1/ Dr. Fauci is misleading the American people when he says that randomized controlled trials have shown hydroxychloroquine to be ineffective.

Here’s why.
2/ There& #39;s only one double-blind RCT on HCQ in early treatment of COVID-19.

All of the other RCTs (SOLIDARITY, RECOVERY, etc) were in very sick patients and are borderline worthless because they just support what we& #39;ve been saying since March—HCQ is for early disease, not late.
3/ The "randomized controlled trial" for EARLY treatment of COVID-19 that Dr. Fauci is too embarrassed to even mention by name is the one done by the University of Minnesota, “Hydroxychloroquine in Nonhospitalized Adults With Early COVID-19” (Jul 2020)

https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-4207">https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.73...
4/ The Minnesota study is honestly an embarrassment to the term “randomized controlled trial” and should actually be called an “anonymous online survey” instead.
5/ Only 34% of participants had a positive PCR test. The remaining 66% either did not have a PCR test or actually tested negative.

This means that a positive diagnosis was made based on only SYMPTOMS for the vast majority of participants.

This isn’t great, but it gets worse.
6/ The participants were evaluated via a static online survey and not actually seen by physicians or medical personnel.

So the quality of the diagnosis was essentially equivalent to someone typing symptoms into WebMD.
7/ What happens if a large percent of the participants didn’t actually have COVID-19?

It would diminish the observed therapeutic effect of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ probably isn’t going to help allergies or the common cold).
8/ Next point.

If the researchers had kept their original end point (hospitalization/death), the study would& #39;ve actually shown a strong trend toward benefit for HCQ.

Instead, the researchers changed the end point mid-study from hospitalizations/death to symptoms at 14 days.
9/ The conclusion of the study is actually a ~40% reduction in hospitalizations/deaths in patients treated with HCQ vs placebo (2.5% vs 4.1%).

This did not reach significance, but would have been strong encouragement to proceed with additional higher powered RCTs.
10/ The good news is that Dr. Fauci & the NIH started a trial in May doing just this.

The bad news is they cancelled the trial after enrolling only 20 subjects in order to focus on a new trial evaluating remdesivir plus baricitinib (another “novel” patented drug).
11/ In conclusion, it& #39;s been >4 mos since HCQ was proposed for early stage COVID-19.

Yet, with their vast resources, neither the WHO nor NIH conducted a trial on this.

Instead Dr. Fauci& #39;s evidence for the inefficacy of HCQ comes from an online survey under the guise of an RCT.
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