Are you sure you're not a doctor?
Yea, you don't seem like a doctor.
I'm pretty sure you're not doctor.
...for use outside of the study. Bad idea. You're not a doctor.
Shame you're fixated on whether I'm a doctor or not, seeing as some random doctor on the internet surely wouldn't be adequate authority either!
Was what I said false? Did I fail to back up what I was saying with reputable sources? No.
I've assumed that most of these people taking it outside a study are getting it from a doctor, since I think it's not available OTC in US. It's on them and their doctor, but in any case doesn't have any bearing on whether HCQ is relatively safe at moderate doses.
Re. 155mg base vs 250mg salt vs 200mg sulphate ... those are all equivalent doses, just different forms.
I will admit that I misspoke here, as differences in how the Arizona situation was reported led me to believe it was multiple instances. My apologies for that.
Thanks.
However:
You should pay more attention to what is going on in the thread before you respond to specific posts, because they can provide context to specific statements that other posts may be responding to; especially if your trying to dictate what is and isn't relevant to the discussion. It's in fact extremely germain to the discussion when part of the framework of the discussion for the past five days is how thousands of people have died needlessly because they refused to listen to Trump's medical advice. I wouldn't blame you if you have the person in question on your ignore list, but you shouldn't then assume that everyone else also does.
President of the United States makes a blanket comment of the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine in treating COVID; something that has immediate consequences when stupid people panicked because they didn't have the wonder drug in question (one death, one hospitalization) when the drug itself maybe works but is dangerous enough on it own that it was frequently warned that it should only be used by patients that are under frequent monitoring. Maybe that's not enough to be notable, because they were in fact very stupid people, but that wasn't really the main point.
President of the United States makes a blanket comment of the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine in treating COVID months later; when the drug itself maybe works but is dangerous enough on it own that it was frequently warned that it should only be used by patients that are under frequent monitoring. Person in this thread sees the video that got the President's son banned from Twitter, blames the media for thousands of people dying needlessly because there wasn't an immediate rolling out of hydroxychloroquine treatments; then says that he's going to get himself tested for COVID and demand that he is prescribed hydroxychloroquine that he can give himself while he's at home and just insists that he'll be fine. That part was the crux of the response.
You're correct: Trump won't be the determining factor for whether hydroxychloroquine actually works for the role Trump says it fills. But someone in this thread essentially insisted basically exactly that, and since this thread isn't just about you and Joey talking about clinical trials, that was the part I responded to.
I understand the context and it is of course concerning, as you say. In particular, it's very difficult to find the right way to combat people over-stating possible benefits. In the extreme, claims that it is a miracle cure are now essentially proven to be false (re the studies Joey pointed out to me), so are easier to fight.
The clinical trials are our best source of actual information, albeit that working out what they say and with what confidence is a pain. Essentially though my current impression from them is that it's detrimental for hospitalised patients, neutral for post-exposure use (short course starting within 1 to 5 days after exposure), and possibly beneficial if taken before exposure.
The FDA's stance is one of caution as far as use for COVID goes, however, I don't think they've actually called it 'dangerous' in the context of otherwise well people taking it as a prophylactic, just cautioned against it. I suspect this has as much to do with preventing shortages for arthritis and lupus patients as it has to do with the general safety of HCQ.
Ultimately if HCQ has any benefit then it would be in reducing mortality. We don't know whether it would. Likely we won't know until one or more of the vaccines are being mass-produced (some arms of the COPCOV trial aren't expected to report before the end of the year), which is kind of too late! I'm very unhappy that this will have taken so long - it wasn't helped by the fraudulent, almost immediately retracted, paper that caused the UK part of the trial to be put on hold for a month.
I wouldn't recommend taking it or take it myself based on current knowledge. Not that my recommendation would count for anything, since I'm not a doctor. Even if it might help, something else might help just as much (e.g. Vitamin D + Zinc) and be even safer. I'm able to follow the social distancing guidelines without much trouble so hardly at risk of catching it anyway. If I were frontline staff I'd be far more open to taking it.
So people like Dr Stella leave me in a quandry - her claims are unfounded, yes, yet rebuttal of her claims ought to be calm and scientific - flatly declaring HCQ 'dangerous' is a false claim in itself - however such rebuttal would go unheeded. Indeed, as seen in this thread, any rebuttal to nonsense generally goes unheeded, so why even bother giving them any attention? Because it may be heeded by someone on the sidelines who isn't sure if these people are right or not, and providing them as factual info as possible may make it more likely they will heed it IMO. I'm not convinced that taking down that video was the right thing to do - I didn't get very far into it before it was clear her advice wasn't sound - it just brought more attention to it and provided fodder for the conspiracy theorists. In short I just don't know how to deal with them, only that it's important not to be dragged down to their level.
Of course it's uncomfortable to share any common ground with the crackpots, even if it's only on the good safety record of HCQ over decades. C'est la vie
