Perspective: The search for chloroquine helped bring about the modern pharmaceutical industry
showing that death rates are higher in covid-19 patients who were treated with hydroxychloroquine, the drug Trump touted.
But back then, U.S. drug companies were tiny compared with today’s giants. Some made no more than quack cures and remedies. The skills of U.S. chemists were limited by lack of experience. And most malaria experts knew little about drug development; they studied the mosquitoes that carry malaria.The Germans were by far the best at drug making. Bayer Co. — with blockbusters such as aspirin and heroin — set out to make a malaria drug after the disease crippled troops in World War I.
For three years, these scientists unsuccessfully ran tests on compounds that killed thousands upon thousands of chicks and ducklings with bird malaria, hundreds of dogs in toxicity tests and many, many human subjects.Just as Bayer had done in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s, U.S. researchers experimented on syphilitics undergoing malaria therapy at state hospitals in Massachusetts, Georgia, South Carolina, Illinois, New York and Washington, D.C.
We know this drug is particularly dangerous in people with heart, eye, liver and kidney problems, which are found so commonly in the elderly. So those who tend to become the sickest with covid-19 are the very people most susceptible to the dangers of chloroquine.
South Africa Latest News, South Africa Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Column: The craze for Trump's chloroquine COVID-19 remedy is dying outYou may have noticed that mentions of antimalarial drugs as remedies for the novel coronavirus infection have fallen off a cliff lately. Two new data points released in recent days might well end the craze completely. Columnist hiltzikm explains:
Read more »
‘Bad Education’ Review: A Scandal With SmartsThe real-life story of malfeasance inside a suburban New York school system brings a human perspective to financial crime.
Read more »
Puppy Is Stolen from E.R. Nurse Helping to Fight Coronavirus — as Police Search for SuspectMax was stolen from the garage of his owner's home
Read more »
US vaccine expert says he was removed for opposing Trump-backed chloroquineUS president has advocated for the use of hydroxychloroquine to treat Covid-19. Results of a Washington-funded study of the drug, the largest yet, linked the drug with more deaths and showed no benefit against the disease over standard care.
Read more »
“Really Want to Flood NY and NJ”: Internal Documents Reveal Team Trump’s Chloroquine Master PlanForget testing, ventilators, and PPE. Donald Trump’s big plan to beat COVID-19 involved distributing millions of doses of an unproven drug. Behind the scenes, senior administration officials pushed hard to bend the rules and back up his boasts.
Read more »
'Our moon shot': Vaccine makers go ahead with unproven candidates to meet 2021 goal – that experts say may be unrealisticDeveloping a new vaccine typically takes many years, but pharmaceutical companies are trying to push one out in the next 12-18 months.
Read more »