Here’s the truth about the drug Trump thinks is a miracle coronavirus cure
March 23, 2020 By Nicole Karlis, Salon
As to be expected, President Donald Trump took to Twitter over the weekend to try to ease public fears about COVID-19 by promoting several experimental drug treatments. In an all-caps tweet, Trump urged the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to “move fast” to approve a combination of hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malaria drug, and azithromycin, an antibiotic, as a potential treatment for COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. On Twitter, Trump served as hypeman for this medical cocktail, writing that these drugs “have a real chance to be one of the biggest game changers in the history of medicine.”
For someone with no background in medicine, Trump is weirdly convinced of the efficacy of these drugs. Last week, in a press conference, Trump said he felt “good” about the possibility of chloroquine, another related anti-malaria drug, and hydroxychloroquine as potential treatment for COVID-19. Today, he shared an article from the New York Post about a man surviving COVID-19 thanks to hydroxychloroquine. Yet anecdotes should not be confused for statistics; most scientists, researchers and doctors will tell you that one anecdotal story from the New York Post does not constitute clinical evidence that any of these drugs can, or should, be used to treat COVID-19.
According to a study published on the web site bioRxiv, there have been 69 drugs identified, including chloroquine, that could treat the respiratory disease that has caused 16,359 deaths and mass economic disruption worldwide. The World Health Organization is looking into both hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine as possible ways to slow or kill the virus, but there are plenty of unknowns that prevent it from being a “game changer,” as Trump called it. Science magazine details the concerns in a recent report. Similar to Trump’s previous dangerous rhetoric, his claims have the possibility to cause more harm than good. As NPR reported, some pharmacists are concerned about people hoarding the drugs. “Our members are definitely seeing more demand for this medication and possibly some people trying to hoard the medication,” Todd Brown, executive director of the Massachusetts Independent Pharmacists Association, told NPR. “Pharmacists are seeing an increase in requests and prescriptions for them, in instances where it’s not clear why the patient needs it at this time.” Health officials in Nigeria said that three people have overdosed on the drug.
Salon spoke with Rodney J.Y. Ho, a professor and director of the Targeted, Long-acting and Combination Anti-Retroviral Therapy (TLC-ART) program at the University of Washington, about both hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine as potential drugs to treat COVID-19.
As usual, this conversation has been edited for clarity.
First, what are these drugs?
Chloroquine is the original malaria drug that was introduced many many years ago. And it’s been distributed widely in malaria-rampant areas. Hydroxychloroquine is slightly different, so it has additional benefits [as a treatment]. People found out over time that hydroxychloroquine can be used for rheumatoid arthritis. Another way people use it is for lupus. The difference is that hydroxychloroquine, [as] you can read in the name, has been oxygenated.
So chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine are both malaria drugs. You’ve probably heard about this from people that they’re accessible because they are FDA approved. But it’s not a drug that you buy over the counter, it’s a pill that’s prescribed— so that’s a very important distinction — because that means it has side effects that need to be managed by pharmacists and by relations.
And what are those side effects?So there are many different side effects, but the big ones are when it’s taken with another drug. So it can be as simple as being on a contraceptive that can change the drug levels, then that becomes toxic, so that’s what needed to be managed.So what do we know about how these drugs treat COVID-19?
We can kill the virus at the level that can be achieved in patients taking hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine in their blood. Based on that, people have been using it as one of the four or five experimental medications [but] because it’s not proven, nothing has been tested thoroughly by the FDA. But because it’s available by prescription and it’s a pill, you can order it.
So because it shows promise in a test tube, does that mean it can be that success can be easily transferred to a human body?The virus can kill people in many different ways. [We can observe that it is] killed in the test tube, [but] then you need to go through a long test to make sure that [it will happen] in the patient at the right stage, and the right place that you can use this [drug]. And we don’t know that yet. And what other things that the virus is doing, we don’t know.
What we do know is that the virus will kill the lung cells. Our lung cells are very big. Think of lung cells as balloons with pockets of cells inside them. These cells are loaded with blood. That’s how we exchange oxygen. So when the lung cells are infected, they will kill and collapse those balloons. At some stage, the whole lungs collapse and other cells attack the immune system. So, that’s when the hydroxychloroquine might have an effect, but the question is, when is there no point of return? And we don’t know that yet. So you can imagine the complications of how to treat this virus, and when to treat it. We don’t know how long and how quickly people can die from this — we need to help them by isolating and preventing the number of infections.
Trump says unproven coronavirus drugs could be 'gift from God'
AFP•March 23, 2020
US President Donald Trump has said his administration was working to dramatically expand access to hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine, while many scientists have urged the public to remain cautious until larger clinical trials take place (AFP Photo/Brendan Smialowski)
Washington (AFP) - US President Donald Trump on Monday said antimalarial drugs that are under investigation to treat the new coronavirus could be a "gift from God" despite scientists warning against the dangers of overhyping unproven medicines.
Trump announced last week his administration was working to dramatically expand access to hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine, a related compound, following promising early studies in France and China that found the drugs helped patients suffering from the COVID-19 illness.
Many scientists including Anthony Fauci, the United States' leading infectious disease expert, have urged the public to remain cautious until larger clinical trials validate the smaller studies.
But Trump demonstrated no such restraint at a White House press briefing on Monday.
"The hydroxychloroquine and the Z-Pak, I think as a combination probably is looking very, very good," he said.
"There's a real chance that it could have a tremendous impact, it would be a gift from God, if that worked it would be a big game changer," he added, quoting the example of a patient who was ill but recovered after taking the drug.
NBC reported that a woman in Arizona, who heard Trump talk about chloroquine, ended up in hospital and her husband died after they took a form of chloroquine she had used to treat her koi fish.
"I saw it sitting on the back shelf and thought, 'Hey, isn't that the stuff they're talking about on TV?'" NBC quoted the unnamed woman as saying.
Banner Health, a non-profit health care provider based in Phoenix, said on its website that "a man has died and his wife is under critical care after the couple, both in their 60s, ingested chloroquine phosphate, an additive commonly used at aquariums to clean fish tanks."
Banner Health warned against self-medicating to treat or prevent the COVID-19 illness.
Trump has been criticized by some in the scientific community for overhyping the drugs -- which could create shortages for Americans who need them to treat lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, diseases for which they are approved.
New York is set to begin a clinical trial on Tuesday that would treat patients with hydroxychloroquine taken together with azithromycin, an antibiotic used to clear secondary bacterial infections.
Separately, Vice President Mike Pence announced that self-administered nasal swab tests for the illness would be made available this week, thus reducing part of the burden on the overstretched health care system.
At present, the test is administered by health care workers wearing personal protective gear which is in short supply.
The US has almost 44,000 cases and 560 deaths, according to a tracker maintained by Johns Hopkins University.
March 23, 2020 By Nicole Karlis, Salon
As to be expected, President Donald Trump took to Twitter over the weekend to try to ease public fears about COVID-19 by promoting several experimental drug treatments. In an all-caps tweet, Trump urged the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to “move fast” to approve a combination of hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malaria drug, and azithromycin, an antibiotic, as a potential treatment for COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. On Twitter, Trump served as hypeman for this medical cocktail, writing that these drugs “have a real chance to be one of the biggest game changers in the history of medicine.”
For someone with no background in medicine, Trump is weirdly convinced of the efficacy of these drugs. Last week, in a press conference, Trump said he felt “good” about the possibility of chloroquine, another related anti-malaria drug, and hydroxychloroquine as potential treatment for COVID-19. Today, he shared an article from the New York Post about a man surviving COVID-19 thanks to hydroxychloroquine. Yet anecdotes should not be confused for statistics; most scientists, researchers and doctors will tell you that one anecdotal story from the New York Post does not constitute clinical evidence that any of these drugs can, or should, be used to treat COVID-19.
According to a study published on the web site bioRxiv, there have been 69 drugs identified, including chloroquine, that could treat the respiratory disease that has caused 16,359 deaths and mass economic disruption worldwide. The World Health Organization is looking into both hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine as possible ways to slow or kill the virus, but there are plenty of unknowns that prevent it from being a “game changer,” as Trump called it. Science magazine details the concerns in a recent report. Similar to Trump’s previous dangerous rhetoric, his claims have the possibility to cause more harm than good. As NPR reported, some pharmacists are concerned about people hoarding the drugs. “Our members are definitely seeing more demand for this medication and possibly some people trying to hoard the medication,” Todd Brown, executive director of the Massachusetts Independent Pharmacists Association, told NPR. “Pharmacists are seeing an increase in requests and prescriptions for them, in instances where it’s not clear why the patient needs it at this time.” Health officials in Nigeria said that three people have overdosed on the drug.
Salon spoke with Rodney J.Y. Ho, a professor and director of the Targeted, Long-acting and Combination Anti-Retroviral Therapy (TLC-ART) program at the University of Washington, about both hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine as potential drugs to treat COVID-19.
As usual, this conversation has been edited for clarity.
First, what are these drugs?
Chloroquine is the original malaria drug that was introduced many many years ago. And it’s been distributed widely in malaria-rampant areas. Hydroxychloroquine is slightly different, so it has additional benefits [as a treatment]. People found out over time that hydroxychloroquine can be used for rheumatoid arthritis. Another way people use it is for lupus. The difference is that hydroxychloroquine, [as] you can read in the name, has been oxygenated.
So chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine are both malaria drugs. You’ve probably heard about this from people that they’re accessible because they are FDA approved. But it’s not a drug that you buy over the counter, it’s a pill that’s prescribed— so that’s a very important distinction — because that means it has side effects that need to be managed by pharmacists and by relations.
And what are those side effects?So there are many different side effects, but the big ones are when it’s taken with another drug. So it can be as simple as being on a contraceptive that can change the drug levels, then that becomes toxic, so that’s what needed to be managed.So what do we know about how these drugs treat COVID-19?
We can kill the virus at the level that can be achieved in patients taking hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine in their blood. Based on that, people have been using it as one of the four or five experimental medications [but] because it’s not proven, nothing has been tested thoroughly by the FDA. But because it’s available by prescription and it’s a pill, you can order it.
So because it shows promise in a test tube, does that mean it can be that success can be easily transferred to a human body?The virus can kill people in many different ways. [We can observe that it is] killed in the test tube, [but] then you need to go through a long test to make sure that [it will happen] in the patient at the right stage, and the right place that you can use this [drug]. And we don’t know that yet. And what other things that the virus is doing, we don’t know.
What we do know is that the virus will kill the lung cells. Our lung cells are very big. Think of lung cells as balloons with pockets of cells inside them. These cells are loaded with blood. That’s how we exchange oxygen. So when the lung cells are infected, they will kill and collapse those balloons. At some stage, the whole lungs collapse and other cells attack the immune system. So, that’s when the hydroxychloroquine might have an effect, but the question is, when is there no point of return? And we don’t know that yet. So you can imagine the complications of how to treat this virus, and when to treat it. We don’t know how long and how quickly people can die from this — we need to help them by isolating and preventing the number of infections.
Trump says unproven coronavirus drugs could be 'gift from God'
AFP•March 23, 2020
US President Donald Trump has said his administration was working to dramatically expand access to hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine, while many scientists have urged the public to remain cautious until larger clinical trials take place (AFP Photo/Brendan Smialowski)
Washington (AFP) - US President Donald Trump on Monday said antimalarial drugs that are under investigation to treat the new coronavirus could be a "gift from God" despite scientists warning against the dangers of overhyping unproven medicines.
Trump announced last week his administration was working to dramatically expand access to hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine, a related compound, following promising early studies in France and China that found the drugs helped patients suffering from the COVID-19 illness.
Many scientists including Anthony Fauci, the United States' leading infectious disease expert, have urged the public to remain cautious until larger clinical trials validate the smaller studies.
But Trump demonstrated no such restraint at a White House press briefing on Monday.
"The hydroxychloroquine and the Z-Pak, I think as a combination probably is looking very, very good," he said.
"There's a real chance that it could have a tremendous impact, it would be a gift from God, if that worked it would be a big game changer," he added, quoting the example of a patient who was ill but recovered after taking the drug.
NBC reported that a woman in Arizona, who heard Trump talk about chloroquine, ended up in hospital and her husband died after they took a form of chloroquine she had used to treat her koi fish.
"I saw it sitting on the back shelf and thought, 'Hey, isn't that the stuff they're talking about on TV?'" NBC quoted the unnamed woman as saying.
Banner Health, a non-profit health care provider based in Phoenix, said on its website that "a man has died and his wife is under critical care after the couple, both in their 60s, ingested chloroquine phosphate, an additive commonly used at aquariums to clean fish tanks."
Banner Health warned against self-medicating to treat or prevent the COVID-19 illness.
Trump has been criticized by some in the scientific community for overhyping the drugs -- which could create shortages for Americans who need them to treat lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, diseases for which they are approved.
New York is set to begin a clinical trial on Tuesday that would treat patients with hydroxychloroquine taken together with azithromycin, an antibiotic used to clear secondary bacterial infections.
Separately, Vice President Mike Pence announced that self-administered nasal swab tests for the illness would be made available this week, thus reducing part of the burden on the overstretched health care system.
At present, the test is administered by health care workers wearing personal protective gear which is in short supply.
The US has almost 44,000 cases and 560 deaths, according to a tracker maintained by Johns Hopkins University.
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