signed up in just two weeks but that slowed to a trickle after some negative reportsthe national conversation about this drug has changed from everyone wants this drug to nobody wants anything to do with it she said it sort of has become political where people who support the president are prohydroxychloroquineresearchers just want to know if it workslearn as you goin pittsburgh angus is aiming for something between trumps just try it and faucis do the ideal study approachin a pandemic there has to be a middle road another way angus said we do not have the luxury of time we must try to learn while doingthe university of pittsburgh medical centers 40 hospitals in pennsylvania new york maryland and ohio joined a study underway in the united kingdom australia and new zealand that randomly assigns patients to one of dozens of possible treatments and uses artificial intelligence to adapt treatments based on the results if a drug looks like a winner the computer assigns more people to get it losers are quickly abandonedthe system learns on the fly so our physicians are always betting on the winning horse angus saida small number of patients given usual care serve as a comparison group for all of the treatments being tested so more participants wind up getting a shot at trying somethingmark shannon a 61yearold retired bank teller from pittsburgh was the first to joini knew that there was no known cure i knew that they were learning as they went along in many cases i just put my trust in them he saidshannon who spent 11 days on a breathing machine received the steroid hydrocortisone and recovereddoris kelley a 57yearold preschool teacher in ruffs dale southeast of pittsburgh joined the study in aprilit felt like someone was sitting on my chest and i couldnt get any air kelley said of covid19she has asthma and other health problems and was glad to let the computer choose among the many possible treatments it assigned her to get hydroxychloroquine and she went home a couple days laterits too soon to know if either patients drug helped or if they would have recovered on their ownthe bumpy road to remdesivirwhen the new coronavirus was identified attention swiftly turned to remdesivir an experimental medicine administered through an iv that showed promise against other coronaviruses in the past by curbing their ability to copy their genetic materialdoctors in china launched two studies comparing remdesivir to the usual care of severely and moderately ill hospitalized patients the drugs maker gilead sciences also started its own studies but they were weak one had no comparison group and in the other patients and doctors knew who was getting the drug which compromises any judgments about whether it worksthe nih launched the most rigorous test comparing remdesivir to placebo iv treatments while these studies were underway gilead also gave away the drug on a casebycase basis to thousands of patientsin april chinese researchers ended their studies early