Thread by @atrembla

One of the most disheartening 80 secs I have ever seen on Twitter (which says a lot) from our unelected #Alberta premier @ABDanielleSmith. Let's set the record straight about #COVID therapeutics in #AB. 1/

https://twitter.com/TheBreakdownAB/status/1583539745464143872

Alberta institutions and researchers played a large role in developing and testing COVID-19 therapeutics, as well as rapidly reviewing emerging evidence from around the world which continues to come out at incredible pace.
@AHS_Innovates @UAlberta_DoM @UCalgaryMed
2/

Within weeks of the pandemic hitting #AB, we were enrolling patient volunteers into an international clinical trial (Solidarity) as part of the Canadian @CATCO consortium. In fact Alberta was the leading contributor to CATCO nationally. 3/

Some initial drugs unfortunately were not found to help hospitalized patients (such as hydroxychloroquine) as published in the @NEJM nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.105…. Other AB investigators also investigated HCQ in outpatients without success (nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NE…). 4/

We did succeed in demonstrating the effectiveness of the antiviral drug Remdesivir in reducing the need for invasive mechanical ventilation for hospitalized COVID patients (cmaj.ca/content/194/7/…) and also established it's cost-effectiveness (cmajopen.ca/content/10/3/E…). 5/

As a result of this work #Remdesivir has been the standard of care in AB hospitals for some time now. AB researchers have also contributed to other key therapeutic interventions now in common use on our hospitals. These include: 6/

Tocilizumab - a potent anti-inflammatory drug which can reduce mortality in critically ill COVID-19 patients (see @wsligl nejm.org/doi/full/10.10…) 7.

Albertans (investigators and patients!) also contributed evidence that blood thinners could improve outcomes in some COVID patients (bmj.com/content/375/bm…). 8/

Patients admitted with COVID in 2022 are often treated with these treatments as part of the standard of care in great part due to the efforts of AB investigations in collaborations with other partners and the altruism of our patients who volunteered for these clinical trials. 9/

This is only scratching the surface of the research work done in AB even if not all of it resulted in clinically successful treatments. It is as important to prove if a treatment is ineffective in order to avoid futile treatments which still will have side effects and costs. 10/

I mentioned our HCQ results above. Others were convalescent plasma (nature.com/articles/s4159…), prone positioning (jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/…), despite significant early enthusiasm for these approaches. 11/

When AB investigators and clinicians were not generating evidence or in the hospitals on the front lines, they were reviewing rapidly emerging evidence from around the world. 12/

The @ahs_scn #scientificadvisorygroup criticized by our Premier did amazing work throughout the pandemic. This included reviewing evidence on #ivermectin. (See albertahealthservices.ca/assets/info/pp… for a thorough review) 13/

Many spent countless hours reviewing and summarizing evidence and evolving guidelines and then disseminating this information to our clinical teams on the front lines. An example being the @UCCMedEd ecme.ucalgary.ca/covid-19-cme-r… series - a fantastic venue to share information. 14/

In fact a search of @NLM_NIH pubmed reveals almost 1,500 peer reviewed scientific publications related to COVID from @UCalgary @UAlberta or @AHS_media investigators. You can see them here: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=((Univer… /15

Alberta has the experts who have contributed immensely to the generation of knowledge on COVID and COVID treatment, and to the direct benefit of patients in AB and beyond. Unfortunately @ABDanielleSmith is "not interested in taking any advice from them." /16

So one must ask, where will she seek advice on this or any other matter important to our Province?
#NotMyPremier
/f