Read on Twitter
New study NOT PEER REVIEWED from @OpenSafely team. We found no evidence to support a substantial benefit of #hydroxychloroquine use *prior to the outbreak* in preventing #COVID19 death. Let me explain why this HCQ paper is novel and important #rxepi https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.09.04.20187781v1 1/n
Previous studies show no benefit of #hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for hospitalised #COVID19 patients. A separate question remains: whether routine ongoing use of HCQ in people without COVID-19 protects against new infections or severe outcomes. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.09.04.20187781v1 2/n
The largest trial of prophylactic use of HCQ (COPCOV) does not expect to meet recruitment targets due to “…unjustified extrapolation and exaggerated safety concerns together with intense politicisation and negative publicity.” So will we ever know? https://www.tropicalmedicine.ox.ac.uk/news/hydroxychloroquine-is-being-discarded-prematurely-in-covid-19-prevention 3/n
Real-world data to the rescue! Using robust #rxepi methods, including mitigating confounding by indication, QBA, negative control outcome, and DAGs, we found no evidence of benefit in a cohort representing 40% of the population of England #epitwitter https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.09.04.20187781v1 4/n
We show it is feasible to address specific hypotheses on medicines in a rapid & transparent manner to inform interim clinical decision making and support the need for large-scale, randomised trial data #opensource Our code and pre-specified protocol: https://github.com/opensafely/hydroxychloroquine-research 5/n
The scientific community should encourage recruitment to HCQ prophylactic trials in #COVID19 since there are no preventative treatments available. This paper adds to scientific equipoise and should help with recruitment. #medtwitter #epitwitter https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.09.04.20187781v1 6/n
The @OpenSafely team encourages and welcomes constructive comments from #epitwitter #MedTwitter on what we could do better or differently in our #COVID19 #rxepi research! https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.09.04.20187781v1 7/n
Finally, the @OpenSafely team ( https://opensafely.org/team/ ) runs deep with super experts in a variety of domains @EBMDataLab @ehr_lshtm @TPP_SystmOne. This works not possible without @NDevito1 @brianmackenna @dr_c_morton @jeremy_pbrown @AnnaTheresia @wjchulme @richiecroker AND.. 8/n
... @alexjohnwalker @StatsFizz @drchrisbates @sebbacon @helencebm @_EvansD @inglesp @Ladyroho @HenryMDrysdale @jonnycockburn @DrJohnParry @SamPDHarper @LiamSmeeth1 @WGDixon @Roxytonin @bengoldacre and others whose handles I couldn't find! What a phenomenal team <3 9/n
