Hydroxychloroquine & other Covid 19 treatments

TDS may be getting the best of you here.

Let's just imagine Donald Trump had never mentioned hydroxychloroquine. It's not as though this is some unknown drug. If anyone's personal doctor recommended it as a treatment for COVID-19 infection or because they had been exposed to--but not necessarily infected with--coronavirus, I'm guessing most people would likely take it. The President of the United States gets the best medical care in the entire world. I'll trust the physician to the President to know what he's doing.

To Luca's point: I’m not sure what significance you attach to the fact that you haven’t personally heard of anybody who died from hydroxychloroquine prophylaxis, but I know of many who have had very undesirable side effects taking it for even appropriate indications. The reason I mention this is because yesterday on FOX News no less, after Trump's admission, Neil Cavuto (not a doctor as far as I know) loudly proclaimed to his audience that if you take this "YOU WILL DIE!" Those were his exact hysterical words. With all due respect, there are undesirable side effects from all sorts of medications that are taken under appropriate indications, including those which have undergone the most rigorous clinical trials and FDA approval, so that fact in itself doesn't seem significant. Jeez, practically every single pharmaceutical commercial you see on television tells you in the fine print that possible side effects include such lovely things as stroke, blindness, or death. That's why any prescription drug should only be taken in conjunction with a doctor's advice. 

The only reason hydroxychloroquine is considered controversial is because Donald Trump mentioned it favorably at a time when, outside medical professionals, 98% of Americans had probably never heard of it before (I certainly had not). And in the TDS environment that half the nation breathes in every day, the mere fact that Trump recommends or speaks positively about something--anything--means that thing is automatically considered idiotic by 90% of the media and the close to 50% of the population infected with TDS.

Good Lord, doctors all over American--and the world--are not prescribing hydroxychloroquine because Donald Trump first mentioned it. He could have only become aware of it through the positive results that were already being seen--and then were communicated to him. It should not be considered a valid treatment because Donald Trump says so (that would be weird); Donald Trump only said so because it is already a valid treatment. Whether it's particularly effective or not probably varies from person to person (like many drugs) is an entirely different question. This does not seem to me to be particularly difficult to see.

I can pretty much promise you that Donald Trump's physician – whoever he is – did not “recommend” taking hydroxychloroquine. This would have been Trump's decision at his insistence.

It's true that all medications have potential side effects. Therefore, before you recommend medication you assess the risks of the medication versus the known benefits of it. For patients with advanced cancer you recommend antineoplastic agents with loads of side effects, but the side effects are worth it if it is known to be effective because the alternative is very likely death. You make recommendations based on known cost and known benefit. Insofar as anyone has shown, there is no benefit to taking hydroxychloroquine but there is a risk in doing so. So the common sense recommendation is not to take it until we know there is a benefit

Your comment that "The only reason hydroxychloroquine is considered controversial is because Donald Trump mentioned it favorably" is far from the truth. The reason it's controversial is because it is merely a viral (no pun intended) Internet fantasy, there is no convincing evidence that it’s worth a damn and there are known side effects. This was widely known before Trump ever mentioned the medication. He has made it a topic of conversation, but your statement is demonstrably false. If Neil Cavuto said that he's clueless, but that’s not the issue here.

I don’t know where you’re getting your information, Credo, but I would be interested in hearing how you discovered that it is a "valid treatment." To my knowledge there was one poorly run study out of China and one small inconclusive study from a somewhat controversial physician in France. Other than that there are plenty of studies that to date are not showing any benefit. Doctors "all over America and the world" are also prescribing antibiotics for viral illness. That doesn’t make it a valid treatment. It simply points out that in medicine as in every other profession there is a bell-shaped curve of competence. Primum non nocere …………………………Luca

What Trump said will have repercussions no one envisioned. For example, when she hears that hydroxychloroquine is a prophylactic, AOC will run out and get some so her boyfriend doesn't have to wear a condom.

Dr. Kelly Victory has been on the John Phillips show 2 or 3 times a week since mid march. She is a trauma surgeon and has worked in the field of responding to mass casualties. Some of her takes on the response to Covid19 are 180 degrees from what has been accepted by much of the public.

Her take on Trump taking the drug is that if the White House doctor gave permission to take it, then most likely Trump is the right kind of candidate for it. Not currently infected with Covid19 but around dozens of different people daily. She talk of how the drug, when administered properly, does do the things needed to fight Covid19 from establishing a foothold in a persons body (I can't tell you verbatim what those things were, I'd goof it up).

I may like her because she is saying things I believe in, but she also has the credentials & common sense to explain & back them up.

This doesn't mean it's effective, but there's certainly interest there in the medical community.  

Dr. Victory is a trauma surgeon, a mass casualty expert, an epidemiologist, and was chief medical officer for Walgreen's.  Compare those credentials to Dr. Zombie Barb, who is L.A. County's public health director without even having a medical degree.