Mixed signals are emerging over the use of Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) in the fight against Covid-19.

The US FDA has removed it from the EUA or Emergency Use Application register. 

Some perceived that as an endorsement of the drug for Covid-19, as it allows off-label prescription, meaning it can be prescribed for uses other than what its label indicates. 

So, despite being an anti-malaria and arthritis therapy, it can also be used for treatment of say Covid-19. 

The right interpretation of these events is that the FDA removed it from the national stockpile as an EUA drug. 

That is not an endorsement, but an indictment. They do not believe it is essential to the Covid-19 struggle. 

A lot of quack-science and anecdotal argument is doing the rounds in favor of its use after President Trump touted it. 

And I can't help feeling that that is the only real reason why there is a dispute over the drug. 

The drug was also withdrawn from hospital only use, meaning it is more accessible, yet isn't, as it is not available in the stockpile. 

It has not shown any promise in clinical trials and, if anything, it poses a health risk for heart patients. 

Science news is now saying: 
Hydroxychloroquine has been tested more than any other potential COVID-19 drug but has repeatedly fallen short of expectations.
And again, from a front-line doctor at Columbia University Hospital:
They prescribed the antimalarial drug for 811 of the 1,446 patients hospitalized at the medical center from March 7 to April 8. But the drug didn’t seem to help, Schluger and colleagues reported May 17 in the New England Journal of Medicine.
But it will be defended as another conspiracy, while vaccines are likely to be rejected. 

Its a strange world we live in Master Jack, one that will reject sound science and favor unsound hearsay. Its hard to grasp. 

(c) Peter Missing @ me2u2all.blogspot.com