The first patients with covid-19 at Northwell Health Hospital in New York City began receiving famotidine intravenously on April 7 in an amount nine times greater than what is usually ingested when you have reflux. The substance, which is used in the treatment of stomach ulcers, indigestion, heartburn and reflux, explains the Mayo Clinic, is the main component of medications such as Pepcid or Fluxid and is part of the group of substances known as H2 blockers, which decrease the amount of acid in the stomach.
Northwell, who is experimenting in parallel with 23 other drugs (including remdesivir and another arthritis medicine), kept quiet about the study to make sure he could use as much of the drug as he needed (not easy to find in his intravenously) and before other hospitals started buying it. “If we talked about this too soon or with the wrong people, we’d run out of medicine,” said Kevin Tracey, the doctor in charge of the research at the hospital, speaking to the journal Science.
When the news leaked that this hospital was treating its patients with this medicine, there was a boom in internet sales despite the fact that there is no information to support its use at the moment.
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The fury surrounding hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine to treat covid-19 (thanks in large part to Donald Trump’s explosive and baseless statements) raised Tracey’s suspicion of excessive premature enthusiasm about famotidine.
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