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Life-saving coronavirus drug 'major breakthrough':
A cheap and widely available drug can help save the lives of patients seriously ill with coronavirus.
The low-dose steroid treatment dexamethasone is a major breakthrough in the fight against the deadly virus, UK experts say.
The drug is part of the world's biggest trial testing existing treatments to see if they also work for coronavirus.
[...] The drug is already used to reduce inflammation in a range of other conditions, and it appears that it helps stop some of the damage that can happen when the body's immune system goes into overdrive as it tries to fight off coronavirus.
[...] In the trial, led by a team from Oxford University, around 2,000 hospital patients were given dexamethasone and were compared with more than 4,000 who did not receive the drug.
For patients on ventilators, it cut the risk of death from 40% to 28%. For patients needing oxygen, it cut the risk of death from 25% to 20%.
Chief investigator Prof Peter Horby said: "This is the only drug so far that has been shown to reduce mortality - and it reduces it significantly. It's a major breakthrough."
[...] Dexamethasone has been used since the early 1960s to treat a wide range of conditions, such as rheumatoid arthritis and asthma.
[...] The drug is given intravenously in intensive care, and in tablet form for less seriously ill patients. So far, the only other drug proven to benefit Covid patients is remdesivir, an antiviral treatment which has been used for Ebola.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Sulla on Tuesday June 16 2020, @07:55PM (19 children)
China already investigated steroids months ago and said it makes you die faster. Do yourself and Chairman Xi a solid and refuse to take this medicine.
On dexamethasone,
First question I had was whether there was a link between this drug (steroids in general) and ACE2.
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.13.149039v2 [biorxiv.org]
That is pretty interesting, and similar to the ideas of how nicotine would work. Big difference is that the steroids would have the benefit of reducing possibility of infection without increasing the mortality. The difference in mortality reduction between ventilators and oxygen isn't clear to me. I would expect those on oxygen only (less severe cases) would see a bigger drop in mortality than on ventilators. I didn't RTFA because Azuma had a good summary, but does the article talk about length of time the patients were on the ventilator? Reduction of time on ventilator alone will decrease mortality. Or is the reduction in inflammation putting the patients at less risk of over-inflation of lungs?
On a side note,
Did new information come out on remdesivir come out that I missed? The studies I have seen so far showed that it helped people get over SARS-nCoV-2 sooner but did not lower mortality.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 16 2020, @08:27PM (1 child)
I had heard about a drug used for arthritis that could be repurposed to fight the inflammation, and I would not trust either USA or China on this, if anything because covid escaped a lab or was planted by some pretty deep deep state.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 16 2020, @11:22PM
But I go to Sulla for all my pharmaceutical investment advice!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 16 2020, @08:49PM (1 child)
Well even if it doesn't have any effect on your chance of dying from the illness, assuming you do not die then recovering faster surely counts as a beneficial result, no?
In fact this is exactly the clinical benefit TFA attributes to remdesivir: "The antiviral drug remdesivir ... appears to shorten recovery time for people with coronavirus ..."
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Sulla on Wednesday June 17 2020, @06:03AM
https://www.fiercepharma.com/marketing/gilead-s-covid-19-therapy-remdesivir-worth-4-460-per-course-says-pricing-watchdog [fiercepharma.com]
For that price I can suffer a few extra days if it doesn't increase my chance of survival
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 5, Interesting) by RS3 on Wednesday June 17 2020, @02:04AM
It's important to remember that many infectious diseases don't kill you directly by themselves, rather you die from the effects, such as severe lung dysfunction in COVID-19, pneumonia, etc., which (sadly) is caused by inflammation, which is caused by immune response.
My take on it: if you're on ventilator, you're in much worse shape due to worse lung inflammation, and the dexa does more good.
My take, again: if you're on O2 no ventilator, your immune system is having some success, and if anything the steroid could hurt immune system.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 17 2020, @02:44AM (10 children)
https://www.c-span.org/video/?426290-1/tom-nichols-discusses-the-death-expertise [c-span.org]
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Wednesday June 17 2020, @06:05AM (2 children)
Originally i was just going to post about how the CCP claims steroids don't work and won't work and that they will actually make you die. CCP has been spreading all sorts of rumors against successful treatments this whole pandemic. But then I rambled on about other subjects and didn't go back and change the title.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 17 2020, @02:21PM (1 child)
Fair enough. My intent wasn't to scold you Sulla.
Rather, I made the point because too many folks go on about "fake news," without a clear sense of what that might be.
What's more, the quote I linked is the best definition that I've heard and I'd hope it might spark discussion about how we consume news and information -- at least among those who are willing to have reasoned discussions about such things, rather than just demonizing news outlets they think are "on the wrong team."
The truth isn't a team sport. There are, unfortunately, folks who don't care about facts that don't support their world view. Which is really sad.
As we've seen in the US (and other places, but I live in the US so I see more of that), there are folks who seek to diminish or ignore inconvenient facts, in order to promote their own "side." This is especially true among the twitterati and those seeking to game the social media environment for the personal and political gain of their "team."
Sure, we have differences, sometimes bitter ones. At the same time, we have much more in common than we do differences, no matter how bitter those differences might be.
Treating our neighbors, co-workers and family as "the enemy" because we don't agree about some things is really counterproductive.
That said, there are small, very vocal groups, who espouse division and seek to gain from creating those divisions. This is exacerbated by other folks who seek to widen those divisions to gain/retain power and influence.
I've gone pretty far afield with this comment myself, so I'll try to come back to the original premise:
Sure, there are folks out there (including the Chinese government) who will say just about anything (including straight-up lies) to win points for their "side."
I find it disgusting, regardless of who does it. I forget who said it, but the saw "you're entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts," applies in spades.
Let's disagree. Let's argue about policies and priorities. At the same time, let's be willing to agree about the stuff we can agree upon instead of focusing *only* on the few things we disagree about.
In order to do so, we need to be able to agree upon what the *facts* are. Actual "fake news" threatens our ability to do so.
Those that attempt to muddy the waters by calling opinion "fake news" makes it harder to do so. More's the pity.
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Thursday June 18 2020, @12:08AM
Ah. I use the term "fake news" for everything.
Kid claims he wasnt throwing stuff on the roof? Tell kid he is full of fake news
Open the fridge to get some eggs but they are all gone? Eggs are fake news
Go to cigar shop but they are closed early for the night? Text owner he is fake news
My usage is probably 95+% inconvenient things are fake news, and 5% referring to actual fake news. I actually had not considered that others use the term seriously.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 17 2020, @03:32PM (1 child)
https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/society-is-made-of-narrative-realizing-this-is-awakening-from-the-matrix-787c7e2539ae [medium.com]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 18 2020, @01:15AM
Garbage -- not worth the read.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday June 17 2020, @06:54PM (4 children)
That's certainly not how the term is commonly used. As commonly used "Fake News" means "makes me look bad or otherwise exposes my lies"
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 17 2020, @07:41PM (2 children)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fake_news [wikipedia.org]
https://www.prattlibrary.org/research/tools/index.aspx?cat=90&id=4735 [prattlibrary.org]
https://www.statista.com/topics/3251/fake-news/ [statista.com]
And as I said in a different post [soylentnews.org]:
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday June 18 2020, @07:06PM (1 child)
Thing is, I don't recall the term "fake news" ever being used against actual false news broadcasts (except by coincidence). In fact I don't recall ever hearing the term used before Trump started throwing it around - we had other terms for it: "spin", "propaganda", "lies", etc. If it's fake, it's not news.
Look at the history of the Wikipedia page you linked - it was first created in Jan 2017
Even the disambiguation page only has one other reference, to "The Fake News Show", a British comedy that began in February 2017 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fake_news_(disambiguation) )
There have been other similar terms coined around the world, but it seems they are almost always used to deny inconvenient coverage, rather than to actually call out falsified information.
As such, my inclination would be to accept the term as having the primary definition of being a denial of unflattering coverage, rather than anything to do with the actual legitimacy of the news.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 18 2020, @07:37PM
There. FTFY.
https://www.washingtonian.com/2019/10/02/trump-claims-he-invented-the-term-fake-news-an-interview-with-the-guy-who-actually-helped-popularize-it/ [washingtonian.com]
I'm sure there's more documentation out there, but I'm not responsible for disabusing you of your ignorance.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 18 2020, @06:16PM
The kind of stuff Secondary Infektion [zdnet.com] is doing is fake news.
And that sort of stuff is the commonly understood definition of "Fake News," not the targets of blathering from a certain spray-tanned asshole.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 17 2020, @07:51AM
https://www.statnews.com/2020/05/22/covid-19-study-details-benefits-of-treatment-with-remdesivir-and-also-its-limitations/ [statnews.com]
Not understanding HOW this drugs works is kind of dangerous when you claim you know how it works. Hint: it works by prevent virus from replicating. And virus doesn't kill you, a slow cytokine storm kills you. Remdesivir prevents the disease from getting there. The alternative is you filter you blood for excess cytokines.
https://cytosorb-therapy.com/en/ [cytosorb-therapy.com]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 17 2020, @01:46PM
20%/25% = 80%, which is a 20% reduction in fatality at this stage.
28%/40% = 70%, which is a 30% reduction in fatality at this (worse) stage.
If a thing prevents death, it makes sense that it would have a greater effect on those closer to death. It would be odd if this drug brought the 40% figure under 20%, as this would imply that it did worse for people that were better, but the data makes plenty of sense. The drug helps people avoid death, the closer to death you are the more it improves your chances, but you are still better off not being close to death in the first place.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Thursday June 18 2020, @05:11PM
All I know is that 30 doctors signed a letter to Italian health ministry in April saying let us test cortisone based anti inflammation drugs, they look promising, and the minister did not even reply.
In another case the sister of a guy cured with cortisone and antibiotics complained the guy died of COVID.
Account abandoned.