
Hydroxychloroquine study shows no benefit, more deaths in VA Covid-19 study - epistasis
https://www.nydailynews.com/coronavirus/ny-more-deaths-no-efficacy-of-malaria-drug-found-in-coronavirus-study-20200421-v4k45zwp5zc57dobqsa4xqexea-story.html
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vikramkr
Thus emphasizing the importance of controlled trials and regulatory bodies.
It's not just the concern that it might not work - we can almost live with
releasing that to the public accidentally. Its that it could actively cause
harm. Thalidomide wasn't removed from the market because it didn't work, it
was because it caused harm.

I know that people are desperate for anything to work during times like these,
but that's also why healthcare has always attracted snake oil salesmen
peddling their panacea. We build strong regulatory bodies and adopted
stringent scientific standards to make sure we do no harm. Relax those
restrictions at your peril. And however tempting it might be to feel hopeful
because someone seems to have found a solution to a terrible disease, whether
a pharmaceutical company or the president of the USA, wait for the data.
Always wait for the data.

~~~
sfj
> Thus emphasizing the importance of controlled trials and regulatory bodies.

Funny, you give the results study that did not used controlled trials to
justify emphasizing the importance of controlled trials. Even further, this
study was not non-peer reviewed, or published (see
[https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/21/health/hydroxychloroquine...](https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/21/health/hydroxychloroquine-
veterans-study/index.html))

All they did here was to review charts of people already treated and try to
base their conclusions on only that. Even the study itself admits
([https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.16.20065920v...](https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.16.20065920v1.full.pdf)):

 _However, hydroxychloroquine, with or without azithromycin, was more likely
to be prescribed to patients with more severe disease, as assessed by baseline
ventilatory status and metabolic and hematologic parameters. Thus, as
expected, increased mortality was observed in patients treated with
hydroxychloroquine, both with and without azithromycin._

There are a lot of people right now, including the MSM, dismissing of HCQ. I
don't think that is warranted at this point. And I hate to see the media, who
is heavily influenced by the pharmaceutical industry, who has a interest in
preventing a cheap treatment from being widely used, downplaying HCQ and the
public going along with it.

