From the New York Post:
New York clinical trial testing heartburn medication as coronavirus treatment
By Carl Campanile and Tamar Lapin April 26, 2020 | 8:34pm | UpdatedA clinical trial is under way at major New York hospitals to test the efficacy of heartburn medications such as Pepcid, in combination with the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine, on coronavirus patients, The Post has learned.
… Researchers are trying to find out whether famotidine — the active compound in the over-the-counter heartburn drug Pepcid — acts as an inhibitor of COVID-19, similar to the way certain drugs block the replication of HIV/AIDS. …
This idea came out of data-mining in China where it was noticed that poor peasants who had their heartburn treated with non-prescription Pepcid-like pills died only half as much as rich folk with heartburn who had a prescription for the state-of-the-art pharmaceutical.
The researchers initially wanted to test famotidine on its own, but with so many patients now being treated with hydroxychloroquine, they wouldn’t have had enough test subjects, they told Science Magazine, which first reported the study.
Exactly how much is hydroxychloroquine being used anyway? …
Hydroxychloroquine has been touted as a promising treatment by President Trump and some doctors and patients, though the preliminary results of some local studies found no benefit.
And why does the rate of hydroxychloroquine use seem to be a secret? Granted, the death rate in NY hospitals is not encouraging.
