ANSWERS: 1
  • HCQ is an immunosuppressive drug. It is used to treat lupus, a disease where the immune system attacks the body. It is also anti-malarial. Malaria is not caused by a virus. It attacks the malaria parasite by raising the blood pH to lethal levels for a short period of time. I'm not saying that it won't work against SARS-CoV-2, but there is also no reason to believe that it will, outside of two studies- one from China, which was only measuring the two symptoms of cough and fever (both of which are caused by the immune system fighting the virus- the immune system that is switched off by the drug), and the other from France, which was retracted by the journal that initially published it because it was rife with blatant biases in its methodology. Trump is a businessman and a politician, not a chemist. Thinking that he knows what the hell he is talking about with regards to this drug, when his medical advisors are contradicting him is like thinking your puppy is better at chess than Bobby Fisher, because it spilled out all of the pieces and ate the king.
    • bostjan the adequate 🥉
      If you want to discuss the clinical methodology of those studies, the biochemical models of how different drugs work, or any other technical topic, I'd love that. If you want to politicize a drug that has now been proven to be ineffective ( https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.10.20060699v1 ), then, well, you are wrong, because it has been proven to be ineffective. This debate ended a week ago, and the drug's supporters were wrong, time to move on.
    • Linda Joy
      I can be wrong. I have no problem with that, but I'd rather learn. I was just pointing out what we all know he would have done had the drug worked well. It does work though. People have been helped by the drug and actually gotten off their death beds. But I'm glad they found other drugs that work better without such detrimental side effects! And I'm glad people who need the drug are more likely to find it now. And some would argue with you over how smart their puppy is, too.
    • bostjan the adequate 🥉
      Trump's comments about the drug, I believe, are being misconstrued by both sides of the political aisle, which I think is part of what you might have been getting at with your question. When he said we should look into it and it showed promise, I think he was 100% in the right to say that, from what we knew at the time. Since then, I think he might have been a little behind the times as he brought it up again. I don't think he was properly informed in that case. No big deal, though. Those things happen. What was odd about it, though, was that the people who should have had his ear had already stated their skepticism over it, based on the new data. I 100% believe that Trump wants the correct drug to be found to treat this disease as much as anyone else does. But a lot of pharmaceutical companies would rather their drug be used than the proper one. With any drug, it makes sense to try to understand how it is supposed to work, rather than just try everything and hope something works, 1. because you want to be able to treat more people, 2. because you want the treatment to be affordable by as many people as possible and 3. because you don't want to cause allergic reactions or other complications with your patients. In general, I don't think immunosuppressives would be the best drug group to look into, because they don't do anything to help fight the virus. The can alleviate the fever and cough, but while your body is cooling down and ceasing from actively fighting the virus, more damage is being done to lungs at the cellular level as the virus replicates unabated. But those drugs still have their use if a person is suffering from symptoms after the virus has subsided or if a person is going to die anyway and is simply miserable from symptoms. Anti-virals should show more promise, but, as of yet, most of the ones that have been tried have only helped a few people, because it seems that the virus already has mutated into more than two dozen strains, and most of the more aggressive strains seem unaffected by the antiviral medication.
    • Linda Joy
      https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-8266737/Doctors-group-claims-hydroxychloroquine-helps-91-coronavirus-patients.html

Copyright 2023, Wired Ivy, LLC

Answerbag | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy