\u200eApril\u200e \u200e7\u200e, \u200e2020\u200e \u200e<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\nPresident Trump continues to endorse the drug hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for the coronavirus. Experts urge more caution. (Photo Collage: Quinn Lemmers, Yahoo Lifestyle\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
There are many topics that President Donald Trump returns to in his daily coronavirus task force briefings \u2014 ventilator stockpiles, hospital ships, governors who are flattening the curve \u2014 but few have been as vigorously endorsed as the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine.<\/p>\n
On Monday, Trump announced that his administration had ordered 29 million doses of the drug as a treatment option for the more than 387,000 Americans who have tested positive for the virus. His plan stems from a March 20 study out of the U.K., which found positive effects among COVID-19 patients who took a combination of hydroxychloroquine and the antibiotic azithromycin.<\/p>\n
Although the study garnered international attention, many have since criticized the small sample size (26 people) and the fact that it was non-controlled (the patients were all at different hospitals).<\/p>\n
In the absence of more evidence, however, Trump has continued to tout the anti-malaria drug, saying in a briefing over the weekend that he \u201cmay take it,\u201d and that it\u2019s both \u201cpowerful\u201d and \u201cprofound.\u201d In a Tuesday press conference, he cited a Democratic lawmaker in Michigan who believes the drug saved her life \u2014 and thanked Trump for pushing to make it available.<\/p>\n
While the president\u2019s confidence about the drug may be comforting, experts continue to urge caution when discussing its potential \u2014 among them, Anthony Fauci, MD, director of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. \u201cI think we\u2019ve got to be careful that we don\u2019t make that majestic leap to assume that this is a knockout drug,\u201d Fauci said Friday on Fox News. \u201cWe still need to do the kinds of studies that definitively prove whether any intervention … is truly safe and effective.\u201d<\/p>\n
As the drug enters clinical trials in the U.S., many experts are speaking out about the need for more testing before conclusions are drawn. Christopher Plowe, PhD, a professor of global health at Duke University and a world-renowned expert on malaria drugs (including hydroxychloroquine), is one of them. Here, he helps fact-check some of the president\u2019s recent declarations.<\/p>\n
Trump claim: The benefits of hydroxychloroquine outweigh the risks
\nAt a press briefing Tuesday, Trump suggested the risks associated with hydroxychloroquine are not an issue to be concerned with. \u201cThe side effects are the least of it, there are people dying all over the place \u2014 and generally the side effects are really with the Z-pack having to do with the heart,\u201d Trump said. \u201cThe Z-pack. That’s the antibiotic, not with hydroxychloroquine.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump spoke of the issue more bluntly on Sunday, encouraging Americans to take the drug by saying: \u201cWhat do you have to lose? What do you have to lose?\u201d<\/p>\n
Fact: Hydroxychloroquine has side effects, one of which can be fatal<\/p>\n
According to Plowe, who has been studying the drug for decades, Trump\u2019s statements are misguided. \u201cYou can lose your life. That’s pretty clear. This is a drug that can cause serious side effects. The eye issues tend to be people who’ve taken it for a long time. But the really serious cardiac issues \u2014 the potentially fatal cardiac arrhythmias \u2014 those can occur the first time you take the drug,\u201d Plowe tells Yahoo Lifestyle. \u201cAnd it’s not just older people who have heart issues, who are at risk. It can even occur in people with normal hearts, so that’s a real concern.\u201d<\/p>\n
The most common side effects associated with hydroxychloroquine are headache, dizziness, nausea and vomiting, but cardiotoxicity \u2014 \u201cmedication-induced damage to the heart\u201d \u2014 has been documented as a \u201crare but serious complication\u201d of the drug. Z-packs, as Trump mentioned, have also been tied to deadly heart complications, also in rare cases.<\/p>\n
Trump claim: Doctors suggest healthy people start taking the drug<\/p>\n
In the press briefing on Tuesday, Trump said that healthcare workers are beginning to take the drug prior to getting sick. \u201cThey also say it’s good for the hospital workers to take them that it keeps it away, it keeps it out of your system,\u201d Trump said. It\u2019s a claim he also raised over the weekend: \u201cThey say taking [hydroxychloroquine] before the fact is good,\u201d he said, adding that he \u201cmay take it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fact: There are no studies showing that the drug prevents COVID-19<\/p>\n
\u201cI have not seen any such evidence,\u201d says Plowe. \u201cWe use chloroquine for malaria prophylaxis, but … it\u2019s just one pill a week basically.\u201d Plowe explains that taking hydroxychloroquine as a preventative would require a completely different dosage and schedule. \u201cEven if there was strong evidence \u2014 which we don’t have \u2014 even if there were strong evidence that it was beneficial at higher treatment doses until you have a randomized controlled trial with a prophylactic … I don’t even know what dose he would take if he was going to take it,\u201d says Plowe. \u201cI am not aware of any evidence about prevention or prophylactic doses for this indication.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump claim: Hydroxychloroquine is showing \u201cgreat results\u201d<\/p>\n
After sharing the story of the Democratic lawmaker in Michigan on Tuesday, Trump said there are \u201cmany stories\u201d like that one and reiterated to Americans that the drug is working. \u201cI’m not a doctor, I’m just saying we hear great results and some people say, let’s go to a laboratory. Let’s test it for a couple of years now,\u201d Trump said. \u201cWe got people dying in this country and all over the world right now, not in a couple of years. There are people dying and I really think it’s a great thing to try just based on what I know.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fact: It\u2019s too soon to know whether the drug can treat COVID-19<\/p>\n
Plowe says it\u2019s too early to make a call on whether or not the drug will work. \u201cI think Dr. Fauci is right on target, that the only way we’re going to have confidence that would warrant recommending this is going to be a randomized controlled trial. And there’s a bunch of those in progress,\u201d says Plowe. \u201cThere’s just so many ways that you can have a bias in [an uncontrolled] trial. Until you do the randomized controlled trial, you just don’t have the results.\u201d<\/p>\n
Much of the discussion surrounding the drug\u2019s success has been anecdotal, but in Plowe\u2019s experience, even that is unimpressive. \u201cMy son is the emergency room resident in a hospital in Brooklyn and he has seen people who have been taking hydroxychloroquine and Z-packs in the community and his anecdotal impression is that it\u2019s making no difference whatsoever,\u201d Plowe says. \u201cAnd he’s seeing patients day in and day out. So that’s my anecdotal evidence that clinicians on the front lines \u2014 at least the one that I’m talking to \u2014 [are] not seeing any suggestion that this is making a difference.\u201d<\/p>\n
FROM H. S. V.:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\nAgain, ladies and gentlemen, PLEASE do not either accept as valid or put any faith or belief in anything the LIAR in the White House says.<\/p>\n
Anything and everything he has ever done in his life has hurt, harmed and damage anybody who fell into his orbit and through his election he has been able to hurt, harm and damage this entire country. You are urged to pass this on to all and everybody you know.<\/p>\n
Henry S. Villard.<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"[AdSense-A] By Henry S. Villard Ladies and gentlemen as well as undying FAR right wing lunatics, fruitcakes and Trumpites: While I have, for the most part, attempted to avoid excoriating the liar, thief, thug and hoodlum who defames the White House every time he as much as gets near it, I can no longer try […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18030],"tags":[21903],"class_list":["post-87394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-world-news","tag-yet-more-of-the-outrageous-unending-lying-manure-from-the-thug-in-the-white-house"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=87394"}],"version-history":[{"count":-2,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87394\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=87394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=87394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=87394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}