05-24-2020, 12:43 PM
(05-24-2020, 10:50 AM)6andcounting Wrote: Every potential treatment for covid-19 is currently unproven. With hcq it's been a drug used in modern medicine for decades so we know the potential side effects and how to mitigate the risks of giving to people with certain underlying conditions or who are taking another drug that shouldn't be mixed with hcq. I support more and better research into seeing if and how it can be used as a covid-19 treatment. And I support the decision between doctors and patients to use a prescription for hcq to try to help them recover or survive from covid-19. If you're sick and dying now, you don't get the luxury being treated based on knowledge we won't have until years into the future.
(05-24-2020, 11:20 AM)fredtoast Wrote: Here is my position on a drug like this.
A qualified doctor should be able to explain to his patients what the possible benefits and possible side effectes would be. Remember this is not some off the wall substance. It is an FDA approved medication. Once the doctor exaplains it to a patient then the patient should have the right to try it if he wants.
It is not uncommon at all to discover that an FDA drug approved for one purpose can also help with other problems. For years my mother suffered from "restless leg syndrome" but when she tried to describe it to doctors they would just give her stuff for leg cramps. When the syndrome was actually "discovered" and doctors knew what it was the two medications prescibed for it were Pergolide, a drug approved to treat Parkinsons and, Gabapentin that was approved to prevent epileptic seizures.
But the President of the United States should not be gving anyone advice about it. He is not qualified.
Here is where I differ from this line of thinking. Drugs are tested and approved for treating certain things. Hydroxychloroquine was approved for certain things, like malaria prevention. It also has side effects, some of which can be life threatening. The effectiveness of the drug for its approved uses is a higher rate than the risk of serious side effects, i.e. the benefits outweigh the risks based on evidence.
Using a drug for something it hasn't been proven to treat means that you potentially have more risk than benefit because there is not sufficient evidence to say it is effective as a treatment, but there is sufficient evidence it can cause life threatening complications.
This is why prescribing hydroxychloroquine for a treatment or preventative medication for COVID-19 is a potentially life threatening issue. Until we know its effectiveness in treating the coronavirus, then there is a higher likelihood of death from taking it than there is in it being effective.
"A great democracy has got to be progressive, or it will soon cease to be either great or a democracy..." - TR
"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little." - FDR
"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little." - FDR