Large-scale Study: Hydroxychloroquine Cut Death Rate Significantly in COVID-19 Patients

[NightHawkeye]

Treatment with Hydroxychloroquine Cut Death Rate Significantly in COVID-19 Patients, Henry Ford Health System Study Shows

In a large-scale retrospective analysis of 2,541 patients hospitalized between March 10 and May 2, 2020 across the system’s six hospitals, the study found 13% of those treated with hydroxychloroquine alone died compared to 26.4% not treated with hydroxychloroquine.
...
“We’re glad to add to the scientific knowledge base on the role and how best to use therapies as we work around the world to provide insight,” he said. “Considered in the context of current studies on the use of hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19, our results suggest that the drug may have an important role to play in reducing COVID-19 mortality.”
...
Henry Ford Health System, as one of the region’s major academic medical centers with more than $100 million in annual research funding, is involved in numerous COVID-19 trials with national and international partners.

Henry Ford Health System is currently also involved in a prophylactic hydroxychloroquine study: “Will Hydroxychloroquine Impede or Prevent COVID-19,” or WHIP COVID-19. The study is a 3,000-person, randomized, double-blinded look at whether hydroxychloroquine prevents healthcare and frontline workers from contracting the COVID-19 virus.
​

One wonders if the nay-sayers feel any guilt or remorse over the tens of thousands of needless deaths of people not given the drug because this sort of large-scale peer-reviewed study hadn't yet been conducted.

 

[JohnDB]

Where the study is showing results of reducing the deaths associated with this virus...the drugs themselves have a high incident of side effects.
And the problem with this virus isn't so much the death rate as it is the sepsis reaction of a person infected with it.
Sepsis is generally years and decades long in recovery from.
And this form of chloroquine is not a preventative...it only reduces the symptoms of the virus. This study gives rhetoric free guidelines for doctors to treat patients. (All politicians have really messed up when reacting to this virus)

There are cures coming...this ain't the time to throw away your masks yet. But until the cures arrive they have this.
The problem with hydroxy chloroquine is that not all ethnicities react well to this. But it is better than quinine itself in fewer side effects. This stuff is almost poison to most of South America. Again...a real problem.

This is a difficult virus to treat because as it progresses it has an ability to attack your immune system in a similar fashion as HIV.
That's very troublesome with re-infection rates as high as they are.

 

[grasping the after wind]

There are cures coming

Don't promise what you cannot deliver. There is no cure on the horizon. If one were to become available, it woul dbe wonderful but it would also be very unusual . Most viruses have no cure, some have helpful vaccines and some have treatments.

 

[JohnDB]

Don't promise what you cannot deliver. There is no cure on the horizon. If one were to become available, it woul dbe wonderful but it would also be very unusual . Most viruses have no cure, some have helpful vaccines and some have treatments.

A true antiviral is in the works. It's has a media blackout just like Tamiflu did. It was started before the plague started.

There won't be a vaccine...that's the red herring.

 

[grasping the after wind]

A true antiviral is in the works. It's has a media blackout just like Tamiflu did. It was started before the plague started.

There won't be a vaccine...that's the red herring.

Tamiflu is no cure.

 

[JohnDB]

Tamiflu is no cure.

Tamiflu is an antiviral for influenza strains of viruses. It is a broad spectrum antiviral for all strains of influenza.

Coronavirus are different and need a different receptor to invade cells.

They are currently working on it and believe they have one.

But antiviral's require special molecules to build upon.
The history of Tamiflu is a model for what is currently happening with this desperately needed antiviral. Needed rescources are being secured before mass production can be done. And chances are...this ain't exactly going to be easy.

For Tamiflu they needed star anise and all the groves that produced star anise were in China. So Rochelle bought them all. China didn't know how important star anise was so they sold them all.

Something like that is probably in the works at the moment. Capice?

 

[sesquiterpene]

But antiviral's require special molecules to build upon.
The history of Tamiflu is a model for what is currently happening with this desperately needed antiviral. Needed rescources are being secured before mass production can be done. And chances are...this ain't exactly going to be easy.

This "desperately needed antiviral" - hydroxychloroquine - is a cheap generic produced all over the world. Do we really need more half-baked conspiracy theories?

 

[sesquiterpene]

Treatment with Hydroxychloroquine Cut Death Rate Significantly in COVID-19 Patients, Henry Ford Health System Study Shows

Henry Ford Health System is currently also involved in a prophylactic hydroxychloroquine study: “Will Hydroxychloroquine Impede or Prevent COVID-19,” or WHIP COVID-19. The study is a 3,000-person, randomized, double-blinded look at whether hydroxychloroquine prevents healthcare and frontline workers from contracting the COVID-19 virus.
​

One wonders if the nay-sayers feel any guilt or remorse over the tens of thousands of needless deaths of people not given the drug because this sort of large-scale peer-reviewed study hadn't yet been conducted.

Except the study reported on isn't the type of high-quality study needed: it is a retrospective observational study, which are much lower quality than randomized prospective studies. Indeed, in a commentary accompanying the article, the editors of the journal gave a pointed criticism:

Overall, the authors should be commended for rapidly compiling and analyzing data from a large cohort of COVID-19 patients. Clinicians worldwide ought to be acknowledged for their best effort to care for patients in uncertain times and in the absence of proven therapies. It is, however, very sobering to note that the number of patients in this single observational study would have made a substantive contribution to any randomized controlled trial. While all healthcare providers feel a clinical imperative to offer patients treatment, there was little evidence to justify a hydroxychloroquine protocol at the outset of the pandemic. It is a failing of healthcare systems and research infrastructure that the protocolization of unproven therapies is exponentially easier to execute than participation in pragmatic randomized controlled trials. Moving forward, we encourage academic centers to commit to participating in the necessary clinical trials that will establish high quality evidence for safe and effective therapies in the shortest possible time.

Tl;dr : the authors of the study had the resources to conduct a well-designed clinical trial. The authors did not perform a well-designed clinical trial. Shame!
https://www.ijidonline.com/article/S1201-9712(20)30530-0/fulltext

 

[essentialsaltes]

One wonders if the nay-sayers feel any guilt or remorse over the tens of thousands of needless deaths of people not given the drug because this sort of large-scale peer-reviewed study hadn't yet been conducted.

No, we're still guided by the gold standard of a randomized controlled trial, rather than these ambiguous results.

Kalkanis [CEO of the Henry Ford Medical Group] said that their findings do not necessarily contradict those of earlier studies. "We also want to make the point that just because our results differ from some others that may have been published, it doesn't make those studies wrong or definitely a conflict."

 

[sesquiterpene]

No, we're still guided by the gold standard of a randomized controlled trial, rather than these ambiguous results.

It's interesting to see that the same institution (Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit) is actually conducting a randomized prospective trial of hydroxychloroquine as a prophylactic. It looks like it is still recruiting; perhaps the HCQ fanboys will volunteer. I'm actually looking forward to the results.
Will Hydroxychloroquine Impede or Prevent COVID-19 - Full Text View - ClinicalTrials.gov
There are two large prospective trials that have halted due to negative results (WHO's Solidarity Trial and the British RECOVERY trial), but all we have so far are press releases.

 

[stevil]

Is the far right still pushing this drug?
Is this because Trump promoted it?

 

[sfs]

One wonders if the nay-sayers feel any guilt or remorse over the tens of thousands of needless deaths of people not given the drug because this sort of large-scale peer-reviewed study hadn't yet been conducted.

I'm not sure what planet you're talking about. On this planet, hydroxycholoroquine was widely adopted in hospitals based on essentially no evidence, and then was equally widely dropped as evidence mounted against its efficacy. If good evidence for its efficacy (which this study is not) in some applications should appear, doctors will immediately start prescribing it again.

What exactly do you think should have been done differently? Should doctors have been prescribing a drug when all of the evidence said it didn't work? Why? Because someone had a hunch about it? How should we choose which hunch-based drugs we should be prescribing?

 

[jayem]

It’s definitely interesting data that needs further study.

But as of now, if I were really sick with COVID-19, I’d want remdesivir and dexamethasone.