I wouldn't want to be the person who has to break the news to the malaria patients or the folks afflicted by lupus and other inflammatory autoimmune diseases: "Ummm...sorry bub, we've been prescribing a dangerous drug for the last 65 years."
From c|net, May 25:
The controversial anti-malaria drug was one of four experimental treatments being investigated by the organization.
The World Health Organization announced Monday it is pausing clinical trials using the controversial malaria drug, hydroxychloroquine, to treat patients with COVID-19. The drug has been the subject of intense scrutiny after it was championed by the likes of Elon Musk and US President Donald Trump.
....MORE"The executive group has implemented a temporary pause of the hydroxychloroquine arm within the Solidarity trial while the safety data is reviewed by the data safety monitoring board," said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director-general, during a press briefing.The Solidarity trial is the WHO's global investigation into four experimental treatments for COVID-19. It includes remdesivir, lopinavir, interferon beta-1a and hydroxychloroquine. Ghebreyesus confirmed investigations into the other treatments are continuing and notes hydroxychloroquine is "accepted as generally safe in patients with autoimmune diseases and malaria."
"The decision to temporally halt the Solidarity trial for Hydroxychloroquine and to review the safety data in patients that underwent this trial is expected and logical," says Gaetan Burgio, geneticist at the Australian National University. "This will enable the researchers to determine whether it is safe to continue this very large clinical trial on over 60 countries and 3,500 patients."...
