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(04-15-2020 05:23 PM)Cataclysmo Wrote:  I'm not trying to favor the effect of one drug over another. But I'm going to use an example to make a point:

Remdesivir makes more sense than chloroquine. The former is an adenine analogue that inhibits reverse transcriptase of the virus RNA into the genome. Which is similar in function to AZT, the first drug that spawned the revolution of HIV treatment in the 80s.

Chloroquine and Hydroxy chloroquine work by invading the internal structures of the cell, raising the pH level, and ultimately preventing the glycoslyation of cell receptors. All that is to say, it inhibits the viral attachment to cells

Of those two treatments (there are far more out there, but Trumper heard a study about Hydroxy chloroquine and became obsessed with it), Remdesivir is a better targeting agent, specifically for coronaviruses. Chloroquine has been used to treat a lot of different virus', like HIV and Malaria, and that's what led doctors to start administering it.

What people fail to see is that the differences between these drugs from a biochemical standpoint is often the difference in thousands of people dying. Everyone wants a miracle drug that cures the coronavirus but doesn't neccesarily understand how complex medical research is beyond preliminary "positive results". Sometimes anecdotal evidence leads to huge breakthroughs in medicine. Aspirin, for example, is derived from a chemical that was found in tree bark that the ancient Egyptians used to chew on to relieve pain.

Unfortunetly, for every massive breakthrough, there are millions of "promising results" that lead us nowhere. Seriously, there's a "potential breakthrough" made in cancer research every week, but that doesn't mean we're any closer to a "cure". No, in reality these things take time.

I hope one of these drugs is effective in treating patients. But the world isn't going to return to normalcy. That won't happen until we develop a full fledged vaccine, which, like everything else, takes time.

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According to what I've seen the zinc drugs also reduce the efficacy of the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase...this is what they found on Northerns.

I agree with your assertion about Remdesivir, BUT, this is an RNA-dependent RNA polymerase and not a DNA dependent RNA polymerase, thus, the efficacy would have to be assessed....another risk associated with the nucleotide analogs is that they are mutagens and carry a cancer risk:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3341039/

My concern is that if we don't act quickly, there won't be an economy to save....my analogy...if your house is on fire, you don't worry about the water damage.

We simply don't have months to test and re-test all of these suggestions while the economy rots...my feeling is...throw the FDA approved stuff out there and see what happens...worst case scenario is it fails to work...at least the effort was made.

Something that might also be fruitful is combination therapy...why not combine the chloroquine class with the nucleotide analogs to try and produce a synergistic effect? No harm in attempting it...