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intrepidity

(7,241 posts)
Thu Jun 11, 2020, 03:38 PM Jun 2020

Three big studies dim hopes that hydroxychloroquine can treat or prevent COVID-19

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/06/three-big-studies-dim-hopes-hydroxychloroquine-can-treat-or-prevent-covid-19

Through the fog of alleged misconduct, hope, hype, and politicization that surrounds hydroxychloroquine, the malaria drug touted as a COVID-19 treatment, a scientific picture is now emerging.

Praised by presidents as a potential miracle cure and dismissed by others as a deadly distraction, hydroxychloroquine was spared a seeming death blow last week. On 4 June, after critics challenged the data, The Lancet suddenly retracted a paper that had suggested the drug increased the death rate in COVID-19 patients, a finding that had stopped many clinical trials in their tracks. But now three large studies, two in people exposed to the virus and at risk of infection and the other in severely ill patients, show no benefit from the drug. Coming on top of earlier smaller trials with disappointing findings, the new results mean it’s time to move on, some scientists say, and end most of the trials still in progress.

(snip)

Another hope for hydroxychloroquine, that it might prevent people exposed to the virus from getting sick, also faded last week when David Boulware of the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, and colleagues published the results of the largest study to date of this strategy, called postexposure prophylaxis (PEP). The researchers sent either hydroxychloroquine or a placebo by mail to 821 people who had been in close contact with a COVID-19 patient for more than 10 minutes without proper protection. They reported in The New England Journal of Medicine that 12% of the people who took the drug went on to develop COVID-19 symptoms, versus 14% in a placebo group, a difference that was not statistically significant.


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Three big studies dim hopes that hydroxychloroquine can treat or prevent COVID-19 (Original Post) intrepidity Jun 2020 OP
Hey now, it worked great for bunkerboi Leghorn21 Jun 2020 #1
I'm so surprised scientific studies contradict Our Great President! We must need new tariffs! struggle4progress Jun 2020 #2
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