A drug infamously touted by Donald Trump has been linked to nearly 17,000 Covid deaths in a new scientific study.

Researchers say that the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine was prescribed to patients during the first wave of Covid-19 “despite the absence of evidence documenting its clinical benefits.”

The French study estimated that 16,990 patients in the US, France, Belgium, Italy, Spain and Turkey may have died as a result of the drug.

The study has been published in the February issue of Biomedicine & Pharmacotherapy.

Researchers say the data used comes from a study published in the Nature scientific journal, which reported that there was an 11 per cent increase in mortality rate linked to the drug’s prescription.

    • cosmicrookie@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      To be fair, the 17000 were not even all Americans. 16,990 patients in the US, France, Belgium, Italy, Spain and Turkey. I too dislike Trump but the world is larger than the US

      • Kbobabob@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        We would need to see the breakdown. If it’s 14000 in the US and 3k elsewhere then that’s telling but i don’t see that information listed anywhere.

        Edit: Found it!. It’s about 13K in the US.

        Overall, using median estimates of HCQ use in each country, we estimated that 16,990 HCQ-related in-hospital deaths (range 6267–19256) occurred in the countries with available data. The median number of HCQ-related deaths in Belgium, Turkey, France, Italy, Spain, and the USA was 240 (range not estimable), 95 (range 92–128), 199 (range not estimable), 1822 (range 1170–2063), 1895 (range 1475–2094) and 12739 (3244− 15570), respectively.

    • PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Unfortunately, a lot of patients didn’t actually have many options and were prescribed it without asking. In the early days of the pandemic, doctors were basically just throwing everything they could at it, to see what worked. If you got a conservative doctor, there was a good chance that you’d be prescribed it without ever asking for it.

      Because all the doctors were flying blind, but hey the news says this drug works so we might as well try it. They’re probably going to die without treatment anyways, so worst case scenario the result is the same as if they weren’t taking it. Nowhere to go but up, right? A lot of patients basically didn’t have a say, because they were hospitalized.

    • Veneroso@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      50% of people are below average intelligence. This is by the definition of averages. Republicans don’t have a monopoly on stupid. They do seem to have a vocal majority of them though.

      The waste from this, the people who died needlessly from not getting vaccinated, from drinking bleach, it’s sickening. That sentiment would likely not be shared should the situation be reversed.

      That’s 17,000 people who will not be voting in 2024.

      More than Trump needed to flip Georgia.

  • tsonfeir@lemm.ee
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    11 months ago

    Even if 10% of those people took it because he told them to, that’s 1700 deaths on his head.

    I haven’t even killed one person.

  • Melllvar@startrek.website
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    11 months ago

    Wait… they got prescriptions for it?

    Where are the malpractice suits? Where are the licensing authorities?

    • hansl@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Who would sue the pharmacists? The state probably don’t want anything to do with that and the victims are dead. They probably only have relatives that don’t want or haven’t talked to them in years.

  • GiddyGap@lemm.ee
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    11 months ago

    Unfortunately, the people who need to know the results of this study don’t believe in studies.

  • MIDItheKID@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    A lot of people in here acting like the patient was the one that got to decide what kind of drugs they were getting. I had covid very very early on, and I was hospitalized. They had me on hydroxychloroquine. The doctors and nurses didn’t know what the fuck was going on, they were trying everything they could hoping that something would work. I was basically a test subject because it was so early on. It looks like it didn’t kill me, which is great, but at no point did I ask to be put on it.

    • PutangInaMo@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Yeah but the subsequent private purchases of the drug well after it was established to not work is what the issue is.

      If you got covid in that first year you were getting treated with the kitchen sink. Your Healthcare decided the drug was worth the risk and you got it. Not every hospital was doing that, hell I hadn’t even heard of one using it until your comment…

    • ObsidianZed@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      To the tune of Gaston –

      "No one kills off their base,

      let leopards eat their face,

      leave thousands of bodies all over the place…"

    • rivermonster@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      The base kills itself off pretty well. They would contest this assertion with as much vigor as they can muster!

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Meanwhile, my local Walmart is fully stocked on horse paste. We were in the pet care section yesterday. A bunch of boxes of apple-flavored ivermectin. And I’m guessing they didn’t have that many because people go to Walmart for horse care supplies.

  • KingJalopy @lemm.ee
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    11 months ago

    Let’s be real. This dude was doing us a favor by doing this. Anyone dumb enough to listen to him fucking deserves it.

    • rivermonster@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      I don’t know that they deserve it, but as a society, we certainly don’t have the resources to fix MAGA. That level of deprogramming and educating is WAY past our infrastructure and resources.

        • TheAlbacor@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          When it’s self-selected death by hateful people who dehumanize others I don’t have a problem with it.

          • hark@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            Ironically you’re dehumanizing others by painting them all with a broad stroke. Some people get duped for reasons other than hatred. Do you think the ignorant or the outright stupid deserve to die?

            • TheAlbacor@lemmy.world
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              11 months ago

              The willful ignorant who were given plenty of notice and free access and chose otherwise? Specifically the arrogant people like that? They deserve the consequences of their choices, yes.

    • aesthelete@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Personally I liked his stint as a bean salesman while in the white house, just casually sitting at the resolute desk hocking beans…just president stuff NBD.

      the orange idiot selling beans from the oval

  • recapitated@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    17,000 dingdongs dying from self prescribing out of ignorance and ego is honestly not that big of a number, globally.It’s definitely more people than I could kill by speaking. I imagine the same ones would have found a different dumb way to go.

  • Lon3star@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    I take this daily (for other, tangible and prescribed reason)… Doing just fine. People slamming miracle/untested ‘cures’ always seem to have trouble, weird

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      So not for COVID? Which is what this article is about?

      If people said incorrectly that Prozac cured pancreatic cancer and you took it for depression, why would that matter on the pancreatic cancer issue?

    • Jarix@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Am i wrong or did your point get missed?!

      I took you to be saying that just because this drug is safe for the people this drug is intended for, look what happens when someone takes random chemicals without any idea of what they are doing.

      It seems like responses to you are not taking it that way?

    • geogle@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Your dosage is likely much less, and still the drug had some dangerous side effects at your dosage from cumulative toxicity.