Trump's favorite virus drug found to be highly dangerous

Portland Press Herald -A study of 96,000 hospitalized coronavirus patients on six continents found that those who received an antimalarial drug promoted by President Donald Trump as a “game changer” in the fight against the virus had a significantly higher risk of death compared with those who did not.

People treated with hydroxychloroquine, or the closely related drug chloroquine, were also more likely to develop a type of irregular heart rhythm, or arrhythmia, that can lead to sudden cardiac death, it concluded.

The study, obtained early by The Washington Post and published Friday in the medical journal the Lancet, is the largest analysis to date of the risks and benefits of treating covid-19 patients with antimalarial drugs.

.... Nearly 15,000 of the 96,000 patients in the analysis were treated with hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine alone or in combination with a type of antibiotics known as a macrolide, such as azithromycin, within 48 hours of their diagnosis.

The difference between patients who received the antimalarials and those who did not was striking.
For those given hydroxychloroquine, there was a 34% increase in risk of mortality and a 137% increased risk of a serious heart arrhythmias. For those receiving hydroxychloroquine and an antibiotic – the cocktail endorsed by Trump – there was a 45% increased risk of death and a 411% increased risk of serious heart arrhythmias.