- The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons wrote a letter to Arizona Governor Doug Ducey urging wider use of hydroxychloroquine to treat covid
- They claim that data on 2,333 coronavirus patients reveals the drug helped 91% of patients recover
- Their data is mostly taken from observations of various doctors, many of whom - including Dr Oz - report treating only one or two patients
- Dr Anthony Fauci has advised caution in using hydroxychloroquine until clinical trials provide more data
- FDA issued a warning against using hydroxychloroquine outside hospitals due to its potential to cause heart arrhythmias in some patients
- Hydroxychloroquine has shown promise in labs and anecdotal reports, but a VA study found more patients treated with it died than those given standard care
- AAPS dismisses these results, arguing the veterans involved were very sick and their outcomes were not representative
- Here’s how to help people impacted by Covid-19
The malaria drug hydroxychloroquine has improved the survival and recovery odds for about 90 percent of patients treated with the controversial medication, a physicians group claims.
The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) presented data on 2,333 patients treated with hydroxychloroquine - including two supervised by Dr Oz - across the globe that shows 91.6 percent of those who got the drug fared better after treatment.
In a letter to Arizona Governor Doug Ducey, the group urged that doctors should not wait for results of gold standard tests of the drug to start using it in coronavirus patients and should instead base their use of it on reasonable interpretations of limited available data.
AAPS's endorsement of the drug comes after a Veteran Affairs study of hydroxychloroquine found that those who took the drug were more likely to die, casting doubt over the potential treatment that President Trump has hailed a 'game changer.'
The group of doctors dismissed those preliminary results, claiming that the 52 people who died were very sick, meaning their outcomes are 'not indicative' of hydroxychloroquine's effects and that the drug would work better if used in patients with less critical illness.
The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons claimed in a letter to Arizona's governor that hydroxychloroquine was more than 90% effective at treating more than 2,000 coronavirus patients - but their data is little more than a collection of anecdotal reports, including two patients treated by Dr Oz, and one report on a former NFL player.
Waiting for fixed randomized controlled trials during a pandemic when time is of the essence, a Bayesian approach to the assessment of diagnostic and therapeutic probabilities is wise and efficient and will save time, money and lives if the physicians are given a chance to retain their autonomy and practice medicine to the best of their abilities,' the group writes.
The Bayesian method, referred to multiple times throughout their letter is a statistical approach in which probabilities are assessed on a rolling basis, and a reasonable expectation is inferred based on the data at-hand.
In other words, the group says doctors shouldn't wait for a large body of data to draw conclusions about whether or not hydroxychloroquine works and is safe, but assume that it is based on databases like theirs, which it says is regularly updated.
