As noted previously by Leo Goldstein, there has been a coordinated attempt by institutional press and academia to discredit the use of Hydroxychloroquine.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/05/11/distributed-denial-of-hcq-to-covid-19-victims/
As noted in yesterday’s edition of Science:
A mysterious company’s coronavirus papers in top medical journals may be unraveling
By Kelly Servick, Martin EnserinkJun. 2, 2020 , 7:55 PM
On its face, it was a major finding: Antimalarial drugs touted by the White House as possible COVID-19 treatments looked to be not just ineffective, but downright deadly. A study published on 22 May in The Lancet used hospital records procured by a little-known data analytics company called Surgisphere to conclude that coronavirus patients taking chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine were more likely to show an irregular heart rhythm—a known side effect thought to be rare—and were more likely to die in the hospital.
Within days, some large randomized trials of the drugs—the type that might prove or disprove the retrospective study’s analysis—screeched to a halt. Solidarity, the World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) megatrial of potential COVID-19 treatments, paused recruitment into its hydroxychloroquine arm, for example. (Update: At a briefing on 3 June WHO announced it would resume that arm of the study.)
And we all saw the screaming news stories.
Several studies have found that the malaria drug — highly touted by President Trump, who says he takes it — is harmful to patients–People.com
And shortly thereafter.
But just as quickly, the Lancet results have begun to unravel—and Surgisphere, which provided patient data for two other high-profile COVID-19 papers, has come under withering online scrutiny from researchers and amateur sleuths.
Things moved quickly.
Today, The Lancet issued an Expression of Concern (EOC) saying “important scientific questions have been raised about data” in the paper and noting that “an independent audit of the provenance and validity of the data has been commissioned by the authors not affiliated with Surgisphere and is ongoing, with results expected very shortly.”
Hours earlier, The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) issued its own EOC about a second study using Surgisphere data, published on 1 May
Bizarre age we live in, where an entire FIELD is hijacked in order to discredit an individual–to the point of killing people.
What «in order to discredit an individual»? It’s same old: Big Pharma and conflict of interest.
No mention whatever of this farce in that other darling of the luvvies, the so-called Independent.
Ed Z: Good pick up! I notice here in US that NBC, ABC and CBS always lay off scandals at the other networks. Of course, they only run stories taken from NYT, so that helps them stay in line. But in our capitalist system, they are supposed to be rivals. Wonder why they act like allies? Allied against the rest of us!
The Leftwing Media Networks have turned into a Leftwing Propaganda organ.
They have been this way for years, it just has ramped up to 11 in the era of Trump.
You cannot take *anything* the Leftwing Media says at face value. There is a Leftwing agenda behind their every word.
When the WHO shut down the studies, you knew it was a good sign that HCQ worked. We won’t know the truth until after the election.
randomized
double blinded
Given prophylactically to people who had been exposed to a positive case
No Effect. from HCQ
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2016638?query=featured_home.
gold standard.
now watch the anti science types attack
Have you read the paper? They tested the effectiveness of the drug 4 days post exposure. That means 4 days after those who subsequently developed the disease were infected. The virus in those cases had established itself and it was already known that then the drug is of little use. What ought to be tested is whether participants when given HCQ from, say, 5 or 7 days before exposure are less likely to become infected, or not. That is not what was done.
All the studies that claim HCQ works and are cited here on a regular basis didn’t use HQC that way either. HCQ was always given with the start of symptoms so even later as the NEJM study did.
Show everyone where the HCQ controversy is about prevention, Steve.
Bet you can’t do it.
Because it isn’t.
The NEJM article is irrelevant.
“anti science types” That’s pretty rich, coming from you.
The real cellular evidence for HCQ was very limited to begin with.
There is a preprint of a retrospective study for Azi+HCQ +/-Zn:
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.02.20080036v1.full.pdf+html
Very important paragraph from the discussion:
and this one:
It doesn’t help the sickest to survive at all.
But anyway, I would like to see zinc alone cause there are a lot of plausible evidence-based mechanisms how it could help where for HCQ there are not that many.
Though zinc also will be no wonder drug that prevents sufficient numbers of patients from overwhelming the health care system or lower the mortality rate to a level comparable to the flu. That is not what the pre-print numbers indicate.
what if frogs had wings?
No zinc, wrong test
and when “with zinc fails” you will say wrong amount of zinc.
or you will say something else, maybe the virus mutated, blah blah blah
Given your adamant blindness to systematic measurement error, Steve, not to mention to instrumental limits of resolution, even if it were true that people quibble about zinc, you’d be in no ethical position to call them out for it.
Mosher is a smart guy, and I think he enjoys the banter. The following is a lot packed into a cynical statement. “and when “with zinc fails” you will say wrong amount of zinc. or you will say something else, maybe the virus mutated, blah blah blah”
Any study that uses Zn and are run by doctors or scientists who want to perform a legitimate test, will use a form of Zn which absorbs well enough (HCQ will help it absorb) and will load the body up so that the effects can be put to test.
Mosher: Please allow for the fact that critics /skeptics should be critical of problems with a study. You assume that people all have a religious form of discourse, and do not want to know truth. We need you to be helpful, not fight good discussion.
Disagree. “Mosher” definitely does NOT enjoy the banter. In fact, “Mosher” for most of late needs a nap or his sourpuss fanny paddled:
https://twitter.com/BradPKeyes/status/1264888776997761025
Wow: As The World Turns, eh? I had no idea it got this personal.
Yep. A surprise to all.
Well Mosher is a part of the history of WUWT and hopefully a permanent fixture. He makes my head hurt sometimes, and that’s a good thing.
Gotcha Mario.
Now, when you say he “makes my head hurt sometimes,” I assume you mean because of the addition to the conversation of an intellectually stimulating argument or point, e.g., something that makes you think.
Just curious, when was the last time your head got hurt from Herr Mosher? As for me, I remember the good ‘ole days . . .
Most recent was when we discussed China/Korea WuFlu and tracing, alerting and general awareness of how the virus can be mitigated with enhanced surveillance.
Previous to that it was surrounding krigging and other interpolation methods to torture the results to give you what BEST temp/climate reconstruction.
Fair enough!
There were more examples and I was quite harsh towards him re: the BEST study several years ago… I am of the belief that bad data cannot be made better or best by “fixing” it to cover large expanses of unmeasured areas of the globe. The thing is, he is directly involved in some high profile business surrounding the climate and sciences we are all interested in. So I certainly want to hear him out.
Hey he’s had interesting things to say before. Like I said, I remember the good ‘ole days.
Lately, however, both he and Stokes are nothing but clownish facades of what they have been.
Or so it seems to me.
Understandable. I think the problem is communication. There is science and double blind studies etc… and then there is pragmatic evidence which will save lives instead of waiting until it’s too late for science to grant us permission to save lives. The problem is that science is funded through political hate groups… so that leaves science as an unpragmatic solution. Then we argue whether science is valid… so messy!
Agreed. Communication without arrogance would be good:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/05/07/through-a-glass-weekly/#comment-2989623
And communication trotted out as truth when it’s an unexamined belief would be good:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/06/03/nevermind-maybe-hcq-not-so-bad/#comment-3008927
Especially since everyone else is a “little b*tch” when they do the same thing.
Hypocrisy turns me into a troll. It’s just too much fun to resist tossing the offender about the intellectual room like a rag doll. And even more so when their supposed to be the best and the brightest.
It’s one my many faults.
Yes, I think there is too much confirmation bias and when enough energy is put into putting forth biased so called science, the information believed is often wrong… and in many cases the outcomes are dangerous e.g.
I conclude that people should be given HCQ and Zn during this WuFlu thing. Since there is extremely low risk of harm and high certainty of benefit, this should be offered by doc’, at first signs of cold unless people are in low risk, already have been taking vit D supplementation and know about quercetin and Zn and are not deficient in these nutrient.
Strong statements that proffer HCQ and Zn do not work and are dangerous should be countered strongly. Thank goodness for people like you and others here, I say.
One more thing… and I say this carefully. There is a difference between mis-guided and mal-guided. Add to that the plethora of useful idiots, we need to counter the bad information for the sake of goodness.
Agreed.
So what’s your theory? Who’s who?
Who’s who? People like Henry Pool are certainly misguided… and it’s beginning to appear that he is mal-guided. Being human, I am open to the possibility that I am wrong.
And “Mosher”?
I have gone on record and believe the issues relate to talking past each other… It’s the science vs non science understanding of technical issues. They are not mutually exclusive, but treated as such, and then arguments ensue.
I do not think Steven Mosher wants bad things.
Well I think it’s much less important than that Mario.
I think the available observational evidence suggests that “Mosher,” at least for now, has turned into the same arrogant “little b*tch” he accuses others of being.
But that’s just me.
Why doesn’t the head honcho of the flying frog brigade uncontradict himself and “shut up” until the data’s in, i.e., until the commenter has actually said something?
Ribbit?
Hi Sycomputing:
It’s the science vs non science understanding of technical issues.
Well I think it’s much less important than that Mario.
I think the available observational evidence suggests that “Mosher,” at least for now, has turned into the same arrogant “little b*tch” he accuses others of being.
____________________________
I think I understand… 🙂
But that’s just me.
Maybe they should try contact tracing too
Mr. Mosher: You posted the link above, with no comment. Your silence was the real ‘gold standard”, because your comment simply serves to manifest your TDS. We didn’t have to wait until after your comment to see the attack of the anti-science type. If you make no comment, you won’t prove Mark Twain’s adage.
I would be very interested in a study of zinc sulfate alone.
The very limited cellular data of HCQ being a zinc ionophore did not convince me. Looked more like a vATPase inhibitor thereby trapping zinc in lysosomes like bafilomycin A does and therefore not beneficial as zinc should be in the cytoplasm.
But zinc has a lot of potential beneficial roles in the described disease mechanisms and the risk factor groups are known to suffer from zinc deficiency.
Not even mentioning that zinc is the only known somewhat working drug in common cold and influenza when taking early. But time and dosage are very important there and too much zinc can cause harms as well.
This will be an informative trial about vitamin D, C and zinc in prevention:
https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/study/NCT04335084
The one time dose of HCQ is probably completely useless but it will tell about any benefit of the other supplements.
http://joannenova.com.au/2020/05/hydroxychloroquine-lancet-study-of-96000-covid-patients-ignores-zinc-wasnt-randomized-has-12-death-rate/
Hydroxychloroquine Lancet study of 96,000 Covid patients ignores Zinc, wasn’t randomized, has 12% death rate
A new study came out last night in the Lancet which is being used to call for the end of doctors using Choloroquine and Hydroxychloroquine to treat Covid patients without them being enrolled in a clinical trial. Some of the claims about “no chance of any benefit” seem a bit premature given the limits of this kind of study:
Superficially, it looks large and comprehensive but there are three obvious problems with it –
1. It ignores zinc entirely. There is not even a mention of the essential mineral, despite Chloroquine being a well known zinc ionophone (something that pumps a mineral across a cell membrane) and intracellular zinc being identified as a useful anti-viral.
2. It’s not randomized. If doctors are prescribing these drugs to sicker patients or patients with a certain (unknown) genetic risk factor that selection bias (there we go again) could neutralize the entire result. We just don’t know.
3. These were sick people. The total mortality in this whole group was almost 12%. This trial tells us nothing about using these drugs as preventative measures in mild or moderate cases. It doesn’t tell us whether people had symptoms for a week before getting to hospital — and presumably if people saw a doctor early on, used HCQ and zinc, and then didn’t go to hospital at all (because they recovered) then they won’t be counted at all.
So this trial successfully filters and removes the success stories (whatever they are) from early HCQ treatment.
Even Donald Trump knows that HCQ is meant to be used with Zinc, so it is surprising that the medical researchers did not even mention it. Or in this politicized new world of medicine, perhaps it isn’t?
From the article: “As noted previously by Leo Goldstein, there has been a coordinated attempt by institutional press and academia to discredit the use of Hydroxychloroquine.”
It is amazing the lengths the radical Left will go to in order to try to undermine Trump, and they are in all the professions including the medical profession, and now we see even some in the medical profession are willing to distort the truth for political purposes.
You can’t count on anyone on the Left being honest with you.
“Bizarre age we live in, where an entire FIELD is hijacked in order to discredit an individual–to the point of killing people.”
They have to be Turing’s – and someone, who is not , needs to find a good way to distinguish them from us.
The killers themselves wrote – Are we human or are we dencer…
There is a trend developing of big corporate interests and the left’s interests intersecting and finding common cause.
As Michael Moore and Jeff Gibbs exposed in “Planet of the Humans”, the renewable scam has proved lucrative for big business.
Now the campaign against the drug that has been widely taken for a century but now suddenly turns out to be dangerous, HCQ, unites the left with big pharma. The left are overwhelmed by inchoate rage against a drug which bad-orange-man recommended for none but tribal reasons. Big pharma are similarly innately hostile to any off patent drug because … it’s off patent.
So once again the left and big business are in bed together over a politicised issue, the good but suddenly bad antimalarial drug HCQ.
NEWS FLASH: Both Lancet and NEJM have retracted the studies based on the Surgisphere supposed data base. Surgisphere refused to provide a copy of the data, contracts and ISO Quality Audit report to the independent investigators. Admirably (perhaps) the co-authors called for the retractions.
Question – Will anyone investigate Surgisphere and Sapan Desia for fraud?
Here’s the latest (I think):
https://dailycaller.com/2020/06/04/medical-journal-lancet-retracts-study-hydroxychloroquine/
“Steve Grant
June 5, 2020 at 12:36 am
“I spent three hours today prior to the retractions of the studies trying to verify things. I called The company that supplied the data, Surgisphere, and found out that the phone number listed on their website was a paid offsite receptionist service. I then had a friend visit the address listed on the website and he found out that it was a front to provide a mailing address for multiple corporations and in fact the company had no offices there. I then called the largest electronic medical record Company in America, a company that would’ve had to be involved in such a large database. They told me categorically that they did no business with Surgisphere. So in three hours time I was able to prove the company basically did not exist and all their data was made up. Why couldn’t the authors of the study have done the same ?”
https://www.statnews.com/2020/06/04/lancet-retracts-major-covid-19-paper-that-raised-safety-concerns-about-malaria-drugs/?fbclid=IwAR2wsTNW_FSedmTkhvWZoQiEfTj3A3BvDrSWSft9puJJNEeOYem-AJcQNWs
Pat,
it’s only irrelevant because you don’t like the answers it gives. Come up with something better that shows it works. Read Didier’s paper, the 6 Azithromycin subjects all recovered. Lots of hospitals are getting 98% recoveries without zinc or HCQ. So his sample was too small to deserve the acclaim that HCQ received as a result of it. He even said so himself. But something like climate science, the press got hold of it and made it a miracle cure.
DMac, do you understand that prevention does not mean treatment?
Is so obvious a distinction truly so difficult for you to grasp?
It appears you wish to set aside the obvious flaws with that paper because you like the answers it gives.
Positive study or negative studies were never an issue. There could not be a treatment that was effective at any level. Allowing President Trump to have that possibility going into re-election was never going to be allowed.