While we still need more research on which drugs are the most effective in treating COVID-19, a recent study looking at records from the VA shows that there is no overall benefit from using hydroxychloroquine. It was actually linked to more deaths in patients that were treated with it alone than in combination with azithromycin. Chris Rowland, business of healthcare reporter at the Washington Post, joins us for why hydroxychloroquine might not be the most effective treatment.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's Friday a. I'm Oscar Ramirez from the Daily Dive
podcast in Los Angeles, and this is your daily coronavirus update. Well,
we still need more research on which drugs are the
most effective in treating COVID nineteen. A recent study looking
at records from the v A shows there's no overall
benefit from using hydroxy chloroquine. It was actually linked to
(00:21):
more debts and patients that were treated with it alone
than in combination with a zithromyacin. Chris Roland, business of
healthcare reporter at the Washington Post, joins us for why
hydroxy chloroquine might not be the most effective treatment. Thanks
for joining us, Chris, ay, sure, happy to be here.
I wanted to talk about some new research that came
out about hydroxy chloroquin that's the antimalarial drug that the
(00:44):
President had been touting that a lot of doctors and
hospitals have been prescribing, and there's been just a lot
of anecdotal stuff that we've heard about it. But we
have some research. Now this is not peer reviewed yet,
so there's still some more to be learned, but the
research says that there's no overall benefit of using hydroxy
chloroquine and there's actually more debts linked to it than
patients that weren't treated with it. This is coming out
(01:06):
of a study that was done by the v A.
Chris tell us a little bit about it. So this
is a study that basically bolsters the deep uncertainty there
is around use of hydroxy chloroquine and in combination with
a zethromycin as well and antibiotic in terms of both
efficacy and safety. There's only been some very small studies
(01:29):
and this is actually one of the first that had
a fairly large number of patients. And what they did
was they v A and academic researchers at the University
of Virginia and the University of South Carolina took a
look at patient records looking back, so it's called a
retrospective study, and they looked at the records of patients
(01:49):
at the v A who had been treated for coronavirus,
and they selected out a bunch that had been treated
with hydroxy chloroquine, a bunch that have been treated with
the combination of hydroxy clerquin and or zithromycin. And then
the third arm was patients who received neither of those drugs.
(02:09):
And what they found was that in the hydroxy cleric
win alone arm, there was like around a twenty seven
death rate of coronavirus patients compared to the ones that
had none of the drug, and their death rate was
around eleven, So the death rate was higher for the
hydroxy clorquin treated group. They also found that when it
(02:31):
came to ventilation, there was really no meaningful difference between
the arms, So this anti malarial did basically nothing in
terms of keeping people off ventilators. It's somewhat disappointing. I
mean this drugs have been used widely and again no
one knows whether they're safe and effective, and here we
have evidence that they're not, and it's toff. We're speeding
(02:52):
through the process on a lot of different levels here
because the pandemic hit so hard and so quick. So
that's why the President had been touting it and he's saying, hey,
people are having some success with it, go for it.
But we didn't have the studies done to really tell
us what was going on. That's why Dr Anthony Fauci
from the Task Force said, I can't endorse that thing
just yet. One interesting part of this study they looked
(03:15):
at all males, which is we've heard that COVID nineteen
hits males particularly hard. I don't know if there was
anything to that, is just all of the people that
were in this were male. This is not peer reviewed.
It's not a randomized, placebo controlled clinical trial, so it's
a little different from a full full on study. It's
kind of a quick and dirty way to try to
(03:35):
scoop up some data and see what the effects are
because you just go into the computer systems at your
disposal on an anonymous basis a bunch of patient records.
The reason it was all men, by the way, is
it's a v A where I guess the v A
population in general is mostly male. There were a small
number of women in their first past, and they just
left all the women out because it was so small
and so indeed, it's not compared to a placebo, which
(03:58):
is like a dummy drug just really the gold standard
of trying to figure out whether a drug works, because
so you can compare again and this one, you don't
know any any of these arms exactly how many of
those patients would have gotten better with or without the drugs,
So it's very difficult. It makes the comparison pretty murky.
But again it shows that the reason these drugs have
been used is because there is no treatment approved for coronavirus.
(04:22):
These drugs are on the market for malaria and also
for lupus and rheumatory arthritis, and they were readily available,
so people just started trying them based on some belief
that their anti inflammatory effects would have benefit, and it's
turning out that they may not. So I wanted to
talk a little bit more about hydroxy chloroquine, as you
(04:43):
mentioned earlier. I mean, all this points to just the
uncertainty of this. The study cautioned that we shouldn't be
using the so widespread until we know more about it.
There are some known side effects for using hydroxy chloroquine,
some cardiac death. There was a French study of Brazilian
study that both had problems with pay since developing heart problems.
And I guess there's something called QT prolongation which kind
(05:05):
of affects the timing of the heart. So these are
some of the things that have been popping up with
the use of this. The side effects of hydroxy cloroquine
are well known and alarmingly A zitromycin, which is the
antibodic that's been using combination also has the same side
effect of extending the period between your heart recharging, and
(05:25):
if your heart is recharging more than half a second,
it takes it more than half a second to recharge
each time before it beats, you're in a position where
you could have a dangerous arrhythmia, which could lead to
sudden cardiac death. It's a very serious, obviously dangerous side
effect that pops up in about one percent of patients
who take this drug, and it's manageable when you're dealing
(05:49):
with a small number of patients who take it, but
when potentially hundreds of thousands of people are starting to
take it or a million, then you're going to have
you know, as many as ten thousand people suffering areas
cardiac events and possibly dying. And that's why, you know,
the President came under a fair amount of criticism for
pushing these drugs so aggressively when there is this clear
(06:09):
side effect and the efficacy is really unknown against coronavirus.
We still need to know a lot more about the
virus itself and these drugs, but it just seems in
the meantime, like you know, we talk a lot about
underlying health conditions. It seems like people that have heart
conditions maybe shouldn't be taking this. We still need more
studies on it, but if these are some of the
problems that can develop, it seems like it might not
(06:31):
be the way to go. But we'll have to keep
seeing what else can be done with it. Christopher Roland,
business of healthcare reporter for The Washington Post, Thank you
very much for joining us. Thanks for having me on.
I'm Oscar Ramirez and this has been your daily coronavirus update.
Don't forget that. For today's big news stories, you can
check me out on the Daily Dive podcast every Monday
(06:52):
through Friday, so follow us on a heart radio or
wherever you get your podcast
It's Friday a. I'm Oscar Ramirez from the Daily Dive
podcast in Los Angeles, and this is your daily coronavirus update. Well,
we still need more research on which drugs are the
most effective in treating COVID nineteen. A recent study looking
at records from the v A shows there's no overall
benefit from using hydroxy chloroquine. It was actually linked to
(00:21):
more debts and patients that were treated with it alone
than in combination with a zithromyacin. Chris Roland, business of
healthcare reporter at the Washington Post, joins us for why
hydroxy chloroquine might not be the most effective treatment. Thanks
for joining us, Chris, ay, sure, happy to be here.
I wanted to talk about some new research that came
out about hydroxy chloroquin that's the antimalarial drug that the
(00:44):
President had been touting that a lot of doctors and
hospitals have been prescribing, and there's been just a lot
of anecdotal stuff that we've heard about it. But we
have some research. Now this is not peer reviewed yet,
so there's still some more to be learned, but the
research says that there's no overall benefit of using hydroxy
chloroquine and there's actually more debts linked to it than
patients that weren't treated with it. This is coming out
(01:06):
of a study that was done by the v A.
Chris tell us a little bit about it. So this
is a study that basically bolsters the deep uncertainty there
is around use of hydroxy chloroquine and in combination with
a zethromycin as well and antibiotic in terms of both
efficacy and safety. There's only been some very small studies
(01:29):
and this is actually one of the first that had
a fairly large number of patients. And what they did
was they v A and academic researchers at the University
of Virginia and the University of South Carolina took a
look at patient records looking back, so it's called a
retrospective study, and they looked at the records of patients
(01:49):
at the v A who had been treated for coronavirus,
and they selected out a bunch that had been treated
with hydroxy chloroquine, a bunch that have been treated with
the combination of hydroxy clerquin and or zithromycin. And then
the third arm was patients who received neither of those drugs.
(02:09):
And what they found was that in the hydroxy cleric
win alone arm, there was like around a twenty seven
death rate of coronavirus patients compared to the ones that
had none of the drug, and their death rate was
around eleven, So the death rate was higher for the
hydroxy clorquin treated group. They also found that when it
(02:31):
came to ventilation, there was really no meaningful difference between
the arms, So this anti malarial did basically nothing in
terms of keeping people off ventilators. It's somewhat disappointing. I
mean this drugs have been used widely and again no
one knows whether they're safe and effective, and here we
have evidence that they're not, and it's toff. We're speeding
(02:52):
through the process on a lot of different levels here
because the pandemic hit so hard and so quick. So
that's why the President had been touting it and he's saying, hey,
people are having some success with it, go for it.
But we didn't have the studies done to really tell
us what was going on. That's why Dr Anthony Fauci
from the Task Force said, I can't endorse that thing
just yet. One interesting part of this study they looked
(03:15):
at all males, which is we've heard that COVID nineteen
hits males particularly hard. I don't know if there was
anything to that, is just all of the people that
were in this were male. This is not peer reviewed.
It's not a randomized, placebo controlled clinical trial, so it's
a little different from a full full on study. It's
kind of a quick and dirty way to try to
(03:35):
scoop up some data and see what the effects are
because you just go into the computer systems at your
disposal on an anonymous basis a bunch of patient records.
The reason it was all men, by the way, is
it's a v A where I guess the v A
population in general is mostly male. There were a small
number of women in their first past, and they just
left all the women out because it was so small
and so indeed, it's not compared to a placebo, which
(03:58):
is like a dummy drug just really the gold standard
of trying to figure out whether a drug works, because
so you can compare again and this one, you don't
know any any of these arms exactly how many of
those patients would have gotten better with or without the drugs,
So it's very difficult. It makes the comparison pretty murky.
But again it shows that the reason these drugs have
been used is because there is no treatment approved for coronavirus.
(04:22):
These drugs are on the market for malaria and also
for lupus and rheumatory arthritis, and they were readily available,
so people just started trying them based on some belief
that their anti inflammatory effects would have benefit, and it's
turning out that they may not. So I wanted to
talk a little bit more about hydroxy chloroquine, as you
(04:43):
mentioned earlier. I mean, all this points to just the
uncertainty of this. The study cautioned that we shouldn't be
using the so widespread until we know more about it.
There are some known side effects for using hydroxy chloroquine,
some cardiac death. There was a French study of Brazilian
study that both had problems with pay since developing heart problems.
And I guess there's something called QT prolongation which kind
(05:05):
of affects the timing of the heart. So these are
some of the things that have been popping up with
the use of this. The side effects of hydroxy cloroquine
are well known and alarmingly A zitromycin, which is the
antibodic that's been using combination also has the same side
effect of extending the period between your heart recharging, and
(05:25):
if your heart is recharging more than half a second,
it takes it more than half a second to recharge
each time before it beats, you're in a position where
you could have a dangerous arrhythmia, which could lead to
sudden cardiac death. It's a very serious, obviously dangerous side
effect that pops up in about one percent of patients
who take this drug, and it's manageable when you're dealing
(05:49):
with a small number of patients who take it, but
when potentially hundreds of thousands of people are starting to
take it or a million, then you're going to have
you know, as many as ten thousand people suffering areas
cardiac events and possibly dying. And that's why, you know,
the President came under a fair amount of criticism for
pushing these drugs so aggressively when there is this clear
(06:09):
side effect and the efficacy is really unknown against coronavirus.
We still need to know a lot more about the
virus itself and these drugs, but it just seems in
the meantime, like you know, we talk a lot about
underlying health conditions. It seems like people that have heart
conditions maybe shouldn't be taking this. We still need more
studies on it, but if these are some of the
problems that can develop, it seems like it might not
(06:31):
be the way to go. But we'll have to keep
seeing what else can be done with it. Christopher Roland,
business of healthcare reporter for The Washington Post, Thank you
very much for joining us. Thanks for having me on.
I'm Oscar Ramirez and this has been your daily coronavirus update.
Don't forget that. For today's big news stories, you can
check me out on the Daily Dive podcast every Monday
(06:52):
through Friday, so follow us on a heart radio or
wherever you get your podcast
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