By Frank Long, MS, Editorial Director
Results from a large-scale study based in the United Kingdom speak clearly about hydroxychloroquine’s effectiveness in treating COVID-19. After analyzing data from 1,500 randomized subjects to determine whether the drug reduces mortality for hospital patients undergoing treatment for COVID-19 the researchers determined that the drug offers no significant benefit.
Good solution, wrong illness
While hydroxychloroquine has a long history as a successful antimalarial drug its efficacy as treatment for COVID-19 has fizzled outside of uncontrolled studies and anecdotal reports. One example of the sketchy evidence used to support hydroxychloroquine is the laughably unscientific research offered by Dr. Vladmir Zelenko on a program hosted by Rudy Giuliani that gathered more than 574,000 views on YouTube.
The evidence Zelenko presents fails a number of litmus tests, including the absence of a control group and no formal testing method—other than Zelenko’s claim to have successfully treated 699 COVID-19 patients with hydroxychloroquine..
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“No significant difference”
The spread of anecdotal findings such as those made by Zelenko hastens the need to distribute the results of data gathered through controlled research such as the new findings of a study led by Peter Horby, MD, PhD, and Martin Landray, MB, ChB, PhD. Both are professors at University of Oxford and chief investigators whose work is part of the RECOVERY (Randomised Evaluation of COVID-19 Therapy) Trials, a large-scale group of clinical trials testing several potential coronavirus treatments.
Horby and Landray’s study enrolled more than 11,000 patients and compared a control group with a group treated with hydroxychloroquine. As a result of their testing the two investigators determined that hydroxychloroquine provides no substantial benefit in treating COVID-19 patients.
“We have concluded that there is no beneficial effect of hydroxychloroquine in patients hospitalised with COVID-19.”
Peter Horby, MD, PhD, Martin Landray, MB, ChB, PhD, Oxford University, June 5, 2020.
A summary of the trial from the Nuffield Department of Population Health reports that a total of 1,542 patients were randomized to hydroxychloroquine and compared with 3,132 patients randomized to usual care. There was no significant difference between the groups in the primary endpoint of 28-day mortality.
The summary furthermore notes that no evidence was found to indicate any beneficial effects of hydroxychloroquine on duration of hospital stay.
Other drugs still being tested as part of the RECOVERY Trials include Lopinavir-Ritonavir, used to treat HIV, and Dexamethason, a steroid used to reduce inflammation.
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Fauci Backs Away
The findings appear to close the door on early hopes that hydroxychloroquine could offer a mitigating effect on the course of the disease or as a prophylactic. In mid-March during a CNN televised town hall meeting Anthony Fauci, MD, Director, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, noted that there was non-proven, anecdotal data that hydroxychloroquine worked in treating COVID-19 patients. He stressed, however, that a lack of high-quality research should attenuate any rush to declare the off-label use of hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19 as definitively successful.
By May 27 Fauci was more resolved in dismissing hydroxychloroquine as a COVID-19 treatment during an interview with Jim Sciutto on CNN. The interview came shortly after France announced a ban on the use of hydroxychloroquine for the treatment of COVID-19.
“The scientific data is really quite evident now about the lack of efficacy for [hydroxychloroquine],” Fauci told Sciutto. He added that adverse cardiovascular events such as arrhythmias could result from the use of the drug among certain patients.
“I’m not so sure you’d want to ban it but the data are clear right now,” Fauci adds.
In this two-minute video Horby summarizes the ongoing RECOVERY trial that is testing several other pharmacological therapies for COVID-19.
More about this topic: It’s No Hoax. Brains, Lungs, COVID-19
Bullshit, liberal propaganda. You people are hilarious, yet morons.
It is science, Mr. Flynn. If you have reason to believe the findings of Horby and Landray are in error I encourage you to take it up with the researchers themselves and Oxford University.
—Editor
Which science are you referring to?
First of all Lancet which published the basus of your write up, retracted their claims and the results of their studies as incomplete and uncorraborated. The group of doctors who conducted the research were unmasked basing their findings on a false premise. You yourself is no damn doctor to understand medications nir symptoms. Your so called experts are paper doctors and your studies is based on the results with experiments with rats. If you are scientifically bright as you orofessed you are what are the symotoms of malaria? What are the symptoms of SARS annd covid 19.. The main difference with covid 19 is the tentacle cells that take the grip turning the immuned cell to work against itself. That is why you need an antibiotic like azithromicin with zinc to break the hold and penetrate the corona. Thus treatment is a cocktail. That is not the end of it. Cuvid 19 turned into an opportunistic cells mimicking HIV that is why it needs antuviral medications to complete the cocktail. And for your infirmation, the USVA also retracted their early published report that HCQ was ineffective as again with your experts, they have manipulated their research. So, don’ be a democ-rat!
Jaime Miranda, the article that appears in the Lancet and was later retracted is based on research by Mehra, Ruschitzka, & Patel. That article and the study on which it is based is completely different from the study by Horby and Landray cited in the article above.
—Editor
I did not realize you are such a short sided publication and note that your one study does not a factual conclusion make. I like that my argument is further supported by your CNN sources. QT segment changes would certainly mean we need to take several meds off the market. I work with up to 40 positive covid19 patients a day and our infection control precautions make me laugh if they were not so disgusting and against all norms. I have been S&S free only by the Grace of the Lord. Oh forgive me for giving praise to that source. I am over 64 yo working in this environment w/ a 71 yo spouse at home and after over 10 weeks in this environ and symptom free I wonder who’s fooling whom. Using hydroxychloroquine may not be the answer but to add to the political nature of this issue with articles like this only cheapens your argument.
The conclusion about the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine to treat patients affected by COVID-19 reported by Horby and Landray that is cited in this article is drawn from a well-constructed study composed of a large, randomized sample that is compared to a control group. The findings meet the standards of high quality research. It is not politics. It is science.
—Editor