Coronavirus COVID-19 Hydroxychloroquine is a poor coronavirus treatment but a perfect parable for our times

Discussion in 'Pandora's Box' started by Vee, Aug 2, 2020.

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    The group had all the trappings of medical authority.

    Wearing white coats as they stood with serious faces in front of the US Supreme Court earlier this week, they called themselves "America's Frontline Doctors".

    In the video of their press conference, which was livestreamed on Facebook, the group promoted a familiar but controversial narrative: that the drug hydroxychloroquine could help treat COVID-19.

    They made their claims despite large scientific studies showing the drug doesn't benefit people hospitalised with the disease.

    The original clip was removed from Facebook but it lived on, with a retweet from US President Donald Trump and a boost on Instagram from celebrities like Madonna. After that, right-wing and conspiratorial online communities — including those in Australia — made a point of keeping the video available online.
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    Madonna was one of a number of celebrities who shared a clip of the "America's Frontline Doctors"
    press conference.



    Even a transcript of the press conference, on the website of transcription service Rev, has received more than 800,000 interactions on Facebook, according to data from social media monitoring firm Crowdtangle. It has been posted more than 500 times.

    The video controversy is only the latest instalment in the saga of hydroxychloroquine's transformation, from relatively obscure anti-malarial drug to political football.

    It first arrived in the spotlight thanks to widespread press coverage and now, in private Facebook groups and in YouTube comment feeds, hydroxychloroquine is no longer just an unlikely medicine for COVID-19.

    To believe in its efficacy is often a way to indicate support for President Trump or an ideological scepticism of the medical establishment, entirely disconnected from the science.

    "It's a tenet of faith," said Tom Sear, a fellow with UNSW Canberra Cyber at the Australian Defence Force Academy. "All the scientific evidence is doubtful — and there's Trump with certainty."

    Where did the hype come from?
    As coronavirus spread in early 2020, the world scrambled for a silver bullet and the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine — or HCQ — emerged as an early candidate.

    Also used to treat lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, it had shown some promise when used against two previous coronaviruses, SARS and MERS.

    "The hope was it might be somewhat useful," said Derek Lowe, a long-time drug discovery researcher and author of In the Pipeline, a long-running science blog on the Science Translational Medicine website.

    "No-one expected great things out of hydroxychloroquine."

    On Facebook, some of the first mentions of the drug as a potential COVID-19 treatment came in mid-February from Chinese media like Xinhua and China Daily but attracted relatively little engagement.

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    In early February, reports from China indicated hydroxychloroquine was being tested as a COVID-19 treatment

    Outside the research community, however, the real attention came after the intervention of a media-savvy French microbiologist named Didier Raoult.

    His study, published in the Journal of Antimicrobial Agents in March, tested a combination of hydroxychloroquine and the antibiotic azithromycin on patients with COVID-19 and found that it helped.

    But in the eyes of other scientists, the study was decidedly lacklustre. It was small and uncontrolled, which meant there was no group that did not receive the treatment to compare the results against.

    But those caveats, and underwhelming results from other trials, ceased to hold much weight in the greater public consciousness after US President Donald Trump weighed in.

    On March 19, Trump said the drug could be a "game changer" at a White House news conference with his coronavirus task force. A few days later, he tweeted a link to Dr Raoult's study. It was retweeted more than 300,000 times.

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    French professor Didier Raoult's study of hydroxychloroquine received a receptive audience
    in US President Donald Trump.

    Since March 1, public posts containing the word "hydroxychloroquine" have received at least 55 million "interactions" on Facebook — a measure that includes reactions, shares or comments.

    Other cable news characters emerged as willing soldiers in a burgeoning culture war, such as Dr Vladimir Zelenko, a doctor in upstate New York who claimed to have treated patients with a combination of hydroxychloroquine and other drugs.

    And in the months since, President Trump and members of his administration have repeatedly returned to the hydroxychloroquine narrative despite the protests of White House medical advisor Dr Anthony Fauci, who has repeatedly stated that all "valid" scientific data suggests hydroxychloroquine is not effective against COVID-19.

    The drug has attracted the attention of populist politicians outside the United States as well.

    It's been heavily promoted by Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, and the drug even became a political instrument in Australia, when erstwhile MP Clive Palmer bought Facebook ads in March, as well as full-page newspaper ads, promoting his proposal to buy "1 million doses" of the drug to support the fight against COVID-19.

    Hydroxychloroquine was seized upon because it offered an appealing narrative, Mr Lowe suggested: a cheap, immediate cure. And if there were naysayers, those were just evil forces at work.

    "There was an element of sticking it to the 'big evil' drug companies — 'we're going to use this cheap generic medicine that's been around forever'."

    It is a political drug now
    Of course, the attraction of a miracle cure is nothing new. But the media and social media platforms can amplify and convert this desire into an article of faith, often tied to politics and identity.

    If it were effective, hydroxychloroquine might offer an immediate and individualistic solution that could appeal to those on the right, Mr Sear said, in opposition to more left-leaning values around social responsibility.

    "[Hydroxychloroquine is] characterised as a quick fix, a magic cure for the 'problem' of the virus," he said of how the drug is often characterised online.

    "It's not a social solution. It doesn't imply we have to work together — and with government — and address larger, more complex, and interrelated issues in society to battle the disease.

    Throughout the pandemic, the spruiking of so-called coronavirus "treatments" has been widespread — grifters adapting to the current panic by offering unproven solutions such as colloidal silver.

    But hydroxychloroquine is different, according to Elise Thomas, a misinformation researcher at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

    "The reality is, most of these people have no knowledge of what hydroxychloroquine is," she said.

    "From that angle, it does become more of an article of faith, or more wrapped up into an ideological or political narrative as opposed to being an actual industry that ordinary people can participate in."

    George Buchanan, a researcher at the University of Melbourne, has been observing online discussions about COVID-19 on platforms like YouTube and Twitter.

    Like Ms Thomas, Dr Buchanan has seen hydroxychloroquine picked up by right-wing and pro-Trump circles on social media. He said it remains one of the most discussed potential treatments online.

    "HCQ has been the dominant narrative up to this point."

    The failure of hydroxychloroquine to emerge as a usable COVID-19 treatment so far can be seen as many things by such groups. It might be "evidence" of the pharmaceutical industry's backing of alternative drugs, for example, or an excuse by the "deep state" to eventually vaccinate everyone.

    Ms Thomas described what she calls "conspiracy collapse", where social media platforms bring together many different kinds of sometimes contradictory conspiracies.

    "It's a car crash. It's terrifically messy," she said.

    Mr Lowe predicted there is going to be "a lot of craziness" as the vaccine clinical data starts to emerge.

    Ultimately, however, what frustrates him most about the hydroxychloroquine hype is the vast gulf between the appealing narrative it offers and the usual way that medical science advances.

    Most of the drugs that scientists develop, Mr Lowe said, for everything from cancer to coronaviruses, simply do not work. They fail.

    "There aren't very many miracle drugs."

    Ariel Bogle
     
  2. This drug is reported to only work on people who have just recently been exposed; after a certain amount of time, the drug will not be able to treat the Corona Virus effectively. Its been reported that Donald Trump is taking this daily, not because he has Corona, but to prevent it from ever taking root, which seems to be an effective means, but the drug itself has shown to be problematic at times, people taking it enmasse without education on dosage will be a big problem.
     
  3. Papua New Guinea. Population 16 million. 8 confirmed Covid-19 cases. No symptoms, no deaths. (As of 2 weeks ago)
    Almost every man, woman,pregnant woman, and child take HCQ to help ward off malaria.
    Been on the market 65 years. Considered an 'Essential' medicine by the WHO.
    Sold over the counter in many parts of the world. Right next to the aspirin. Costs pennies to make.
    Taken daily by 5 million Americans (as of 2017). If you served in the military, you've taken it. If you've traveled overseas chances are good that you've taken it. I take it daily, and have for the last 3 years.
    Didier 'was' considered the world's leading epidemiologist up until Trump mentioned his study, now he is a Big Lebowski wannabe. Fauci himself touted the effectiveness of HCQ on 'Coronaviru' in 2005. Coronavirus in general, not Covid-19. But now he wants nothing to do with it unless multiple double-blind studies have been done. How odd. hcqswiss.jpeg
    I've actually read not only the abstracts but the actual studies themselves, or translations.
    If taken in conjunction with zinc, HCQ has a prophylactic effect against covid-19, and if taken early enough in the disease is effective in helping fight it off. It offers little to no help after the disease has progressed past a certain point, and/or if co-morbidities are excessive.
    It is NOT the HCQ which is a 'wonder' cure. Zinc stops coronavirus replication. Zinc cannot cross the lipid barrier which surrounds coronavirus. HCQ does cross that lipid barrier, and HCQ also bonds with zinc very well. The zinc stops the virus from reproducing by the millions giving your own bodies immune system a chance to fight the virus off. The azithromycin (or other antibiotic) is added simply to help your body fight off any bacteriological infection that may have taken hold while your body was trying to fight the virus.
    You don't have to believe me. The studies are available simply by googling. The Lancet published paper that basically stopped all testing worldwide has since been retracted. The company that compiled the data consists of 3 employees. A previously convicted scam artist, a self styled 'Science Fiction and Fantasy' author, and the third is an ex Adult Escort. 100% Truth, again easily looked up online. That 1 company submitted a paper that stopped HCQ testing world-wide as people were actually dying. Lawsuits should be flying soon.
    If you only give HCQ to patients that are almost dead, then yes it does appear to 'kill' people. I guess, somehow?
    But if you give it to healthy patients and newly infected only good things happen.
    Unless you happen to be invested in a vaccine. You know, like Fauci and his wife are. With Bill Gates, who all stand to make billions off of a vaccine. Especially a "Mandatory" one.
    I'll stick with my HCQ and eye checkups every 6 months.
     
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