A new large-scale study conducted by the Henry Ford Health System concluded that hydroxychloroquine, the anti-malaria drug touted by Trump as a potentially game-changing treatment for the coronavirus successfully lowered mortality for hospitalized coronavirus patients. The results were published Thursday in the peer-reviewed International Journal of Infectious Diseases.
Just The News reported on its findings:
The study examined 2,541 patients who had been hospitalized in six hospitals between March 10 and May 2, 2020.
More than twenty-six percent (26.4%) of patients who did not receive hydroxychloroquine died.
But among those who received hydroxychloroquine, fewer than half that number — 13% — died.
More than 90% of the patients received hydroxychloroquine within 48 hours of admission to the hospital. Scientists say giving the drug early during illness may be a key to success.
The study also determined that there were no adverse effects on the heart, despite previous reports.
Will the mainstream media give this study the attention it deserves? I bet they won’t.
Hydroxychloroquine had several success stories ignored by the mainstream media
Is May, a survey of doctors found that an overwhelming majority “would prescribe hydroxychloroquine or another anti-malaria drug to a family member” suffering from the coronavirus. The media didn’t care.
Success stories from coronavirus patients who recovered after being treated with the drug have also been widely ignored. In April, a Democrat lawmaker in Michigan credited the drug and President Trump with saving her life. State Rep. Karen Whitsett, a Detroit Democrat, tested positive for the coronavirus in March, and had been aware of “the wonders” of hydroxychloroquine after a previous Lyme disease affliction, but would never have thought to ask for a prescription for it to treat the coronavirus had Trump not been touting it as a possible treatment for COVID-19. Whitsett took the drug in combination with antibiotics and made a full recovery.
“It has a lot to do with the president … bringing it up,” Whitsett said. “He is the only person who has the power to make it a priority.”
Other coronavirus patients have reported dramatic recoveries after taking the drug.
Previous studies linking hydroxychloroquine to higher mortality were faulty
In April, the results of a US Veterans Health Administration study on the benefits of hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for the coronavirus were released. The study analyzed the impact of hydroxychloroquine with and without the antibiotic azithromycin and compared that to patients receiving standard care. The VA study found there were “more deaths” among those given hydroxychloroquine than those who just received standard care. However, the VA study wasn’t a clinical trial, but a small, non-peer-reviewed study of patients that were not representative of the entire population, and more severe cases were disproportionally administered the drug.
In May, multiple studies claimed that the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine was linked to higher rates of mortality with coronavirus patients. In response to this study, the World Health Organization and many national governments changed their policies and treatment guidelines, effectively halting trials of the drug, and shelving it as a coronavirus treatment. But it turned out that those studies were based on possibly bogus data from a small America-based company called Surgisphere.
The revelation of the faulty data resulted in top medical journals retracting the studies linking hydroxychloroquine to higher mortality.
Anti-chloroquine sentiment was entirely linked to anti-Trumpism
Early on, there was enough positive anecdotal evidence about hydroxychloroquine to make it clear that media’s attempt to portray it as poison is purely political. Despite the slew of positive results of the drug, a Democratic state lawmaker in Ohio moaned that Trump should be tried for “crimes against humanity” for touting the drug’s potential.
The war on chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine began almost immediately after Trump touted it as a potential gamechanger in the fight against the disease.
Of course, these are people who ACTUALLY had that covid-19.
BUT…………..
According to the new guidance anyone who comes into contact with a person who tests positive is now also considered positive.
You cannot cure someone who doesn’t really have covid.
All you can do is graph him as a new case of covid.
But you sure can become a nazi about forcing everyone to prove where they are, where they’ve been and who they’ve hung out with.
All these ploys are simply ways to get taxpayer money into hospitals’ and trackers’ pockets.
It is all pretty far removed from real cases of covid or real care for covid patients.
So…I am a 71 year old physician. An Anesthesiologist by trade. We get more exposure to Covid patients than just about anyone (ok, ER docs probably beat us). So I am in a relatively high risk group. Whilst I am not convinced that the mortality rate is much more than 0.4%, perhaps as high as 1% given my comorbidities, it would certainly suck to die from the virus. So I, after discussing it with my doctor, am on Hydroxichloroquine and over the counter zinc supplement. It’s cheap, low risk, and I am appalled that the whole antitrump mania of our press has somehow made it into an evil drug. Hell, we took Chloroquine every day in Viet Nam as an anti-malarial, so I had no concerns (Hydroxichloroquine has fewer side-effects than Chloroquine). So if you are worried and can get some…take it. It is cheap and looks to be effective.
Nan…I have followed you for a long time and I find your commentary cogent and wise. I would point out one thing…”All these ploys are simply ways to get taxpayer money into hospitals”…The whole Covid deal has been destructive to hospital finances. Elective surgery represents around 80% of hospitals’ cash flow. For reasons that range from keeping hospital rooms/ICUs available to receive a huge flow of Covid patients to folks being frightened of coming into perceived plague central (which is what hospitals are kind of being seen as) elective surgery is way down. Hospitals are going to go broke from all that. So if a hospital is working the system to improve cash flow…which the Covid bonus only represents a slight increase in Medicare payments (35% bonus on a $80 payment helps but not much) more power to them. .I am biased, but its gonna suck is a bunch of hospitals go broke.
Well, those of us that don’t have the liberal propaganda habit already knew this. It’s good to have good, solid, indisputable, peer-reviewed proof, though. No doubt another slip-shod anti-HCQ “study” will now float to the top.
It is appalling that
strictly by liberals, resisters, rinos and the media. They should be charged with the deaths of that 50% that had the potential to being saved by using hydroxychloroquine. It only took an organization who knew how to perform a real study using scientific processes to show the truth.