Has the AMA Rescinded Its Guidance Against Prescribing Hydroxychloroquine?

No.

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The past few days have seen Rush Limbaugh and other pro-Trump media-entertainment figures claim that the American Medical Association has walked back its guidance against prescribing hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine to treat coronavirus. Limbaugh stated that the AMA has given “physicians the okay to return to utilizing the medication at their discretion.”

The AMA says otherwise, taking to Twitter to state that their stance on hydroxychloroquine “ remains unchanged.”

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  1. rob

    It is shocking the degree to which the AMA puts peoples lives at risk to make a political point.

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      Dave

      There’s no evidence that they pointed to multiple tests that showed HCQ was not a reliable treatment based on politics. Moreover, when one recognizes the *mechanism* of how HCQ works on malaria, it makes sense that it would not be a reliable treatment for COVID.

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      Tom B.

      You're missing your sarcasm tags.

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      1. rob

        I recommend looking up Dr Chris Martenson. He was actually way ahead of the MSM on covid by a month and a half (his first covid video was January 24th I believe... I got a cold mid January from a coworker returning from asia and I started following what was going on in wuhan at that time). But I trust his opinions and there is some shady stuff going on.

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          Adam Bridge

          Become some random doctor says what The Liar In Chief says you're all for it? Speaking of political points you seem to have the corner on this one.

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          1. rob

            I am certainly not against a treatment that is widely used throughout the world, is well known and has been used for decades, has few side effects, and is extremely cheap because.... well I have never actually heard anyone give a good reason why this shouldn't be used as a treatment. The only reason I have ever heard is that *trump is a liar*. Very Very Petty stuff.

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        2. Jess

          Gold standard randomized clinical trial showed no benefit to hydroxychloroquine:
          https://www.recoverytrial.net/news/statement-from-the-chief-investigators-of-the-randomised-evaluation-of-covid-19-therapy-recovery-trial-on-hydroxychloroquine-5-june-2020-no-clinical-benefit-from-use-of-hydroxychloroquine-in-hospitalised-patients-with-covid-19

          There’s no particular reason why a malaria drug would work on a novel virus anyway. Not sure how the idea gained so much traction. Malaria is a parasitic disease, not a virus.

          If HCQ did work, doctors would be all for it. They want to save lives. They were so desperate to save lives that some tried HCQ in the beginning, but once they studied the data from the Recovery trial, they stopped.

          What really does work—75% effective at preventing hospitalization—is the monoclonal antibodies which were developed specifically for this virus (by Eli Lilly and Regeneron). They infuse you with the antibodies that your body would have made if you were vaccinated.

          Note what Trump got when he got Covid, and what he ordered for Christie, Carson and Giuliani.

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          1. rob

            Hydroxychloroquine interferes with the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein which is one of the main ways that it spreads throughout the body. It has been used as a treatment in France, Russia, Ecuador, India and many other countries and MANY doctors will prescribe you Hydroxychloroquine for covid in this country only they have to do it under the table. Hydroxychloroquine was used as a treatment for SARS in the original outbreak. Hydroxychloroquine is also very widely used for malaria and almost never causes problems. Finally it is extremely cheap (probably why so many *other* countries have used so widely to treat covid 19.
            Anti-body treatment is *probably* more effective. It is also more expensive and newer so it could have more unknown side effects.
            The misinformation put out about HCQ is crazy that you did not know that there was even *any reason to think that it would work against a virus*.
            As a nation we need to reflect about why this misinformation is out there and what we can do about it.

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            Tom B.

            Very much so. And it's not just a single randomized controlled trial that showed no benefit from treating COVID-19 with hydroxychloroquine.

            Here is a slide from Dr. F. Perry Wilson from August summarizing the randomized controlled trials (RCTs) on hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19 (line 1 is the really small, non-randomized, uncontrolled trial in France that got so many people talking about the drug in combo with azithromycin).

            https://twitter.com/fperrywilson/status/1291072016121049091/photo/1

            Summary: none of the published RCTs in August showed any benefit (and some showed potential side effects or negative clinical outcomes) to treatment with hydroxychloroquine. To my knowledge, there are no new RCTs since August that show anything that contradicts these findings.

            In contrast, the cheap and widely available dexamethasone actually does help some particularly ill patients (and has RCTs to back that statement up). It's basically what hydroxychloroquine wanted to be.

            The AMA is acting in good faith. They are not making a political point.

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            I looked up Chris Martenson. Gotta say I'm not impressed with him as an authority on COVID-19. And if he's running around promoting hydroxychloroquine, maybe he should have stuck to predicting stagflation and peak oil?

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