This will be a bit of an experiment for me. But I decided to do a video Thursday Throughput explaining why, no, the use of HCQ to treat COVID-19 has not been vindicated by a recent preprint.
I addressed this controversy last year but it seems determined to keep popping up every time a new marginal study hints that HCQ might work for treating COVID-19 (only to conveniently disappear when a much better study shows that it doesn’t). I hate that science gets bundled up in political culture wars like this but … here we are.
In related news, webcam and microphone suggestions are welcome.Report
It was evaluate by the same standard and it failed. Go troll someone else with your nonsense.Report
Michael,
All due respect, but that’s ridiculous.
If the non-sterilizing vaccines have not been touted as having prophylactic benefits (before receiving EULA), in terms of not catching the virus, then they’re CLEARLY being evaluated to different standards.
(And that’s fair. Different modalities of treatment for a given virus perhaps ought to be evaluated differently)
Can we talk public policy? If we don’t think that a treatment will have prophylactic benefits, and the sole reason for giving the treatment is to prevent “Hospitals from Getting Overwhelmed,” ought we not to prioritize the places where hospitals have the LEAST resources? We had significant issues in Italy and Ecuador where people were dying because of lack of resources (I hesitate to say the same about NYC, as there’s a better case to be made for malfeasance there).Report
The vaccines have shown 95% effectiveness in preventing COVID-19 in double-blind trials.
HCQ has shown no measurable effective in preventing or mitigating COVID-19 in double-blind trials.Report
Do the circles inside the rings in the hydroxychloroquine model mean anything, or are they just there to say, “Here be rings?”Report
Nitrogen rings. The chemical formula for HCQ is C18H26ClN3O. So those rings are each 6 of the nitrogen atoms.Report
Ah, I was not familiar with that convention. Thanks! Do nitrogen rings occur in nature, or are they only found in synthetic compounds?Report
Sorry, mis-spoke. Those are rings with mostly carbon and some nitrogen, depending. But yeah, ring structures occur naturally.Report
Also, according to Wikipedia “59% of US FDA-approved drugs contain nitrogen heterocycles”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heterocyclic_compoundReport
Yeah, organic chemists are super lazy and hate drawing out the full model, so they do all kinds of little symbolic short hand like that. 😉Report