04-22-2020, 05:24 PM
space-time wrote:
Anti-malarial drug Trump touted is linked to higher rates of death, study says
An anti-malarial drug President Trump has aggressively promoted to treat covid-19 had no benefit and was linked to higher rates of death for Veterans Affairs patients hospitalized with the novel coronavirus, according to a study.
The study by VA and academic researchers analyzed outcomes of 368 male patients nationwide, with 97 receiving hydroxychloroquine, 113 receiving hydroxychloroquine in combination with the antibiotic azithromycin, and 158 not receiving any hydroxychloroquine.
Rates of death in the groups treated with the drugs were worse than those who did not receive the drugs, the study found. Rates of patients on ventilators were roughly equal, with no benefit demonstrated by the drugs.
When asked about the study at the White House briefing on Tuesday, Trump said he was not aware of the study but that he would look into it.
A problem with this type of retrospective study is that it doesn't take into account that particular patients who received the hydroxychloroquine with or without azithromycin, might have been viewed by their doctors as being very, very sick and so got the drugs as a last hope for recovery because they were so sick. A greater percentage of those patient dying might reflect just how sick they were when they received the hydrozycholoroquine and not that the drug was ineffective or even more deadly than just supportive treatment.
It's interesting to me that early in their piece they say that, "Hydroxychloroquine, alone or in combination with azithromycin, is being widely used in Covid-19 therapy based on anecdotal and limited observational evidence." and end the article pointing out the importance of double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled studies. But, they present data that is very limited, itself.
Here's the report: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/...20065920v1