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Comment by throwawaysea | Hacker News Reader

Are they actually useless? I recall there was substantial controversy around studies not specifically pairing Hydroxychloroquine along with Zinc, which is needed for it to be effective. I think https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.02.20080036v... was one of the few studies that specifically incorporated zinc. Does anyone know where that line of scientific study ended up?

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FDA pulled emergency authorization after looking at all the studies.

Which turned out to be bogus (outright fraud, probably) and retracted days later. But the FDA hasn’t reversed...

what's the motive for fraudulently rejecting hydroxychloroquine here?

HCQ is generic and sells for less than $10. Newer treatments are often more than $1000.

Are you saying the FDA is corrupt? If so are you going to hold the president accountable as the leader of executive branch? Just curious.

Not the FDA, the organization which published the flawed study.

Vote by mail.

Nobody ever convincingly explained how it was supposed to act? And whether it would be effective on other sorts of coronavirus?

Yes they have, from the onset. It was only considered BECAUSE there was a plausible mechanism.

HCQ is able to transport zinc ions across cell boundaries, which is critical to getting zinc bioavailable within a cell. Zinc disrupts the viral RNA copying which is part of the replication process. So zinc + HCQ should slow down the progression of the disease by decreasing viral load.

Notably most studies did not pair HCQ with zinc, and most focused on near-terminal patients for which slowing down viral replication would be too little, too late.

Here are studies of HCQ + zinc success for early treatment, https://docs.google.com/document/d/1O6Cls-Oz2ZAgJuyDbnICEGjM...

If I get Covid19 I plan to request that treatment. I'll doctor shop if need be. OTOH I think I already had it back in early March, but nobody really wants to test for it.

It's also been used as a prophylactic by healthcare workers. Half-life in body is weeks.

Nobody will give you an antibody test? Do you live near a city?

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