Tag Archives: Healthcare

A clinical trial of hydroxychloroquine with 30 patients (15 treated 15 controls) has been completed in Shanghai. It is the first genuine randomized trial. It reports no evidence that hydroxychloroquine works at all. It is true, that given the principal outcome measure defined in advance, the trial has no power. Not low power, 0 power. In a hypothetical, if all patients treated with hydroxychloroquine became healthy immediately with no symptoms and no...

Massive Scandal or a Massive Misunderstanding of Regs and Laws for Orphan Drugs Most of you know, I have been writing on healthcare for a long time and much of it has been negative about healthcare and the costs. I am not defending Gilead’s marketing of Remdesivir; but, a few articles (Common Dreams, The Intercept, etc.) written and the pundits amongst us appear to have misunderstood the issue for Remdesivir’s status. I can understand why people would...

In case you missed it, here's the recent ad from Republicans for the Rule of Law featuring President Trump's own words on the pandemic. pic.twitter.com/mExr5eGqhr — Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) March 22, 2020

Lockdowns work 1. San Francisco (lockdown ordered March 16) vs. New York City (lockdown ordered March 20) 2. San Francisco vs. Miami-Dade County (no lockdown) 3. Kentucky vs. Tennessee 4. Italy Lockdowns work. We only need complete lockdowns a few weeks, during which we ramp up manufacture and supplies to test kits and emergency medical equipment like masks and ventilators.

Coronavirus dashboard for March 24 Here is the update through yesterday (March 23) In order to succeed in containing the pandemic, I believe that the US needs 2 weeks of China (nearly complete lockdown) followed by at least a month of South Korea (very aggressive and widespread testing). At minimum, that means at least 50% of the US population under lockdown and a ratio of 15:1 in tests to results showing infection. The recent exponential growth of...

This is what exponential growth looks like: 2,500,000 infected in the next 15 days, 50,000 deaths I had originally planned on limiting this post to the next 10 days. But then the Buffoon-in-Chief tweeted this: So let’s look at the number of diagnosed infections and deaths in the US by the time Trump gets around to deciding what to do. Bottom line: about 2.5 million *diagnosed* infections, and about 50,000 deaths baked in the cake at a 2% mortality...

Chloroquine and Hydroxychloroquine are being tested as components of multi-drug cancer chemotherapy. I have noticed that when I tweet this, people conclude that I am insane. However this is not a tiny literature. Repurposing Drugs in Oncology (ReDO)—chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine as anti-cancer agents is a long review article and meta analysis. It cites seven peer reviewed article which report the results of clinical trials and dozens of ongoing...

Patient privacy prevents precise calculation of the fraction of Covid 19 patients in the USA being treated with Hydroxychloroquine or Chloroquine. However, Hospitals are purchasing hugely increased amounts Christopher Rowland reports. Data gathered in the first 17 days of March by Premier Inc., a large group purchasing organization for 4,000 U.S. hospitals, showed a 300 percent week-over-week increase in orders of chloroquine and a 70 percent...

This is a comment on “Is Anthony Fauci Really Our Truthteller-in-Chief?” by Kevin Drum. I will briefly summarize. Drum quotes from the latest press conference “Is there any evidence to suggest that, as with malaria, it might be used as a prophylaxis against COVID-19? DR. FAUCI: No. The answer is no.” later after Trump says hydroxychloroquine is the cure for Covid 19 Fauci changed his line to Q I would like Dr. Fauci, if you don’t mind, to follow up on...

The best US solution to the coronavirus pandemic: SHUT.IT.DOWN — two weeks of China + one month of South Korea For the last few weeks, I have been screaming at the top of my lungs about “exponential growth.”   That’s because so few people realized the impact such growth could have in a pandemic, over the course of just a few months, even weeks.I first began thinking about this as soon as I read a Tweet by Trevor Bedford a month ago about how coronavirus...