Oh wtf this was one of the drugs people used to poison themselves with? I was prescribed this a month ago because the rheumatologist told me is the safest drug for auto immune issues although I still need to take mehtylprednisolone every few months due to spinal inflammation that messes with nerves.
Don’t worry, a key part of toxicity is the dosage. If you’re following a prescription from an actual doctor instead of taking handfuls of horse medication at the behest of extremist politicians you’re fine.
I followed my doctors advice (400mg daily for 15 years) and got retinol toxicity anyway. Now I have permanent damage to my macular, can’t take hydroxychloroquine anymore and my lupus is raging. It’s a fantastic drug, and blindness is a very very rare side effect, but for god’s sake insist on being monitored by an ophthalmologist. Current UK recommendations are an eye check before starting the medication, repeated after 5 years and then every year after that. I should have been checked 10 times in 15 years, I was checked twice.
Why weren’t you getting an eye exam every year as a standard?
I’m in the US and once a year is pretty standard. Why would you only go to the eye doctor twice in 15 years? Do you not have regular eye exams as the norm?
TL;DR: most people in the UK don’t ever see an eye doctor until they get cataracts or similar in old age. Yearly opticians appointments are normal for people who need glasses - but the tests aren’t to the standard needed for those on hydroxychloroquine. I should have seen an ophthalmologist at least 11 times in the last 15 years instead of twice, but I “fell through the gaps”.
In the UK regular “eye exams” are called eye tests and are not covered by the NHS for most adults (unless you’re very poor and even then it’s still not free, you just get a voucher towards your glasses). Eye tests are done by optometrists (not doctors) mainly in corporate owned businesses like Boots or Vision express. I’ve been short sighted since childhood and have had eye tests done at boots at least every other year, if not yearly. Until last year, there was nothing to report.
But eye tests done at the opticians are not the same as in-depth as the tests an ophthalmologist at an eye hospital does. Until very recently (post pandemic) Boots didn’t have the capability to do OCT scans. Even when they got the capability, they wanted to charge an extra £25 for the privilege. In my case the waved the £25 fee (handy, I couldn’t afford it) because they could see there was a problem. They were meant to refer me to the eye hospital for urgent review but they “lost” my referral and didn’t inform my doctor of the problem. I continued taking hydroxychloroquine for 7 months because of their error, with the toxicity ever increasing. Eventually I was seen at the eye hospital and the damage was confirmed. I’m now seen there every 4 months. The can’t reverse the damage and it may continue to worsen even though I no longer take hydroxychloroquine.
As you pointed out, I should have been referred by my rheumatologist to an ophthalmologist at the eye hospital for yearly checks after my 5th year of taking hydroxychloroquine. For whatever reason I wasn’t. They blamed the pandemic in part, but they missed 10 years, it’s not all Covid’s fault. They did apologise unreservedly though.
So I didn’t know I needed to be under the care of the eye hospital, no one involved in my care including consultants, nurses, GP, pharmacists or my opticians told me I should be under the care of the eye hospital, or spotted the fact no one was monitoring me. When I first told my consultant he couldn’t believe it was down to the hydroxychloroquine until it was confirmed, because in 35 years of practice he’s never seen hydroxychloroquine toxicity before.
So I slipped through a crack. I considered suing both boots and the NHS for medical negligence, but it felt wrong. Instead I settled for an apology and a new warning that pops up for every patient on long term hydroxychloroquine when their medical records are accessed. Hopefully that will prevent anyone else from “falling through the cracks” again.
Ivermectin was the horse medication.
It’s great if it’s used to treat what it was meant to, people started taking it because a few doctors mentioned it might help with COVID without having any proof it did.
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The hazards here were related to passing around doses, improper prescriptions from disreputable doctors, and not seeking out actual treatments for covid. If you have certain conditions and medications there can be side effects and interactions that harm health, but that your doctor should have considered. Some people who really needed hydroxychloroquine for legitimate uses like yours had trouble getting it because of shortages due to morons rushing out to get it.
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Just like Ivermectin, it has a legitimate use. But snakeoil salesmen peddled both of them as off label Covid miracle cures with zero medical trials, or even an attempt to begin one.
Ivermectin is for deworming. It shouldn’t be prescribed outside of the purpose.
Take the recommended dose and you’ll be fine, just don’t go over because it’s easy to OD with.
You might also go blind, but that’s a future you problem
Yeah my rheumatologist did mention that to me but he said it takes years and years to start to form and is easy to revert. He just said to get eyes checked every year
It is most certainly not easy to revert. I was on it for 15 years and now have permanent, irreversible damage to my macular. I also can’t take hydroxychloroquine at all anymore because I will go blind.
But my doctors messed up and didn’t checked my eyes for over a decade. Once the usual optician spotted it, it was too late. If you see an ophthalmologist every year, they should spot any issue before it’s too late.
Yeah sorry that’s what I meant, catching it before it’s too late. I’m really really sorry you’re experiencing this, that is terrible.
Thanks. I was angry for ages, now it’s just another lupus gift - nothing to be done except get on with it. Wishing you many more good days than bad!
Same goes to you!
If you take a look at the more dangerous collateral effects… and correlate with the more dangerous COVID effects, you’ll have a surprise.
By itself, the drug is pretty safe.
Remember these chuckleheads believe the vaccine is poison and you gotta be careful and they put this stuff into themselves. Apparently research is listening to Joe’s podcast.
Anybody that takes medical advice from Joe Rogan deserves whatever malady or health problem they get. Literal leopardsatemyface…
“I don’t want none of that vaccine. You don’t know what’s in it!” - A guy at work on his cigarette break.
I saw a vegan smoking once who said something similar, it was hilarious.
I’m an off and on again smoker myself, and whilst I haven’t memorised all 5k+ chems in em, I sure as shit know “what’s in em”. Nicotine, which is what I desire and it is actually fairly innocuous, plus a shitload of supercharged death causing molecules. Cos I’m not an idiot and can look shit up. The ingredients for the vaccines were public knowledge. Google that shit. Still not sure about any of em? Guarantee either you or someone you know knows someone who can help…
“What do you have to lose?”
Umm. Their lives, apparently? Such an irresponsible statement.
Natural Selection
Generally yes, but there’s cases where parents gave this shit to their kids too.
I think you’re confusing this and Ivermectin. Hydroxychloroquine (as far as I know) is prescription only. Ivermectin is too technically but you can get the “livestock” version at a TSC or similar store. Which says a lot about the “not sheep” crowd taking medicine literally used for livestock.
people got Hydroxychloroquine by unauthorized means too
And some people with authorized means couldn’t get it because of the idiots
I got them from my grandma when I couldn’t get Oreos.
Technically, that still serves to remove their genes from the pool.
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Maybe you should think twice before posting this kind of uncompassionate drivel.
Some of these people died because they trusted the prescription from their doctor. Not everybody is able to read and understand scientific literature, and they might have to rely on the authority of someone they trust. Some doctors believed, against all evidence, that this was the right thing to prescribe and some patients took their word for it.
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I don’t know in other countries, but in France there was a sort of cult from some media around Raoult, who was, at the time, a respected name. So maybe it’s not that simple.
People are talking about dead people and just call them morons. Without any idea of what they went through. Amazing.
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My wife’s aunt is married to a Frenchman and the level of worship he displayed for the guy was incroyable. No matter what came out disproving how ineffective Hydroxychloroquine was in tests during 2020/2021 he was absolutely certain that Raoult would prove to be right in the end.
Faith < evidence
Have you paid attention to the rhetoric from unvaccinated people?
sorry, but my empathy for those people is zero after the last few years. toddlers tantrum over masks, ignoring social distancing while partying, protesting against lockdowns while the ICUs were overfilled, spreading bullshit on social media about the vaccine and calling people nazis over the idea that mandated vaccination might be smart - i will call them morons over and over again, regardless of nationality, and will cite studys like the OP whenever someone asks why. i’ve been called worse for masking up when it wasn’t required, our little snowflakes will have to endure it.
No idea what they went through? Are you being serious? We all know what they went through. It was a global pandemic. They were reports of the virus in North Korea.
Which doctors were prescribing this shit?
That figure stems from a study published in the Nature scientific journal in 2021 which reported an 11 percent increase in the mortality rate, linked to its prescription against COVID-19, because of the potential adverse effects like heart rhythm disorders, and its use instead of other effective treatments.
So I think what they are reporting is an estimate of people who died of COVID whilst taking this stuff and so did not undertake other forms of treatment.
I don’t think they are saying that most of these people died as a direct result of taking the drug. (e.g. overdosing)., despite what the headline suggests.
Not quite. The drug causes heart irregularities in some people at therapeutic doses, and this killed some of those 17k people. It just doesn’t quantify it here.
The study does quantify the cardiac risk from HCQ. Those causes of death are included in the all-causes mortality rate previously determined by a separate meta analysis
If you read the original study, those causes are included.
But I’m not allowed to add caffeine powder to my yogurt anymore because one idiot died 🙄
Who’s stopping you?
FDA banned pure/high concentration caffeine powder because people died from improper measurement. I think you can still find lower concentration caffeine powders.
How much do you need?!? I got some shit called Apex Drive Tiger’s Blood on Amazon, and I can’t even handle a whole scoop in my beverage.
Is it enough to kill two and a half men?
I require the world to vibrate before I can stand my morning meetings
Damn, that’s obnoxious.
Yeah I personally think it’s excessive especially when there are so many other much more dangerous things still being sold.
We generally only ban things once we have real-would evidence that it can kill you (in the form of people dying), and we really only care if it kills you quickly.
Broken teeth from eating a yougurt with 90% raw coffee beans.
You have to grind the yogurt before adding it to the beans, dumbass. Smdh
The amount of people not reading the article or the study is astounding.
This is not about Trump.
This is not about your conservative uncle.
This is not about America only.This is about off label prescribing in ICU and ERs early in the pandemic with low evidence (theoretical pathways) in six countries which either gave explicit approval or unclear guidance that was interpreted as approval. It goes on to suggest that in a similar emergency future, the state agencies sould do better.
In the absence of restriction, the number of expected HCQ-related deaths is likely to be directly related to the promotion of its prescription by scientists, physicians and health agencies. In February and March 2020, the use of this treatment was widely promoted based on preliminary reports suggesting a potential efficacy against COVID-19 [80]. For instance, the use of HCQ markedly increased from mid-March to mid-April 2020 [81], [82] in France before a temporary recommendation supporting its use by the State Council was rapidly rejected [83]. Similarly, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted a temporary emergency use authorisation for HCQ on March 28th 2020, which was finally revoked on June 15th 2020 [84]. In India, HCQ was also prescribed as a curative treatment to patients with COVID-19 and as a prophylactic treatment for front-line workers based on public authority guidance [85]. Conversely, the British government promoted HCQ use only within clinical trials, explaining the absence of cohort studies reporting the use of HCQ in the United Kingdom in the present study [86]. Consistently, a cohort of a multinational network showed a wide variation in the use of HCQ between countries, with 85% in Spain, 14% in the USA and less than 2% in China [80]. The rush to administer this treatment caused supply shortages in community pharmacies, forcing the implementation of dispensing restrictions [82]. Finally, the results of observational studies and randomized trials in May and June 2020, respectively, convincingly demonstrated that HCQ was ineffective and led to an increase in adverse events [4], [5], [12], [66], [73].
This is the main point : the breach of the trust we could have in state agencies and doctors. Hopefully the lesson stick this time.
Stupid is as stupid does.
Former US President Donald Trump said: ‘What do you have to lose? Take it.’
As a proud and patriotic French, I can’t let the murican brag about their (former) President without bragging about our former and current President whom happen to be a very good epidemiologist :
Today his profile rose even higher, as French President Emmanuel Macron traveled to Marseille to meet Raoult, a hospital director and researcher who led the two trials. Macron did not comment after the meeting, but the rendezvous, initiated by Macron, was a clear sign of Raoult’s newfound political clout. Jean-Paul Hamon, president of the Federation of Doctors of France, one of many scientists and doctors critical of the meeting, called it “showbiz politics.”
A survey released by French polling institute IFOP on 6 April revealed that 59% of the French population believes chloroquine is effective against the new coronavirus. Confidence in the drugs is higher on the far right and far left, and reached 80% among sympathizers of the “yellow vest” movement that staged massive protests against Macron’s economic policy in 2018 and 2019. Support is also very high, at 74%, in the Marseille region.
Karine Lacombe, head of infectious diseases at the Saint Antoine Hospital in Paris, has said on French TV that she and her team have received repeated “physical threats” for refusing to prescribe chloroquine; she said she has also seen many falsified prescriptions for the drug. Other doctors have reported similar experiences. The pressure comes on top of the stress caused by shortages of protective equipment, diagnostic tests, and medical staff.
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Macron is an excellent epidemiologist, he read a lot about it…
That’s more then all Vaccines COMBINED! Don’t let our Kids get Vaxxed! Hydrochloroquine them instead!
Reminds me of the parents who left their baby with the grandparents and the grandparents gave the baby ivermectin to ‘protect’ them from COVID.
Hospital couldn’t save the poor kid.
Donald Trump should be charged for those deaths. Sadly, it is unlikely that the families that took his advice would take out a class action. As to his comment about what have you got to lose? The court or any reasonable party simply has to read the patient information leaflet.
Donald Trump should be charged for those deaths.
To be fair, it’s not entirely his fault that those individuals made poor choices. Yet, his actions were pretty awful, especially considering that those who passed away probably supported him by voting
It’s always an interesting discussion when we raise the question of:
If people who are born with disabilities and intellectual impairments get special treatment, what is the threshold for being so stupid that you can’t be considered responsible for your actions (or be expected not to be manipulated or misled)?
There is a strong argument that people who aren’t that smart can’t really be held accountable for their actions, as its beyond their control.
This was actually an argument used in the criminal defense of some of the capitol rioters lol
I’m going to be that guy to say… The world is better off from it.
Nah, if it was only the stupid doing it to themselves that would be fine, but as someone on the medical field, you have no idea of how many cases I saw of little kids and elderly patients who were fed those pills by their loved ones.
It’s astonishing how much aoe dmg stupidity does.
One of my relatives did the same when I tested positive, even writing an rx for me and really pushing it. Never took any and this story makes me even more glad I didn’t listen to the facebook research
There’s always going to be innocent casualties. With the sheer stupidity these people possess, and the legality of them being able to breed- there is no way to avoid it.
the legality of them being able to breed
A eugenics comment? This isn’t r/antinatalism is it?
Many good people aren’t that savvy in all fields and have a peer pressure to try this and that, especially when disinformation is louder than truth. They can have good reasons like not making their fragile elderly ill, and there’s a gossiped ultimate cure to that. Can you blame them they choose it? They are a small part of that problem under the towering issue of grifters, fakes, conspiracies running amok.
Yeah. I can blame them. It’s 2024. We are so technology-ladened that a wealth of information is available to anyone with half a brain to look for it. There no excuse for ignorance anymore.
First Death came for dummies. but I didn’t care for I’m not one of them.
There are conditions making them so completely misguided, bigoted, stupid. And, in a sense, they’d die off eventually, like we all would. But these profitable institutes of misinformation wouldn’t, so there would be even more of them with each gen if you let them thrive.
Individual cells deformed by radiation carry a little weight over body disfunction. You can act like a leicocyte and fight them. But the source of radiation wouldn’t go away even if you slay all of them.
Agree to disagree.
🤝
I have nothing against a person facing almost certain death throwing everything at a problem. If someone would throw me off a cliff I would spend my last few moments trying to learn how to fly while offering prayers to every god I can think of. What I have problem with is people who don’t do what they are supposed to do.
The problem is that loudspeakers over their heads are screaming they should use X to be safe, and that they don’t need masks or whatever. Unpowering these loudspeakers can make a difference for many people, families.
I made a loaf of bread last night that tastes great but it is not the shape I want.
What’s you fav shape thoght?
I pity the children that died from this nonsense. As for the other ones, not so much.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Nearly 17,000 people may have died after taking hydroxycholoroquine during the first wave of COVID, according to a study by French researchers.
The anti-malaria drug was prescribed to some patients hospitalized with COVID-19 during the first wave of the pandemic, “despite the absence of evidence documenting its clinical benefits,” the researchers point out in their paper, published in the February issue of Biomedicine & Pharmacotherapy.
Now, researchers have estimated that some 16,990 people in six countries — France, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Turkey and the U.S. — may have died as a result.
Researchers from universities in Lyon, France, and Québec, Canada, used that figure to analyze hospitalization data for COVID in each of the six countries, exposure to hydroxychloroquine and the increase in the relative risk of death linked to the drug.
In fact, they say the figure may be far higher given the study only concerns six countries from March to July 2020, when the drug was prescribed much more widely.
Hydroxychloroquine gained prominence partly due to French virologist Didier Raoult who had headed the Méditerranée Infection Foundation hospital, but was later removed amid growing controversy.
The original article contains 260 words, the summary contains 187 words. Saved 28%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
“COULD HAVE”
I’m so sick of this sort of reporting. Too many “maybe”, “might have”, “could be”. it’s just fear mongering.
‘Could have’ is due to the range of potential estimates. The confidence interval was between 6420–20294 deaths.
Lol, I love it when people get all worked up and it turns out they are upset for idiotic reasons.
