oldmanfan

Yes, using UV light to prevent exposure in spaces is logical and should be pursued. I’ve used UV lights in my lab for years to disinfect but as pointed out those applications are not compatible with having people in the room. Using UVC is a great idea. My previous comments were directed towards internal applications of UV light. While some have posted a couple companies thinking about that those applications have a long, long way to go to be considered. Again I serve on an FDA devices panel and the vast majority of such ideas do not get to approval. Not that they should not be considered but to point out the difficulties.

Thanks. I teach physiology and anatomy but I’m far from an expert in immunology. This helps.

Hope you’re right. There is some progress with convalescent serum from infected individuals but also some data on reinfection. So it’s kind of murky right now.

OP makes a good point. Data is needed on all fronts and then should be used to guide responsible decision making. That should be the role of each state health department which should then be collated by the CDC. Having good reliable numbers in not only medical but economic issues is critical. Accurate and more complete testing data is required right now both to determine the extent of the disease and through antibody testing knowing who has developed immunity. One of my fears is that the presence of antibodies may not equate to immunity, such as what is seen with HIV. If that is the case I’m concerned that could influence production of an effective vaccine.

No need to change. I know what I hear. I don’t need you to try and spin it. Thanks anyway.

You realize you are not the authority on what people hear and believe right? That’s key. Lab tests have to be validated for specificity and sensitivity, false positives/negatives.

I make my own judgments thanks.

Hope so too. Meet you in the football side tonight.

Well thank God you didn’t include the Cheatriots. I said people might interpret it that way. Keep spinning though.

Let’s try this one more time. I listened to everything said yesterday and formed my own opinion. Again, I LISTENED TO EVERY WORD. How exactly is that media spin. The person spinning is you.

I work in Reproductive medicine and of course that is nothing like the life and death of the viral pandemic. I can tell you what we do when we have patients where they have a poor prognosis or where we don’t have decent treatment options. We are honest about things. If we are going to use a treatment empirically we are very clear on that. If we think a treatment has a 1% chance of success say, we say that. This crisis is horrifically difficult for all involved, patients, caregivers, everyone. That is why I said above I get why the drug is being prescribed for compassionate care. If it were me I would just be very clear to patients that it’s being done without real data on it. Again it’s different but I’ve seen patients in my field told by other practitioners treatment X guaranteed things would work, when based on their situation it never had s chance. And I’ve seen the devastation when we have to tell them.

Nope. Dream on. You are the one who goes on and on about him using imprecise words and that apparently you alone have the divine guidance to discern his true meaning.

Depends on how many centers you can get. Ideally you want to do a double blinded placebo controlled study. You’d have to do careful matching of subjects and controls, matching things like age, gender, clinical symptoms (like only including patients on ventilators) etc. If you could get a number of centers together you could get it done pretty quickly given the prevalence of the disease. Maybe within a month of two. The real issue would be getting informed consent and buy in from patients to participate. Patients would probably not want to be in the control group. I don’t blame them. I get it. But by doing so it negates being able to show any real effect. We are watching and hearing his exact words.

It’s a benefit/risk thing. I know docs that prescribe and I know docs that don’t. It would be interesting to know what characteristics are for the patients in Boston. Are they prescribing early? Late? Everyone? Only young patients or old? The advantage of a good clinical trial is to eliminate variables that can confound results.

If in fact it did. Science. Docs are prescribing it based on compassionate care. I get that. And I hope it truly is a cure. But I also feel for patients who died or got significant side effects from the drug that may have fought it off without the drug.

Because some keep saying the drug saves people without any real data to support that conclusion.

I don’t know if the dosages given to malaria patients are the same as those that are being given to the current Covid patients. If they are the same you would presume side effects would be similar. But again malaria is a parasitic disease and corona is a viral disease. Different pathogens have different routes of infectivity so you cannot assume what works for one pathogen works for another.

I am a reviewer for several medical journals. I reject probably 80% of the articles I’m asked to review precisely because of flaws in study design.

At this point if the drug is effective we don't Know at what stage of the disease it is so. Taking your example, I suspect but of course don’t know that if you at the point where it is expected you would die (poor O2 data, etc.) it seems unlikely to reverse disease that is so far along. Looking at diseases where it is used it seems that the drug is used fairly early in in the disease progression or as a prophylactic treatment. So let’s say you have a patient early on in the disease, you give them the drug, they develop a significant side effect and die. Now you have lost a patient that may have been one of the majority that can fight off the infection with supportive care. Docs can give this drug based on compassionate reasons. But it doesn’t mean it’s effective. I hope the studies ultimately show it does.

Again it has been studied in that disease and dosages are understood. It has not been formally studied for this virus. Science people.

No. But I will argue that Vitamin D levels have anything to do with corona virus infectivity without some actual data. And by the way, hydroxychlroquine acts in known diseases by altering endosomal synthesis from the Golgi. in my conversations with a virologist colleague the conoavirus has its own proteins for this function thus the drug would not have much effect. It has been studied in lupus patients, yes? Effective dosages, side effects? Yes? That’s one of the problems with the current studies. We don’t know if the treatment and non-treatment arms are comparable.

I am independent politically. I see your point, I also saw the exact opposite in the previous administration with media from the right. We need better right now. From everyone.

Yes. Doctors can prescribe drugs off label.

Talk to their families.

The idea as I understand it is to alter endosomal function but it is not clear whether that affects corona virus infectivity. Also from my understanding it is not clear whether dosages used for know diseases where it has positive effects such as malaria and arthritis are similar. The cell biology of infectivity differs between parasites, bacteria and viruses. The side effects as you indicate are known, but can be significant. For example the cardiovascular ones. Some early observations now suggest clotting disorders in younger infected individuals which will need to be watched. i’d live For studies to show a true positive effect of the drug against Covid-19. But let’s get real data.