As lupus patients struggle to find supplies of a drug they desperately need, the state of Florida has hoarded a stockpile for a COVID-19 treatment …
As lupus patients struggle to find supplies of a drug they desperately need, the state of Florida has hoarded a stockpile for a COVID-19 treatment that the federal government has now prohibited doctors to use to treat the novel coronavirus except under limited circumstances.
In April, Gov. Ron DeSantis arranged for a donation of 1 million doses of the drug, hydroxychloroquine, for hospitals around the state. Less than 2% was distributed, leaving 983,900 doses sitting in Tallahassee.
“We had 1,000 people send letters asking the governor to address what was becoming a shortage,” said Amy Yalden, chief executive officer of the Lupus Foundation of America Florida Chapter. She said they heard nothing: “No response. No. Never.»
As the drug remains warehoused, people with lupus, who rely on hydroxychloroquine to stave off organ damage, pain and disability, are paying triple the cost and often having to substitute the more expansive brand-name version, Plaquenil.
“People can’t get their normal prescription, and we don’t know where the drug is that went to the hospitals,» Yalden said last month.
What Yalden didn’t know was that most of the doses never made it to the state’s medical centers.
«To date,16,100 doses have been distributed to six hospitals that requested the medication,» according to an email Thursday from the state’s Joint Information Center on COVID-19. «The state still has 983,900 doses on hand.»
According to the manufacturer Amneal, hydroxychloroquine has a shelf-life of 24 months.
‘Angry, disappointed and scared’: Hydroxychloroquine in short supply, says FDA. ‘Angry, disappointed and scared,’ say lupus patients.
Near the start of the coronavirus pandemic, anecdotal reports of success of using hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19 infections spread through social media networks and news reports. The drug, commonly called HCQ, has been used for decades to prevent malaria and is a standard treatment for lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, another autoimmune disease.
The real boost for HCQ came in March when President Donald Trump began promoting the drug, writing in a March 21 tweet that in combination with an antibiotic it could be «one of the biggest game changers in the history of medicine.» On May 18, Trump said he had started taking HCQ to prevent contracting a COVID-19 infection.
A few weeks later, on June 3, the results of a controlled study were published in the New England Journal of Medicine showing that HCQ was no better than a placebo in preventing a coronavirus infection.
And on June 15, the FDA revoked its emergency use approval for hydroxychloroquine, stating that it didn’t work any better than standard treatments to shorten hospital stays, reduce need for a ventilator or lower mortality rates. «(B)ased on new information, including clinical trial data results… this drug may not be effective to treat COVID-19,» the FDA wrote, adding that the potential benefits of using HCQ «do not outweigh its known and potential risks.
