Hydroxychloroquine Hype Is Dangerous, Experts Warn

 Many different drugs found to kill the SARS-CoV-2 virus within the lab are now being tested to determine if they're effective in humans. One, however, has attracted way more attention than all the remainder, leading some people to act in dangerous ways.

Hydroxychloroquine and therefore the closely related chloroquine are drugs known to be effective against malaria and lupus, but they also carry serious risks. Its potential against a variety of other diseases is under investigation, including as a promising candidate for Covid-19. After one small, flawed study created a buzz and reached President Trump, things began to get wrong.

Trump praised a mixture of hydroxychloroquine and also the antibiotic azithromycin in tweets and at press conferences. Initially, this led to some people buying all the hydroxychloroquine they may obtain to require themselves, resulting in a shortage for those with lupus.

Not only that but NPR reports that Dr. Robin Armstrong in Texas has started giving patients hydroxychloroquine in an unregistered trial. Worse still, there's considerable doubt about whether the patients involved gave consent. Dr. Armstrong admitted to not telling families he was giving the drug to their relatives when patients couldn't consent. Having played down the drug's risks in an interview with the Houston Chronicle, it seems unlikely those given the drug were alerted to the complete list of side-effects. NIH-registered trials require extensive paperwork precisely so everyone can see what patients are being told. By using his political contacts to form an “observational study”, Armstrong appears to possess avoided these.

Meanwhile, several trials of hydroxychloroquine/chloroquine are abandoned due to the intense side effects, including potentially fatal irregular heart rates. Other trials didn't find any benefits from the drug. Many physicians remain cautious about the drug.

"There is also a task for it for a few people,” Dr. Megan L. Ranney of the university told The the big apple Times, “but to inform Americans ‘you don’t have anything to lose,’ that’s not true. People certainly have something to lose by taking it indiscriminately.”

Meanwhile, anti-vaxxers are spreading the claim hydroxychloroquine is such a miracle cure that we do not need vaccines in the slightest degree. Ridiculous because the idea is, it's going to sound credible to those immersed within the hydroxychloroquine hype. it's indeed possible hydroxychloroquine, perhaps together with other drugs, will prove helpful for a few people, which is why several proper trials continue. However, its supporters, including Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, have gone beyond claiming it works to describing it as a silver-bullet, capable of saving everyone infected with the virus. We already know this can be not true.

Hydroxychloroquine is reportedly being widely employed in Italy and Spain, and it's not stopped the toll there, leading experts to conclude that if it works in the slightest degree the advantages are modest. In March, Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and therefore the president's leading advisor on Covid-19 described the reported benefits of hyroxychloroquine as "anecdotal" and there aren't any signs his position has changed.