as recommended by the CDC.

Yes, because the risk of untreated malaria far outweighs the risk of HCQ side effects. As HCQ is effective at treating malaria, it makes plenty of sense. As HCQ is ineffective at treating COVID, taking it for COVID means all the same risk and no reward.

Similarly, people die during heart transplants. As a result, the CDC doesn't recommend you get a heart transplant for funsies.

> Are we saying that the CDC is recommending a drug that could potentially kill people? And they recommend it for use in all trimesters of pregnancy?

All medications bear risk. Tylenol kills about 500 people per year. Ibuprofen kills around 15k.

Malaria kills 400k per year. Would you rather be pregnant and infected with Malaria, or pregnant and taking a drug with the approximate risk profile of ibuprofen?

the problem is we have as much papers saying it's useful, than papers explaining it does not work, and even got people killed because it has the known side-effect of affecting the heart. not being a medic myself, how are we supposed to know the truth ?

[flagged]

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S075333222...

"Studies including only patients receiving HCQ, receiving HCQ from August 2020 onwards, and patients already treated with HCQ for autoimmune conditions were excluded, as well as studies from countries for which mortality data were lacking."

> there's no articles about how-many-people-died-on-Remdesivir because The Experts Are Always Right, Peon!

Did you look? Quick Google: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle...

"remdesivir treatment was associated with significant 17% lower risk of inpatient mortality among patients hospitalized with COVID-19"

I believe all of you are being deliberately obtuse.

>"Studies including only patients receiving HCQ, receiving HCQ from August 2020 onwards, and patients already treated with HCQ for autoimmune conditions were excluded, as well as studies from countries for which mortality data were lacking."

I was not talking about a particular study when I mentioned people with autoimmune disorders. I was talking about people I _knew in real life_ who had autoimmune disorders before COVID started but suddenly couldn't get HCQ because the people running the Covid response decided the best course of action was to take HCQ off the market.

How were people supposed to be using it for covid if the people who had valid prescriptions from licensed rheumatologists and were taking it so they could WALK or use their hands couldn't get any?

>Did you look? Quick Google: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle...

>"remdesivir treatment was associated with significant 17% lower risk of inpatient mortality among patients hospitalized with COVID-19"

I know there's a probably a paper that says that. that's why I distrust all the idiots pretending to be doctors and scientists these days.

At the time she was given it and died I found out later that the World Health Organization was recommending _against_ its use.

Here's the links:

[0]: https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-remdesivi...

[1]: https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/521319-who-study-finds...

[2]: https://www.science.org/content/article/very-very-bad-look-r...

> How were people supposed to be using it for covid if the people who had valid prescriptions from licensed rheumatologists and were taking it so they could WALK or use their hands couldn't get any?

Because a bunch of idiots getting prescriptions online at a couple hundred bucks for a consult from grifters like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America's_Frontline_Doctors caused a shortage.

Sudden increase in demand, no increase in supply. Very simple answer. It was never “taken off the market”.

See also: toilet paper.

That's not what caused the shortage. It started in March or April of 2020.

That lines up perfectly.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydroxychloroquine

> Several countries initially used chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine for treatment of persons hospitalized with COVID-19 (as of March 2020), though the drug was not formally approved through clinical trials. From April to June 2020, there was an emergency use authorization for their use in the United States, and was used off label for potential treatment of the disease.

https://www.fda.gov/media/136534/download is the FDA issuing an EUA in late March.

April 8: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7207200/

> As we await further evidence on the role, if any, of these drugs in addressing the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, many clinicians have already begun using them to treat COVID-19.

> A surge in prescriptions based on speculation about their role in the prevention or treatment of SARS-CoV-2 infection threatens the availability of these drugs for patients with chronic inflammatory disorders for whom they are known to be effective. At least 2 manufacturers have announced plans to increase hydroxychloroquine production in anticipation of this need.

I think we’re done here.

That was the time period where the government was limiting supply. It was not caused by the Frontline Doctors, who started much later than that.

That would be odd, given the EUA. Feel free to provide a cite that the US government limited supply of HCQ in March/April 2020. I’ve cited plenty.

Simply because they had a stockpile of 29 million doses they were sitting on in early April that wasn't actually making it to people with pre-covid problems it was used to treat. By June this was up to 63 million doses. I'm looking for a source that isn't a video.

[0]: https://roundingtheearth.substack.com/p/the-chloroquine-wars...

You’re supporting my point. That’s another example of credulous idiots buying up the supply out of a false belief it helps with COVID.

In this case, mostly Republican governors and legislators.

https://apnews.com/article/malaria-local-governments-ut-stat...

the link you provided was not the government limiting supply of the drug, it was restricting the prescriptions so that the people with lupous and rheumatoid would have a better chance of getting it, because hospitals were stockpiling it for offlabel use. The link you provided a few comments back even mentions that pharmacists were prescribing it for themselves and their family members. There were clearly a bunch of people hoarding it which would explain a) deaths from the drug when used to treat COVID and b) people that genuinely needed it not being able to get it.

> I have doubts about this simply because I knew people who needed HCQ for other diseases (lupus and rheumatoid arthritis) had trouble getting it during the epidemic because the government restricted supplies.

Your evidence against this drug being commonly taken appears to be that it was so popular that supplies were getting low and governments acted to limit its use.

> Also that the only deaths that happened during the studies happened because the studies were rigged with improper dosages.

In other words they studied different dosages to see if an initially-promising treatment was effective?

> [...] but there's no articles about how-many-people-died-on-Remdesivir because The Experts Are Always Right, Peon!

It's known to be a dangerous drug. That's why it's perscribed only by doctors when they've determined that the tradeoffs are worth it. What would the story be?

HCQ by the current understanding does fuckall for Covid. So combating the false perception that it's harmless is worthwhile and will be news to some.

>Your evidence against this drug being commonly taken appears to be that it was so popular that supplies were getting low and governments acted to limit its use.

No, I am saying it was _removed from the market by the government_ at the time to where even people who could obtain it for other uses before suddenly couldn't obtain it.

>In other words they studied different dosages to see if an initially-promising treatment was effective?

That's not what they did. They administered what was known from the standard of care of the use of HCQ for treating malaria to be a lethal dose and then said this proved the drug was useless for covid.

You can go find a pre-2019 pre-"We have always been at war with Eurasia" edition of the Physician's Desk Reference and look at the dosage information for treatment of a patient with Malaria and see for yourself. Make a spreadsheet and add up the individual doses and see for yourself how much they gave patients.

> No, I am saying it was _removed from the market by the government_ at the time to where even people who could obtain it for other uses before suddenly couldn't obtain it.

This is a patently false claim.

Here's an article about state pharmacy boards micromanaging the supply:

[0]: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-ph...

Read your article again.

They limited it to patients who needed it. Because of the shortage!

> The Nevada and Ohio rules dictate that the drugs can only be used for treatment not prevention of COVID-19. Texas and Idaho said that the prescription needs a diagnosis "consistent with the evidence for its use."

> That's not what they did. They administered what was known from the standard of care of the use of HCQ for treating malaria to be a lethal dose and then said this proved the drug was useless for covid.

Please point to that study. That is a literally unbelievable claim.

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