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16 minutes ago, BIG BILL FAN said:

STOP LYING! Here are facts:

Jan 11 - First reported Wuhan Death

Jan 20 - First recorded case in the United States 

Jan 30 - WHO declares world health emergency 

Jan 31- President Trump restricts travel from China despite wide spread criticism from Democrats.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/article/coronavirus-timeline.amp.html

Here are some more facts:

Trump held rallies on Jan 9, Jan 14, Jan 28, Jan 30, Feb 10, Feb 19, Feb 20, Feb 21, Feb 28, Mar 2

Trump golfed on Jan 18, Jan 19, Feb 1, Feb 2, Feb 15, Mar 7, Mar 8

 

 

 

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37 minutes ago, rgbilliken said:

I have worked extensively with the private sector and the FDA getting multiple drugs approved. We are regularly audited by the FDA for our work in pharmaceuticals. I am very familiar with Phase I, II, and III of drug approval and have worked on drugs in all three of those phases, including preclinical. You do not need to explain this to me.

The fact that the FDA approved the drug for another use means that it is (1) effective for the approved use and (2) safe for the intended use. I am not saying that the drugs in the study you cited will not work. I am familiar with off-label prescription of drugs that have been approved for one use but are prescribed for another use. I merely stated that the results are promising, but I remain skeptical until further studies confirm.

See the source image 

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44 minutes ago, rgbilliken said:

I have worked extensively with the private sector and the FDA getting multiple drugs approved. We are regularly audited by the FDA for our work in pharmaceuticals. I am very familiar with Phase I, II, and III of drug approval and have worked on drugs in all three of those phases, including preclinical. You do not need to explain this to me.

The fact that the FDA approved the drug for another use means that it is (1) effective for the approved use and (2) safe for the intended use. I am not saying that the drugs in the study you cited will not work. I am familiar with off-label prescription of drugs that have been approved for one use but are prescribed for another use. I merely stated that the results are promising, but I remain skeptical until further studies confirm.

You are not fun to mansplain to. 

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19 minutes ago, moytoy12 said:

Now do the month of February.  

And interestingly, Trump wants credit for the travel restriction he applied in January, but impeachment was too consuming for the administration/Congress to take action.  Unfortunately, can't have it both ways. 

so are you admitting that it was a lie to say he had his head buried in the sand when this first became a problem in our country??? it seems like the one who wants it both ways is you and other haters...there isn't an ounce of objectivity to your analysis..... today, we get news that the malaria drug treatments are showing positive results, based in part because of the President's push to investigate them, and yet the same posters still attack him????? it would be nice if people would actually get behind our President...but we all know that isn't going to happen....

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2 hours ago, rgbilliken said:

I have worked extensively with the private sector and the FDA getting multiple drugs approved. We are regularly audited by the FDA for our work in pharmaceuticals. I am very familiar with Phase I, II, and III of drug approval and have worked on drugs in all three of those phases, including preclinical. You do not need to explain this to me.

The fact that the FDA approved the drug for another use means that it is (1) effective for the approved use and (2) safe for the intended use. I am not saying that the drugs in the study you cited will not work. I am familiar with off-label prescription of drugs that have been approved for one use but are prescribed for another use. I merely stated that the results are promising, but I remain skeptical until further studies confirm.

I am glad you agree the  toxicity issues are taken care of already and what you are skeptical about is whether or not the drug will be effective for  this use. All I can tell you, is that the FDA gave it a fast track approval for this use and that is beyond your level. It was the FDA that is responsible for approving it for this use, not you. You are free to be as skeptical as you wish.

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5 hours ago, Old guy said:

Well guys and gilrs, not all is dark and threatening in this world. I just got a copy of an article to be published by Elsenvier, which, despite its small size, shows a good reduction of the virus load in Covid-19 patients treated with Hydroxychloroquine. They also tested combination therapy with Hydroxychloroquine and Azithromycin (a commonly use URI antibiotic derived from Erythromycin) that shows a much greater reduction of the viral load in these patients. The link to the article's PDF is here:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0924857920300996

The central concept is (as is the case in most infections) that the lower the viral load the body has to fight, the easier it is for the body to bring it under control and heal. This is good enough to treat people actively with this combination of meds and should help reduce the death toll significantly. This is a real study with controls, and even if it is small it is a proper study with very good results.

There is light out coming into the tunnel for a change, we MAY be coming close to the other end. As a word of caution, there are patients that arrive for care in a very advanced stage, many of these patients may die despite all therapeutic intervention attempted.

Do not pop the bubbly yet, but it might be nice if you put your bottle in the fridge. We may be getting closer to controlling this bug. Again this here is a proper study with very promising results. Remember there are no guarantees in health care, people die despite all attempts to achieve the opposite outcome. However, this looks good, at least to me, as of now.

AnkielBreakers. This is a nice attempt, based upon your estimates and compromises of data picked from a field full of unknowns. You may or may not be correct, but this will depend upon a large number of factors. When it is all said and  done, the total of  dead bodies counted and confirmed to have died of this disease will tell the real story. You all know my estimate. The article linked above may help in keeping the death toll a lot lower than that. It is  wait and see now.

Forgive me for being a lowly medical professional in training, but isn't the point of interpreting results like this to show that they are purely observational? Unless you randomize the study and placebo control it, then you haven't proven really much of anything in the way of causality, especially in such a small sample size. The power of the study is extremely low. I would argue that a study like this is pretty much useless, and that is what the majority of experts (including Fauci) have said as well. .

This is akin to people saying "ah look, the majority of people (in a study of ~20 people) who took azithromycin while they had a URI got better, therefore azithromycin must treat most URI's!" But we know that the majority of people with URI's have a virus and get better without any treatment, and that antibiotics do nothing to treat viruses. But a purely surface level analysis would draw the first conclusion. Which is basically what people are doing with the anecdotal evidence from the hydroxycloroquine/azithromycin study. It would be like giving all of those same patients water, observing improvement, and then concluding that it was the water that effectively treated them...

There needs to be much larger studies before any of the conclusions from that particular study can be drawn. 

And to people who say "what's the harm?" in speeding things up and just giving it to anyone before any randomized, large scale studies are conducted, I would suggest that the clinicians first and foremost responsibility is to "do no harm." 

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2 hours ago, rgbilliken said:

To be honest, I am not a virology expert (I work on pharmaceuticals and don’t have expertise in infectious disease or microbiology) so take my answers with a grain of salt. I do work alongside virology experts; the company I work at actually helped develop a test that detects COVID-19 in 45 min and requires minimal microbiology skill.

1&2- equipment was preexisting to ID the virus, but rapid testing needed to be developed. 
3-Rapid sequencing is indeed the new normal. Pretty cool. We have a DNA sequencer on-site but I don’t think it is that advanced. 
 

EDIT: when I tested the link above after posting, it didn’t work and kept sending me back to Billikens.com. The below might work?

  https://www.biomerieux.com/en/biomerieux-receives-emergency-use-authorization-biofirer-covid-19-test 

-thank you

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7 minutes ago, Old guy said:

I am glad you agree the  toxicity issues are taken care of already and what you are skeptical about is whether or not the drug will be effective for  this use. All I can tell you, is that the FDA gave it a fast track approval for this use and that is beyond your level. It is the FDA that is responsible for approving it for this use, not you. You are free to be as skeptical as you wish.

I would think if the prognosis is grim and there are no alternatives trying drugs that are deemed safe but not proven effective would certainly be worth a try. even if positive results at this time are only anecdotal

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13 minutes ago, BIG BILL FAN said:

so are you admitting that it was a lie to say he had his head buried in the sand when this first became a problem in our country??? it seems like the one who wants it both ways is you and other haters...there isn't an ounce of objectivity to your analysis..... today, we get news that the malaria drug treatments are showing positive results, based in part because of the President's push to investigate them, and yet the same posters still attack him????? it would be nice if people would actually get behind our President...but we all know that isn't going to happen....

He's an ass that's one reason. I'll take a wild guess you were behind the last president who saved us from economy ruined by the last republican who tanked the countries economy.

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7 minutes ago, Spoon-Balls said:

Forgive me for being a lowly medical professional in training, but isn't the point of interpreting results like this to show that they are purely observational? Unless you randomize the study and placebo control it, then you haven't proven really much of anything in the way of causality, especially in such a small sample size. The power of the study is extremely low. I would argue that a study like this is pretty much useless, and that is what the majority of experts (including Fauci) have said as well. 

This is akin to people saying "ah look, the majority of people (in a study of ~20 people) who took azithromycin while they had a URI got better, therefore azithromycin must treat most URI's!" But we know that the majority of people with URI's have a virus and get better without any treatment, and that antibiotics do nothing to treat viruses. But a purely surface level analysis would draw the first conclusion. Which is basically what people are doing with the anecdotal evidence from the hydroxycloroquine/azithromycin study. 

There needs to be much larger studies before any of the conclusions from that particular study can be drawn. 

And to people who suggest that "what's the harm?" in speeding things up and just giving it to anyone before any randomized, large scale studies are conducted, I would suggest that the clinicians first and foremost responsibility is to "do no harm." 

Did you read the study? Did it make sense to you? Were controls used in this study? How much of clinical research is, as you call it, "purely observational"? Do you realize that the intent of this brief study is totally unrelated to getting initial approval for use from the FDA? Do you realize that a fast track approval by the FDA was already granted for this use? There is no  need to establish all of the parameters you are talking about when all they are looking for is viral load levels. Did the viral load levels go down? Does this mean anything to you in terms of clinical response? Do you need to establish causality for this particular use? What specific kind of causality? Are you referring to a determination the actual interaction mechanism between the drug and the pathogen in this case? Some genome studies may be controlled to the nth degree, but not clinical studies dealing with active disease. Do you realize that complete 100% safety regarding the use of medicines cannot ever be established? Do  you think the function of an MD is to read research papers and order drugs without ever seeing or checking patients?  Why do MDs check patients regularly while in the hospital? Why are some patients hospitalized and others are not? Is the decision between hospitalization and outpatient therapy established according to rigid and fully defined rules?

What is your current level (how far along are you) as a "lowly medical professional in training"?

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1 hour ago, BIG BILL FAN said:

so are you admitting that it was a lie to say he had his head buried in the sand when this first became a problem in our country??? it seems like the one who wants it both ways is you and other haters...there isn't an ounce of objectivity to your analysis..... today, we get news that the malaria drug treatments are showing positive results, based in part because of the President's push to investigate them, and yet the same posters still attack him????? it would be nice if people would actually get behind our President...but we all know that isn't going to happen....

Dude. The president literally said the coronavirus outbreak was a Democrat hoax in late February, a month after the dates you posted earlier. 

I don't quite care who you vote/don't vote for. I hope for good leadership so that people are healthy and things are solved soon. At this point you just look silly though. 

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12 minutes ago, disgruntledbilliken said:

Dude. The president literally said the coronavirus outbreak was a Democrat hoax in late February, a month after the dates you posted earlier. 

I don't quite care who you vote/don't vote for. I hope for good leadership so that people are healthy and things are solved soon. At this point you just look silly though. 

 

12 minutes ago, disgruntledbilliken said:

Dude. The president literally said the coronavirus outbreak was a Democrat hoax in late February, a month after the dates you posted earlier. 

I don't quite care who you vote/don't vote for. I hope for good leadership so that people are healthy and things are solved soon. At this point you just look silly though. 

DUDE, THAT IS A FLAT OUT LIE!!!! HE NEVER SAID THE VIRUS WAS A HOAX, HE WAS TALKING ABOUT THE DEMOCRAT'S REACTION!!!!! why won't some of you leftists correct your brother's lies???? this is exactly what the President has been fighting since his election.....

 

A Washington Post reporter has apologized for and deleted a tweet in which she falsely claimed President Trump called the coronavirus a "hoax" during a recent campaign rally.

 

"My apologies for quoting the president out of context," said Amber Phillips, a reporter for the Post's "The Fix" political blogging team. "As The Washington Post’s Fact Checker makes clear, he called Democrats politicizing coronavirus a hoax. I have deleted the incorrect tweet."

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9 minutes ago, BIG BILL FAN said:

 

DUDE, THAT IS A FLAT OUT LIE!!!! HE NEVER SAID THE VIRUS WAS A HOAX, HE WAS TALKING ABOUT THE MEDIA'S REACTION!!!!! why won't some of you leftists correct your brother's lies???? this is exactly what the President has been fighting since his election.....

He seemed to be talking about perceived political weaponization of the coronavirus by Democrats, to wit, he felt Dems were unjustifiably criticizing the administration for its response to the virus.  The criticism was the "hoax". 

The President also severely downplayed the danger of the virus in the same speech/rally, which occurred at the end of Feb. 

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5 minutes ago, BIG BILL FAN said:

 

DUDE, THAT IS A FLAT OUT LIE!!!! HE NEVER SAID THE VIRUS WAS A HOAX, HE WAS TALKING ABOUT THE DEMOCRAT'S REACTION!!!!! why won't some of you leftists correct your brother's lies???? this is exactly what the President has been fighting since his election.....

 

A Washington Post reporter has apologized for and deleted a tweet in which she falsely claimed President Trump called the coronavirus a "hoax" during a recent campaign rally.

 

"My apologies for quoting the president out of context," said Amber Phillips, a reporter for the Post's "The Fix" political blogging team. "As The Washington Post’s Fact Checker makes clear, he called Democrats politicizing coronavirus a hoax. I have deleted the incorrect tweet."

So, just to get things straight, you, old guy, and Roy all are arguing simply that the media reaction to the Coronavirus is overblown. I keep seeing the comparison to the Flu, which was used by POTUS to deflect the media frenzy in late February or early March. At this time, we have some rationale prognosticators who are specifically stating that the death toll on this virus could exceed 80,000 before May. Which would substantially exceed the Flu. We also know that the death toll will likely be much higher in the Fall and next Spring. Do you actually need to see the deaths to admit that maybe the media was not overreacting? 
 

Also, if you want to defend the POTUS, you would be better off trying to rationalize his response. Such as, he was just trying to keep the populace calm before we get hit by an asteroid. I don’t think it is rationale to act like he has done a terrific job. You basically have to just hang your hat on the idea that it was someone else’s fault (Like the CDC, etc.) or that it was completely unavoidable. That said, it feels like a pretty weak argument from my perspective.

https://covid19.healthdata.org/projections

 

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26 minutes ago, BIG BILL FAN said:

 

DUDE, THAT IS A FLAT OUT LIE!!!! HE NEVER SAID THE VIRUS WAS A HOAX, HE WAS TALKING ABOUT THE DEMOCRAT'S REACTION!!!!! why won't some of you leftists correct your brother's lies???? this is exactly what the President has been fighting since his election.....

 

A Washington Post reporter has apologized for and deleted a tweet in which she falsely claimed President Trump called the coronavirus a "hoax" during a recent campaign rally.

 

"My apologies for quoting the president out of context," said Amber Phillips, a reporter for the Post's "The Fix" political blogging team. "As The Washington Post’s Fact Checker makes clear, he called Democrats politicizing coronavirus a hoax. I have deleted the incorrect tweet."

Yes, you are right. I was not precise enough in my words. 

Let's try this again. Here is my more precise and corrected post:

"Dude. The president literally said the reaction to the coronavirus outbreak was a Democrat hoax in late February, a month after the dates you posted earlier. 

I don't quite care who you vote/don't vote for. I hope for good leadership so that people are healthy and things are solved soon. At this point you just look silly though."

Mmh. Doesn't make it any better. 

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11 minutes ago, disgruntledbilliken said:

Yes, you are right. I was not precise enough in my words. 

Let's try this again. Here is my more precise and corrected post:

"Dude. The president literally said the reaction to the coronavirus outbreak was a Democrat hoax in late February, a month after the dates you posted earlier. 

I don't quite care who you vote/don't vote for. I hope for good leadership so that people are healthy and things are solved soon. At this point you just look silly though."

Mmh. Doesn't make it any better. 

well then we are in agreement since president trump is the greatest president since Lincoln.

MAGA 2020

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52 minutes ago, Old guy said:

Did you read the study? Did it make sense to you? Were controls used in this study? How much of clinical research is, as you call it, "purely observational"? Do you realize that the intent of this brief study is totally unrelated to getting initial approval for use from the FDA? Do you realize that a fast track approval by the FDA was already granted for this use? There is no  need to establish all of the parameters you are talking about when all they are looking for is viral load levels. Did the viral load levels go down? Does this mean anything to you in terms of clinical response? Do you need to establish causality for this particular use? What specific kind of causality? Are you referring to a determination the actual interaction mechanism between the drug and the pathogen in this case? Some genome studies may be controlled to the nth degree, but not clinical studies dealing with active disease. Do you realize that complete 100% safety regarding the use of medicines cannot ever be established? Do  you think the function of an MD is to read research papers and order drugs without ever seeing or checking patients?  Why do MDs check patients regularly while in the hospital? Why are some patients hospitalized and others are not? Is the decision between hospitalization and outpatient therapy established according to rigid and fully defined rules?

What is your current level (how far along are you) as a "lowly medical professional in training"?

Earning my M.D. in 1.5 months. I obviously don't claim to be any sort of expert at this point as I have a long road still ahead of me. I can only synthesize what I have read and learned about the coronavirus and the potential treatments that may be available in the near or longterm future. 

Yes, I do "realize" all of the things you posit, as they're all common sense principles. That being said, I'm not the only one skeptical of Dr. Raoult, his methods, or him as a researcher in general. There's a reason this guy is getting propped up by conspiracy theorists all over the web.  Everything in the study made sense to me, especially with regards as to why it is a terrible study.

https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/03/29/more-on-cloroquine-azithromycin-and-on-dr-raoult

 

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1 hour ago, dennis_w said:

I would think if the prognosis is grim and there are no alternatives trying drugs that are deemed safe but not proven effective would certainly be worth a try. even if positive results at this time are only anecdotal

My understanding is that this is exactly the FDA’s line of thinking. They are not saying that the drugs cited have been proven effective against COVID-19. They see approval for COVID-19 treatment as a low-risk/high-reward option. So they’re saying we’ve already determined these drugs are safe; go ahead and prescribe them for COVID-19 because if it works it will be worth it.

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3 minutes ago, rgbilliken said:

 

My understanding is that this is exactly the FDA’s line of thinking. They are not saying that the drugs cited have been proven effective against COVID-19. They see approval for COVID-19 treatment as a low-risk/high-reward option. So they’re saying we’ve already determined these drugs are safe; go ahead and prescribe them for COVID-19 because if it works it will be worth it.

exactly, correct

 

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1 minute ago, Spoon-Balls said:

Earning my M.D. in 1.5 months. I obviously don't claim to be any sort of expert at this point as I have a long road still ahead of me.

Yes, I do "realize" all of the things you posit, as they're all common sense principles. That being said, I'm not the only one skeptical of Dr. Raoult, his methods, or him as a researcher in general. There's a reason this guy is getting propped up by conspiracy theorists all over the web.  Everything in the study made sense to me, especially with regards as to why it is a terrible study.

https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/03/29/more-on-cloroquine-azithromycin-and-on-dr-raoult

 

Lordy! you are full of yourself are you. Tell me please, not yet MD, what branch of medicine are you going into? Of course with the graduation coming soon, you are already  accepted to  some kind of residency program, correct? What is your choice of medical branches or specialties if you prefer?

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5 minutes ago, rgbilliken said:

 

My understanding is that this is exactly the FDA’s line of thinking. They are not saying that the drugs cited have been proven effective against COVID-19. They see approval for COVID-19 treatment as a low-risk/high-reward option. So they’re saying we’ve already determined these drugs are safe; go ahead and prescribe them for COVID-19 because if it works it will be worth it.

Now, rgbilliken you are a chemist and a pharmaceutical researcher. Are you also an interpreter of the FDA thinking and intention rationales, or do you have a statement from the FDA saying what you just said?

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2 minutes ago, Old guy said:

Now, rgbilliken you are a chemist and a pharmaceutical researcher. Are you also an interpreter of the FDA thinking and intention rationales, or do you have a statement from the FDA saying what you just said?

FDA statement linked below. 
 

https://www.fda.gov/media/136534/download

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