Hydroxychloroquine fails to prevent COVID-19, large study finds
By: Erika Edwards (NBC News)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Hydroxychloroquine was no better than a placebo at preventing symptoms of COVID-19 among people exposed to the coronavirus, according to research from the University of Minnesota Medical School.
The findings, published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, are the first from a major clinical trial looking at whether the medication might be useful as a prophylactic.
The study included 821 people who had been in close contact with a confirmed COVID-19 patient, putting them at an elevated risk of developing the illness themselves.
Study participants were sent doses of either hydroxychloroquine or a placebo and asked to take the pills for two weeks. Neither the study participants nor the researchers knew in advance which people would be getting the real medication.
Fmr. U.S. Surgeon General: No one should take hydroxychloroquine unless doctor prescribes it
At the end of the two weeks, there was virtually no difference in who developed COVID-19 symptoms. About 12 percent of those given hydroxychloroquine reported symptoms, compared with 14 percent who received the placebo. Adding zinc or vitamin C supplements did not show a benefit, either, the researchers reported.
"Our objective was to answer the question of whether hydroxychloroquine worked to prevent disease or did not work," Dr. David Boulware, the lead researcher and an infectious diseases physician at the University of Minnesota, said in a statement. He added the team was "disappointed that this did not prevent COVID-19."
Despite concerns the drug might lead to dangerous heart problems, the researchers did not find that was the case in this study. However, people who received hydroxychloroquine were more likely to have nausea or diarrhea.
Hydroxychloroquine is an antimalarial drug that's also used to treat lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, there was some evidence the medication might help treat patients with the coronavirus. It was also widely touted by President Donald Trump, who said he was taking the drug as a preventive strategy.
The new findings from the University of Minnesota Medical School largely relied on participants to report symptoms of COVID-19, as diagnostic tests were largely inaccessible. This means some participants indeed could have become infected, but never developed symptoms, such as fever, cough, shortness of breath and stomach issues.
"This study doesn't tell me for sure that this strategy doesn't work. It just makes me lean in that direction," said Dr. Daniel Culver, a pulmonary and critical care expert at the Cleveland Clinic who was not involved with the research.
He pointed out the study results do not apply to people who have confirmed COVID-19 infection, or who are hospitalized with the virus; in other words, those who are given the drug as a treatment, rather than as a preventive measure. A study published last month in the Journal of the American Medical Association found the drug did not help very ill COVID-19 patients, and in fact could cause heart problems.
Still, Culver said, there is not yet conclusive evidence that hydroxychloroquine has no place in the pandemic. "I would continue to encourage people to get involved in clinical trials, including trials for hydroxychloroquine," he said.
The Food and Drug Administration has warned against using the drug outside of clinical trials or hospital settings. On April 24, the regulatory agency cautioned that physicians should not prescribe hydroxychloroquine on an outpatient basis.
Erika Edwards
Erika Edwards is a health and medical news writer and reporter for NBC News and "TODAY."
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Oh, hell...I hate when I have both at the same time!
I have to wonder if that happened to the main supporter of the use of hydroxychloroquine? Inquiring minds want to know..
That is the unfair part. He takes it but makes the rest of us nauseous on a daily basis without taking the drug.
Curl up on an office chair and make yourself spinnnnnnnnnn.......................
Great idea, Ozz...
Cracks me up every time I see it. I love the butt wiggle. Cows just raise their tail and shoot it out
Jet propulsion from 2 jets, not just 1.
That's almost a perfect impression of Donald Trumps speech this afternoon.
Is there not enough going on in the world that someone is so bored that they video tape hippos taking a piss/shit?
Perhaps that's the real reason Trump was taking it, he was just trying to lose a few pounds before November...
It can be serious as it causes dehydration and a loss of essential electrolytes.
I wouldn't want it anyway if it causes heart problems. I already have a heart murmur. I would think it wouldn't be good for that.
And who would want nausea and diarrhea for no noticeable difference...
Early claims about hydroxychloroquine were, um, fishy!
Maybe Trump finally realized it, which could be why he shipped that huge amount of it to Brazil
Here's a little bulletin for ya:
Some of the authors of a massive observational study of the antimalarial medication hydroxychloroquine published in The Lancet have retracted it .
The study, published in May, had initially found that hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine did not appear to benefit coronavirus patients who took them and instead found that those who received one of the medications had a higher risk of death.
The initial study led to the World Health Organization putting a temporary pause on the hydroxychloroquine arm of a trial it's running in light of the data. It later restarted the trial.
In the weeks since, scientists had raised questions about the paper's statistical analysis and integrity of the data .
Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories .
The authors of a massive study on the use of the antimalarial medication hydroxychloroquine in coronavirus patients published in the medical journal The Lancet retracted it on Thursday.
Initially published in May, the study had found that the treatments didn't appear to help patients hospitalized with the novel coronavirus and instead were associated with heart complications and an increased risk of death.
But in the weeks since the study was published, scientists have been raising questions about the paper's statistical analysis and integrity of the data, which are held by a US company called Surgisphere.
Initially, editors at The Lancet issued an "Expression of Concern," saying that serious scientific questions had been raised.
Some of the study's authors launched an independent third party peer review of the data used in the study, but said that Surgisphere wouldn't transfer over the full dataset.
"Based on this development, we can no longer vouch for the veracity of the primary data sources," the authors wrote on Thursday.
Another coronavirus study published in the New England Journal of Medicine that relied on Surgisphere data was retracted at the request of its authors on Thursday. That study, published May 1 , centered on the use of certain heart drugs in patients with COVID-19.
Thread deleted at the request of the author.
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You do realize that the study that I seeded is totally different than the one you're talking about.
Congratulations, you won the whining contest. Now, do you think you could grant me the courtesy of not posting in my seeds? I don't venture into yours because I know where I'm not wanted
Vic, you are being obtuse while pushing the goal posts.
There is no argument that the President unprofessionally lauded, proposed and pushed this drug as "could be a game changer" happy wishful thinking.
Fauci & Birx downplayed several early studies because they were either from the discredited Chinese or too small, without blind controls etc.
No need to discuss that, we all agree.
Resurrected? I think you meant retracted.
We can also agree that the President brought all of this on himself and continues to do so.
It isn't something "he once said". It's something he has gone on about for months, causing international attention on himself.
Well reading between the lines, I'll assume that you mean that all of this attention is political because it embarrasses the POTUS.
I can agree with that. But it's his own fault just as it would have been Bush's or Obama's had they ever put themselves in a similar trap.
As far as comment 6 is concerned,
Why can't you just admit that you were wrong. It isn't the same study that the seed is about. You derailed.
U of MN study has 821 Americans and Canadians in a short double blind HCQ study to see if it worked as a prophylactic.
It doesn't.
End of story.
If you want to do a seed on the unrelated retraction of two MPR studies which used Surgisphere here's two links to the May 22 article and the retracted paper which relied on collected information from 96,038 Covid patients around the world.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31180-6/fulltext
I'm not sure if they are even 'goal posts' anymore, they might as well be 'goat posts' for all the pointless manure shoveling he's doing.