Public Perception and Medical Reality of Hydroxychloroquine for SARS-CoV-2 Acacia Sheppard, BA, Vishaan Nursey, BA, Shelby Isaacs, BS, Andre Liu, BS, Benjamin Lalani, Kamesh R Ayasolla, PhD, Manuel Beltran Del Rio, PhD, Joel Stern, PhD, Alberto Ferreres, MD, PhD, Horacio Rilo, MD
Background
Results
• There have been few randomized double-blinded controlled studies on clinical COVID-19 treatments. However, the American public has strong perceptions on the effectiveness of medications currently used for COVID-19, likely due to the influence of media reports. • Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) has received significant media and public attention. This review aims to compare U.S. public opinion of HCQ with published peer-reviewed results for its use for SARS-CoV-2.
Hypothesis
Fig 1: 70 HCQ studies were found of which 10 met our inclusion criteria. 7 studies found the treatment to be neutral or detrimental within their cohort and 3 reported benefit.
• The American public is generally supportive of HCQ as a treatment for SARS-CoV-2 despite minimal scientific evidence.
Conclusions • Due to the sparsity of randomized blinded studies and the elevated anxiety that COVID has caused among the general public, it is not surprising that the public perception of what might work to treat SARS-CoV-2 runs far ahead of the actual science.
Methods • A PubMed and Google Scholar literature review between November 2019 and May 2020 was conducted to identify publications reporting on clinical results of HCQ for SARS-CoV-2 (1). • In vitro studies and papers that did not focus on medication effectiveness in a clinical context where excluded from analyses. • Responses from national surveys and polls were also analyzed to determine public perception of HCQ for SARS-CoV-2(2).
Fig 3: Favorability also differed significantly among political party affiliation. 58% of self-identified Republicans support the use of HCQ as a treatment for SARS-CoV-2 while 16% reject its use. 18% of self-identified Democrats support the use of HCQ and 55% reject its use.
Resources Figure 7: Independent CRISPR knockout of CDK4 or CDK6 does not cause dropout in most breast cancer cell lines studied.
Fig 2: Six surveys were used to assess public opinion of these drugs, with a total of 9,881 individuals responding . Despite the lack of scientific evidence, 1/3 of the public supports the use of HCQ for treating COVID-19.
(1) Chen, J., Liu, D., Liu, L., Liu, P., Xu, Q., Xia, L., ... & Qian, Z. (2020). A pilot study of hydroxychloroquine in treatment of patients with moderate COVID19. Zhejiang da xue xue bao. Yi xue ban= Journal of Zhejiang University. Medical sciences, 49(2). (2) Sanders, L. (2020, May 1). How Fox News viewers see hydroxychloroquine differently than the rest of America. YouGov. https://today.yougov.com/topics/media/articles- reports/2020/05/01/fox-newscovid-poll.