Quebec doctors to receive recommendation on controversial possible COVID-19 treatment this week

Doctor defends COVID-19 drug study Dr. Jean-Claude Tardif explains why he claimed he'd found a drug effective against COVID, when other researchers say it's too soon to know.

MONTREAL — Quebec doctors will receive a recommendation early this week from a provincial drug evaluation committee on whether they should prescribe the medication colchicine to treat non-hospitalized COVID-19 patients.

The update comes after a tumultuous week that started with a prominent Montreal Heart Institute (MHI) researcher making bold claims in a press release about the effectiveness of the medication and ended with pushback after many scientists were eventually able to scrutinize the study’s data themselves.

“We anticipate making our interim position public at the beginning of the week, Tuesday being very likely,” National Institute for Excellence in Health and Social Services (INESSS)spokesperson Olivia Jacques told CTV in an email.

The guidelines will serve as a stopgap measure. The study has been submitted to a science journal but has not yet been peer-reviewed or published and Jacques indicated the advice could change in the future.

In the meantime, guidelines from the College of Physicians, the Order of Pharmacists and INESSS scientists issued two days after the press release came out, stand: colchicine should be viewed with great caution when it comes to treating COVID.

This, despite the press release issued by the MHI’s Dr. Jean Claude Tardif nearly ten days ago, which stated in glowing terms that its clinical trial showed colchicine is an “effective drug to treat out-of-hospital patients,” and could help prevent hospitalizations and deaths.

In interviews, Tardif, the principal investigator, also suggested doctors could start prescribing the drug right away.

But a few days later, just hours after the detailed study manuscript was released online for scientists to pre-review, many doctors reacted to Dr. Tardif’s initial claims with skepticism and doubt, though Tardif stood-by his findings in an interview with CTV News on Friday.

Among those pouring cold water on the colchicine study results was the Chief of Infectious Diseases at the Jewish General Hospital during a Sunday evening appearance on the popular French Radio-Canada talk show ‘Tout le monde en parle.’

Asked about the beneficial results being touted, Dr. Karl Weiss replied “When we start to analyze from a statistical standpoint, it’s a study that I would say is less flamboyant than what was presented initially.”

“The results do not show in an extremely important way that there is a benefit to using colchicine. And people who took colchicine also had more secondary effects than the people in the other group, among others, pulmonary embolism,” Weiss, who is also the head of Quebec’s association of medical microbiologists went on to say.

He, like other doctors who have spoken with CTV News, thinks it would be best if the study was repeated.

He said while the idea to study the existing anti-inflammatory medication is a good one, the study didn’t show “beyond all doubt what we expect from a scientific study, that we should start using it in our practices tomorrow morning.”

Along with a statistically significant number of blood clots as a side effect, some people enrolled in the colchicine trial also had diarrhea.

The medicine, commonly used to treat gout, can also be toxic and even deadly in high doses, especially for those who have kidney problems.

Colchicine can also interact with common medications, according to Dr. Emily McDonald, a scientist at the Research Institute of the MUHC.