Throughout all the readings, hydroxychloroquine as an early treatment for COVID-19 has stuck out to me. The censorship surrounding its use was surprising and scary, so I wanted to look into both sides of the narrative. Mainstream media promotes the use of other, more expensive drugs in place of it. The popular narrative surrounding hydroxychloroquine is centered on the idea that it has negative side effects and does not help with COVID-19 in any way. The world health organization is one of the major organizations that does not recommend using this drug. When looking at Duck Duck Go, I immediately see more neutral results. The web pages that appear ask questions about the drug and its efficacy instead of immediately dismissing its potential (this is contrary to the results that I saw on google). However, like google, most of these web pages lean more towards hydroxychloroquine being an ineffective treatment. I am curious if these results may have to do with the censorship of doctors within their hospitals that then may have prevented other more positive narrative from being promoted.
When researching further, I found many similar results coming from both sides. The FDA concluded that hydroxychloroquine is not likely to be an effective treatment and stated that it should not be used outside of clinical trials. Strangely, earlier studies suggested that hydroxychloroquine could inhibit the SARs-CoV-2 virus, but recent studies do not support these initial findings. Multiple studies are cited indicating that hydroxychloroquine reaps no benefits. There are a few sources indicating that hydroxychloroquine could be used for early treatment of the virus, but no conclusive evidence is presented. These results are not what I expected, as I thought there would be more positive feedback on the drug.