administration of the drug hydroxychloroquine makes hospitalized patients substantially less likely to die

administration of the drug hydroxychloroquine makes hospitalized patients substantially less likely to die.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/hydroxychloroquine-helped-save-coronavirus-study

Researchers at the Henry Ford Health System in Southeast Michigan have found that early administration of the drug hydroxychloroquine makes hospitalized patients substantially less likely to die.

The study, published in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases, determined that hydroxychloroquine provided a “66% hazard ratio reduction,” and hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin a 71 percent reduction, compared to neither treatment.

In-hospital mortality was 18.1 percent with both drugs, 13.5 percent with just hydroxychloroquine, 22.4 percent with azithromycin alone, and 26.4 percent with neither drug. “Prospective trials are needed” for further review, the researchers note.

“Our results do differ from some other studies,” Dr. Marcus Zervos, who heads the hospital’s infectious diseases unit, said at a news conference. “What we think was important in ours … is that patients were treated early. For hydroxychloroquine to have a benefit, it needs to begin before the patients begin to suffer some of the severe immune reactions that patients can have with COVID.”

A statement from the Trump campaign hailed the study as “fantastic news.”

“Fortunately, the Trump Administration secured a massive supply of hydroxychloroquine for the national stockpile months ago,” a statement read. “Yet this is the same drug that the media and the Biden campaign spent weeks trying to discredit and spread fear and doubt around because President Trump dared to mention it as a potential treatment for coronavirus.”

It added: “The new study from the Henry Ford Health System should be a clear message to the media and the Democrats: stop the bizarre attempts to discredit hydroxychloroquine to satisfy your own anti-Trump agenda. It may be costing lives.”

The findings, conservatives said, highlighted efforts by media partisans to undermine confidence in the drug simply to undercut the president.

“So fewer people died because they took the drug @realDonaldTrump  suggested…. Thank you, POTUS for doing the right thing even in the face of a DC culture attacking you no matter what you do,” wrote former Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell.

The Federalist’s Sean Davis added: “Media and incompetent corrupt government officials lied to you about social distancing. They lied to you about hydroxychloroquine. They lied to you about risks to children and the general population. They lied not to help you, but to control you, and they’re not going to stop.”

At a March 19 White House briefing, Trump had remarked: “Now, a drug called chloroquine, and some people would add to it, hydroxychloroquine, so chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine … [has] shown very encouraging, very, very encouraging early results.” The president acknowledged that the drug may not “go as planned” and that more testing was needed, but that “we’re going to be able to make that drug available almost immediately.”

That statement prompted immediate mockery from journalists.

“Trump peddles unsubstantiated hope in dark times,” read a March 20 “analysis” by CNN’s Stephen Collinson. Saying Trump was “adopting the audacity of false hope” and embracing “premature optimism,” Collinson charged that “there’s no doubt he overhyped the immediate prospects for the drug” because the FDA had not provided an explicit timeline on approving the drug to treat coronavirus.

The media onslaught continued. “Trump is giving people false hope of coronavirus cures. It’s all snake oil,” read one Washington Post headline. Added the Post’s editorial board: “Trump is spreading false hope for a virus cure — and that’s not the only damage.”

“The most promising answer to the pandemic will be a vaccine, and researchers are racing to develop one,” the paper insisted, although it is not staffed with medical experts. “Mr. Trump’s inappropriate hype has already led to hoarding of hydroxychloroquine and diverted supplies from people with other maladies who need it. His comments are raising false hopes. Rather than roll the dice on an unproven therapy, let’s deposit our trust in the scientists.”

President Donald Trump speaks during a visit to Fincantieri Marinette Marine, Thursday, June 25, 2020, in Marinette, Wis. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

USA Today’s editorial board was similarly aggressive and mocking, writing, “Coronavirus treatment: Dr. Donald Trump peddles snake oil and false hope.”

“There are no approved therapies or drugs to treat COVID-19 yet, but the president hypes preliminary chloroquine trials at White House briefing and unproven remedies on Twitter,” the paper wrote, just days before the FDA would approve the drug.

Communications strategist Drew Holden flagged these and numerous other examples of media misinformation on the matter in a lengthy Twitter thread.

Salon, Holden noted, called Trump’s hope in the new treatment his “most dangerous flim-flam: False hope and quack advice.”

The New Yorker pondered “The Meaning of Donald Trump’s Coronavirus Quackery,” observing that Trump’s “pronouncements are a reminder, if one was needed, of his scorn for rigorous science, even amid the worst pandemic to hit the U.S. in a century.”

Michael Cohen, a Boston Globe columnist, urged networks to stop airing Trump’s coronavirus press briefings because he was spreading “misinformation” about a potential cure.

And, NBC News complained, “Trump, promoting unproven drug treatments, insults NBC reporter at coronavirus briefing.”

The New York Times’ Kurt Eichenwald reported that a “Louisiana MD” on the “front lines of the COVID-19 fight” had told him that “Hydroxychloroquine doesn’t work” and that “amateurs who dont [sic] understand research” were driving up demand for the drug. (“Count me skeptical of your source here, Kurt,” Holden wrote.)

Vox mocked Trump’s “new favorite treatment” for the drug and said the evidence is “lacking” that it works.

Medical journal retracts study of hydroxychloroquineThe media retreated somewhat from this narrative as more positive evidence emerged.

“Malaria Drug Helps Virus Patients Improve, in Small Study,” The New York Times reported in April, adding: “A group of moderately ill people were given hydroxychloroquine, which appeared to ease their symptoms quickly, but more research is needed.”

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, went from threatening doctors who prescribed the drug with “administrative action” to requesting that the federal government ship her state some. Other state leaders have followed suit, including Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak, also a Democrat.

And, an international poll of thousands of doctors rated hydroxychloroquine the “most effective therapy” for coronavirus.

The Food and Drug Administration halted the emergency use authorization for the drug earlier this month, saying preliminary data showed it wasn’t effective. Research into its possible applications to treat coronavirus, however, has continued.

5 Responses

  1. Not fair. It wasn’t proven until now that hydroxy was effective and it has to be given right at the start of symptoms. Trump has no crystal ball! He had nothing to do with this.

  2. Meanwhile, they would instantly give untested, dangerous, not-FDA-approved vaccines! Their agenda has been quite clear for those with eyes to see

    Interesting how they say hydrochloriquine has to be approved by the FDA specifically for covid. Yet doctors have been using all kinds of meds off-label for decades. One off-label use of a compounded Rx for severe, intractable pain put me in the ICU with Acute Encephalopathy. Though they are still giving this med to pain patients off-label.

    It’s also quite bewildering that Rx opioids were all approved safe & effective by the FDA for pain. But all the sudden sadistic lawmakers have not only denied this Rx to patients with severe pain conditions with no known cure, but they then criminalized pain patients & doctors.. with no reason other than to torture & kill the disabled (even tho many pain patients could actually work with their meds yet are in horrific pain unable to even function without it.. of no fault of their own).

    I don’t know how people couldn’t possibly see what has been going on. But now people with covid in the hospital aren’t even allowed Rx opioids. Anyone who has a major injury or needs surgery will then have their eyes pried wide open.. unfortunately.

  3. And, if you notice, the ” moron in NY” did NOT put his Mama in a nursing home ” because she would die from contracting covid19.”

    According to all media sources, President Trump has never done ANYthing right.

    The Pres. said to Our Nation: Hydroxychloroquine might work, might not work.” He made the statement based upon what members of the Covid Task Force had reported in one small study. Well, well, excuse Our Country’s Commander in Chief for ensuring a treatment with any possible hope or promise MIGHT prove life saving for a person’s loved one. Excuse a President who ensured this drug was available and an option to try as an off label! At the time, did we hear anyone else mentioning other possible options for drug treatment of critically I’ll covid19 pts.? No, we did not.

  4. And because the President “touted” this drug, the idiots would rather see people die then to give them that medication. i mean that is how sick these people are..Like the moron in NY who put all the patients infected with the virus back into the nursing homes. That medicine was available there. Was it given to these seniors who were put back in the nursing homes like cattle and infected the ones who didnt have it yet? I feel like i been saying this forever,but how much longer can this insanity go on?

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