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Oh please, both drugs are in wide circulation taken by millions. Only bad side effect seems to possible arrhythmia complications. Can you post some cites where patients have died from a short course of these drugs?
It's easy to pontificate from your couch. DR Faoult is risking his life every day treating coronavirus patients, doing what he thinks best based on considerable experience and expertise. That's admirable.
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Let's start by getting his name right. It is Raoult not Faoult. And I have not criticized anything about his being in the trenches. Although I am not really sure he is in the trenches or not. I suspect he is in his office while those he employs are in the trenches. Do you want to know that he has been found to have submitted false data for publication? Do you know that he was banned from publishing for a period because of his sloppy work?
Chloroquine genius Didier Raoult to save the world from COVID-19 – For Better Science
I don't know how true all these allegations are, but there sure is a lot of smoke.
On the other hand he is one of the most recognized and honored persons in his field in Europe. He or his institution has published 2300 papers.
Didier Raoult - Wikipedia
He is a man who knows how to do a proper study for the advancement of medicine. He is not some local GP who is seeing his patients at the bedside and just trying something as a last resort.
Any attempt to paint Raoult as some Albert Schweitzer ministering to his critically ill patients simply fails. Saying he couldn't have his team of 200 do a placebo controlled study ignores his history of publishing huge numbers of papers and his being well aware of what kind of data was needed for his work to be accepted.
Here is a quote from Dr Raoult that may give some insight into his character.
"In my field, I am a star, worldwide," Raoult told the La Provence newspaper in France. "I don't give a damn what others think. I am not an outsider. I'm streaks ahead of the others."
As to your request I produce evidence of harm, if you read the papers you will see that Raoult excluded patients with cardiac risk factors. Why? Because he knows that both of these drugs but especially hydroxychloroquine can induce fatal events.
Here is a citation for you, the
package insert for Plaquenil wherein it warns of sudden cardiac death.
And
here is one for you on the risk of the same cardiac fatal events with azithromycin
Of course when you combine two meds both of which have known risks of cardiac events the potential to kill patients increases. And if the drug is useless, then any risk is unacceptable. Yes, I saw you knew that cardiac events could happen. I don't understand why you minimize that risk. And of course patients have died from this fatal rhythm disturbance. Otherwise that wouldn't be a known risk of the meds Sudden death
A small
Chinese randomized study showed no benefit to using HCQ in 30 patients. The burden on Raoult is to prove the benefit outweighs the risk. I expect we will have good studies available within two weeks. I hope he is right.