Doctors defend promising new hydroxychloroquine study, say key for success is early treatment

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A peer-reviewed study conducted by the Henry Ford Health System, a non-profit health care organization that provides healthcare services throughout the Detroit metropolitan area, found that the use of hydroxychloroquine to treat coronavirus patients coincided with a “significant” reduction in the coronavirus death rate.

“In a large-scale retrospective analysis of 2,541 patients hospitalized between March 10 and May 2, 2020 across the system’s six hospitals, the study found 13% of those treated with hydroxychloroquine alone died compared to 26.4% not treated with hydroxychloroquine,” HFHS announced in a statement Thursday.

The study found less conclusive results regarding the use of azithromycin.

“The analysis found 22.4% of those treated only with azithromycin died, and 20.1% treated with a combination of azithromycin and hydroxychloroquine died, compared to 26.4% of patients dying who were not treated with either medication,” HFHS reported.

The overall conclusion is clear, according to neurosurgeon Dr. Steven Kalkanis, the CEO of the Henry Ford Medical Group and senior vice president and chief academic officer of the Henry Ford Health System.

“Our analysis shows that using hydroxychloroquine helped saves lives. As doctors and scientists, we look to the data for insight. And the data here is clear that there was benefit to using the drug as a treatment for sick, hospitalized patients,” he said in a statement.

A copy of the study’s full results may be viewed below:

Henry Ford Health System hy… by V Saxena on Scribd

The study has stirred controversy because its results differ sharply with the results of previous studies suggesting that the use of hydroxychloroquine provides no benefit and increases the risk of patients suffering heart-related.

Dr. Marcus Zervos, one of two Henry Ford Health System doctors who authored the study, addressed this discrepancy in a statement.

We attribute our findings that differ from other studies to early treatment, and part of a combination of interventions that were done in supportive care of patients, including careful cardiac monitoring,” he said.

Our dosing also differed from other studies not showing a benefit of the drug. And other studies are either not peer reviewed, have limited numbers of patients, different patient populations or other differences from our patients.”

He continued, “We’re glad to add to the scientific knowledge base on the role and how best to use therapies as we work around the world to provide insight,” he said. “Considered in the context of current studies on the use of hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19, our results suggest that the drug may have an important role to play in reducing COVID-19 mortality.”

Indeed.

(Source: SharylAttkisson.com)

During a press conference Thursday, he reportedly reiterated that, unlike in prior studies, the team at Henry Ford Health System had pursued early treatment.

“Our results do differ from some other studies. What we think was important in our study, in our patients, is that patients were treated early. For hydroxychloroquine to have a benefit, it needs to begin before the patients begin to suffer some of the severe immune reactions that patients can have with Covid,” he reportedly said.

The use of hydroxychloroquine to treat coronavirus patients was spotlighted by Democrats and the media earlier this past spring after President Donald Trump began promoting it — and even briefly using it — as a potential coronavirus treatment.

Their assessment and coverage of the potential coronavirus miracle drug was entirely negative, with every leading political figure and left-wing media talking head excoriating the president for allegedly endangering the lives of the American people.

They justified their fierce criticisms by citing a bogus, since-retracted study that had been published both in The Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine.

This same bogus study was also used to justify suspending numerous hydroxychloroquine trials and issuing a ban on its use:

It’s not clear how many coronavirus patients worldwide may have died solely because they were prohibited from being treated by hydroxychloroquine.

What’s clear is that “lives were lost,” period, as stated by Dr. Steven Hatfill, a biomedical scientist who’d previously worked on Ebola and currently studies pandemic responses and medicine.

Both he and cardiologist Dr. William O’Neill, a medical director at the Henry Ford Health System, spoke with investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson in May.

“Now people are scared to use the drug without any scientifically valid concern. We’ve talked with our colleagues at the University of Minnesota who are doing a similar study, and at the University of Washington. We’ve treated 400 patients and haven’t seen a single adverse event,” O’Neill noted, referring to all the anti-hydroxychloroquine propaganda that was being pushed by the left.

And what’s happening is because of this fake news and fake science, the true scientific efforts are being harmed because people now are so worried that they don’t want to enroll in the trials.

Watch the full discussion below:

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Vivek Saxena

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