RETHINKING THE RETHINKING OF HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE

As regular readers of this blog know, for almost two months – based on what I have read from doctors and researchers – I have been talking up hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for COVID-19.

But last week a study came out from the Veterans Administration (VA), based on a sample of well over 300 people, claiming that not only is hydroxychloroquine not effective, but there are far more deaths associated with its use among COVID-19 sufferers than for those who did not take it.

I found the implication that hyrdoxychloroquine was not only ineffective, but dangerous to take highly suspicious.  No one else I’m aware of found any such thing in any other test.  But, because the findings were presented by what appeared to be a creditable source, I moved my opinion of the drug into the “let’s wait for more information” category.

Well, now we have more information – specifically, on that study –  provided by Dr. Brian C. Joondeph in his article for americanthinker.com.

Here – with apologies to Dr. Joondeph for the amount of his material I’m putting up – are excerpts which seem to tell the real story:

There have been “anecdotal reports” showing benefits of hydroxy in treating COVID, but not yet the holy grail of a prospective randomized clinical trial as the basketball player and scarf queen (Drs. Fauci and Birx) would prefer.

Yet the media can’t help themselves in their hostility toward this drug, which I would wager they or their spouses would be eager to take if they tested positive for the Wuhan virus.

The VA health system recently published the results of their experience using hydroxy for COVID. The media was giddy with delight, even though few actually appeared to have read the study. Instead their hysterical headlines reflected their hydroxy derangement syndrome.

See, see. Trump was wrong. He’s an idiot and dangerous. He promoted this deadly drug since he wants to Make America Dead Again. COVID affects darker skinned individuals preferentially and Trump is a racist for pushing a drug that kills blacks. It’s Charlottesville all over again. Orange man bad. You get the picture.

What does this vaunted VA study actually say? Did anyone in the media actually review it? Probably not, so let’s look. Here it is.

The study was a “retrospective analysis”, not the “prospective randomized clinical trial” so favored by the ivory tower doctors in their crisp white coats.

The study looked at patients receiving hydroxy alone, hydroxy and azithromycin, or neither. It was a look back, not randomized and not prospective, or forward looking. The study suffers from selection bias where, “Groups of participants may differ in ways other than the interventions or exposures under investigation. When this is the case, the results of the study are biased by confounding.”

There was no mention of zinc, which many believe is necessary to use with hydroxy. Hydroxy facilitates zinc entering into cells, stopping viral replication. Without zinc in this cohort of patients, it makes sense that the two hydroxy groups didn’t fare as well, missing an essential component of the treatment.

It’s not that the study is worthless, but it is “anecdotal”, similar to the studies showing benefit to hydroxy that are discounted by the smart set in the media and medical establishment.

The study itself, in the discussion section, makes the point well.

Hydroxychloroquine, with or without azithromycin, was more likely to be prescribed to patients with more severe disease, as assessed by baseline ventilatory status and metabolic and hematologic parameters. Thus, as expected, increased mortality was observed in patients treated with hydroxychloroquine, both with and without azithromycin.

In other words, the three groups were not comparable, a feature of randomization. Sicker patients received these medications. Sicker patients, by the fact that they were sicker, were also more likely to die. As they did. The healthier patients received nothing and fared better, as expected. The media asserted that the hydroxy killed these patients when in reality they died from the virus, which may not have been adequately or aggressively treated.

Get the picture?

The claim that hydroxychloroquine is the cause of more COVID-19 deaths is based on its having been given, without any other medication considered a necessary adjunct, to patients in the gravest of peril – thus most likely to die regardless of what treatment they were given.  That makes the finding, which apparently is based on a comparison non-users in the general population, not on the cusp of dying anyway, to be completely bogus.

Put another way, this VA study is being used by some to fraudulently blame hydroxychloroquine deaths that, for the most part, would have occurred anyway.

That makes its “more deaths from hydroxychloroquine claim Grade A, Prime BS.

Consider my optimism about hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for COVID-19 fully reinstated….

….and my attitude about media’s bias/propensity for “fake news” fully edified.