re: Great news! Azithromycin & Chloroquine: victory lap

quote:

---

I just got word - like 2 minutes ago - that this combo of drugs is effective and now in use.

---

The graph and link refer to the same study that has been going around for a few days now though.

And while the results were promising enough to do an actual experimental clinical trial, therw are far too many limitations, some understandable (small sample; self-selected into treatment; no blinds) some not so under-stable (present 6 days worth of data, despite being a 15 day trial; inexplicable outcome coding; flawed statistical analyses, when their are models and analyses that fit the design perfectly) to say its effective.

In fact, since 5 of the 6 participants who matriculated out of the study due to negative outcomes including: bad side effects (1 participant), taken into an ICU (3 participants), and the worst outcome of all, DEATH (1 participant) were all from the treatment group, and none were from the control group, then there is about as much evidence to say that the treatment is harmful as there is to say its effective.

But its in use.

And is effective.

I just read in another thread that this doesn't matter because the FDA has already approved it's use for other reasons. It's safe.

In fact, I can buy the shite online right now.

Someone above is saying its dangerous?? That makes no sense.

quote:

---

Will these drugs help at any stage of the virus or do they need to be taken right away..... ie. are the people that have already had it for several days screwed?

---

The theory is either viral binding to cell walls is inhibited or entry into cells is hampered by Chloroquine. If that turns out to be true, taking the drug at any point could help, but earlier would be better.

These are not antiviral drugs. So hope rests on what would basically be convenient side effects. Could they be helpful? Sure. Viagra was developed as a heart medicine. It had a convenient side effect. We'll see.

I'm more hopeful about remdesivir, and based on trials now underway, I'd suspect it could get approved and rolled out in the next 6 weeks. Until then, it can be accessed on a compassionate use basis.

quote:

---

They removed 3 out of 26 patients who received treatment because they went to the ICU and one because they died.

---

Normal ICU utilization of those hospitalized for Covid 19 is 30%. So far fewer in this trial went to the ICU than you would expect. It is a very small sample size, however. So, it doesn’t tell us anything either way.

One out of 26 dying is a data point that should be included.

quote:

---

Someone above is saying its dangerous??

---

Any medicine can be "dangerous" due to side effects, dosage issues, or allergy.

Chloroquine has a larger side effect profile than many drugs. Some are more serious than others. Stevens-Johnson syndrome (life threatening skin sloughing), Complete heart block (heart rate slows, or stops), macular degeneration (partial/complete blindness)

quote:

---

No, because they used immunofluorescence analysis and confocal microscopy to literally measure the amount of virus in the subjects.

---

And those same measurements led to THREE of the control group participants testing NEGATIVE at least once in days 4 and 5 (of the 6 days) which would be considered “cured” (as some have called it) if that happened to be day 6.

And 5 participants in the control group and 1 in the treatment group m were not tested on day 6, but all of those control group participants were classified as positive and the treatment group participant was classified as negative. And on top of that they didn’t present the full 15 days of data, in a study that is already limited on data.

There is not only not justification to code the missing data as anything on day 6 as anything other than missing data, especially with a binary outcome, it’s absolutely inexcusable to code all the cases, which represented 1/6 of the final participants, to conveniently support the outcome they are seeking. And then on top of that, inexplicably fail to provide the data from the rest of the treatment days.

Between the excluding the individuals in the treatment group whose conditions worsened to a point that they were either admitted to ICU or just flat out died, leaving out more than half of the data from the full treatment schedule, and then coding the missing data from 1/6 of the participants to match the outcome they were seeking, this study is not only flawed, there are some ethical questions to answer before being able to rule out fraudulent data or just plain incompetence.

Again, since any and all potential treatments should be on the table for further evaluation, I think they should move forward and give it the benefit of the doubt to move forward.

But if I was teaching a research writing course, I would use that as an example of how not to write a research paper. It’s like they intentionally wrote it for that example.

Yes, but here is the encouraging part:

These people are already in bad shape with a huge viral load. They are offered these treatments because their outlook is bad.

What is being implied/inferred, is that the earlier you start this (when the infected have lower viral loads), the better the results.

quote:

---

Sure. Viagra was developed as a heart medicine. It had a convenient side effect. We'll see.

---

So, does this medicine have similar side effect? If so, sign me up!!!