Tag: hydroxychloroquine

Trump Pushes Fake COVID Cure From Fringe Doctors, Banned by Facebook

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President Donald Trump exhibited his new serious tone toward the coronavirus crisis on Monday night, sharing a viral video of fringe doctors touting the controversial anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine as “a cure for COVID.”

The video, which also featured the doctors dismissing mask-wearing, was eventually taken down by Facebook for “sharing false information” about the virus, after racking up millions of views in a matter of hours. Several right-wing outlets and personalities, however, continued to promote the clip of the doctors’ press conference on Twitter, eventually reaching the president’s timeline.

Besides retweeting the clip several times, Trump—who recently said his retweets tend to get him “in trouble”—went on to share several other posts promoting hydroxychloroquine, which the FDA has rescinded for emergency use for the virus.

Numerous studies and clinical trials have found that the drug has shown no real benefit in treating coronavirus patients. Experts also have warned of potentially deadly side effects. 

Trump then shared a tweet directly from Dr. Stella Immanuel, one of the physicians who took part in the press conference. Immanuel is also a preacher who once wrote a book claiming that there is a Satanic plot to take over the world and recently challenged CNN anchors and top infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci to provide her with urine samples. (The video tweeted by Immanuel, along with several others the president shared, were later taken down.)

She also didn’t take kindly to Facebook removing the video of her saying masks don’t work and that hydroxychloroquine is a magic cure for the virus.

“Hello Facebook put back my profile page and videos up or your computers with start crashing till you do,” she tweeted late Monday night. “You are not bigger that God. I promise you. If my page is not back up face book will be down in Jesus name.”

The president also shared tweets attacking Fauci on Monday night, despite insisting recently that he had a “very good relationship” with the doctor after White House officials publicly blasted him.

At least one of the accounts the president retweeted on Monday night was from a follower of QAnon, the conspiracy theory that alleges a “deep state” cabal of pedophiles is plotting against Trump.

[The Daily Beast]

Trump Promotes Video Undermining Fauci Which Facebook, YouTube and Twitter Remove for ‘False Information’

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President Donald Trump appears to have complicated feelings for Dr. Anthony Fauci While the commander in chief has publicly said that he has a good relationship with the nation’s top immunologist, his Twitter feed tells a different story.

In a flurry of curious Tweets and retweets late Monday night, Trump’s retweeted a podcast promotion that featured Fauci-critic Dr. Lee Vliet which is sure to cause drama at the next White House Coronavirus Task Force meeting (at least one that both Trump and Fauci will attend.)

The tweet originated from a Twitter account called WarRoomPandemic, and claimed: “Dr. Fauci has misled the American people on many issues, but particular, on dismissing #hydroxychloroquine and calling Remdesivir the new gold standard.” A screengrab of that tweet was shared by CNN’s Manu Raju below:

The tweet led to a Breitbart-hosted video that some might call scientifically questionable observations that promoted the still-unproven hydroxychloroquine and questioned the benefits of mask-wearing.  The video was also shared by Donald Trump Jr., was eventually removed by Facebook for pushing “false information about cures and treatments for COVID-19.” YouTube and Twitter also pulled the video.

But it was another undermining tweet of Dr.Fauci that will restart a media conversation about their relationship.

This is not the first time that Trump has promoted criticism of Dr. Fauci.  The deteriorating state of the relationship between Trump and Fauci drew new intrigue in early April after Trump went on a Twitter binge and retweeted a post bearing the hashtag #FireFauci. This happened after Fauci gave an interview to CNN and said “obviously” more lives would have been saved if the federal government adopted coronavirus counterstrategies earlier.

Fauci’s approval rating for his role in fighting the coronavirus has been significantly higher than that of Trump’s. In a national poll of 1,337 registered voters conducted by The New York Times and Siena College in mid-June, 76% of respondents said they trusted Fauci for “accurate information” about the COVID-19 pandemic compared with just 26% who said they trusted Trump. This has led to multiple reports of the president feeling some animus towards Dr. Fauci, which may be the reason for Monday’s night’s undermining tweet.

[Mediaite]

Despite FDA Caution, Trump Says He Is Taking Hydroxychloroquine As A Preventive

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President Trump on Monday revealed to reporters that he has been taking hydroxychloroquine and zinc to protect against the coronavirus.

“I was just waiting to see your eyes light up when I said this,” the president told reporters, volunteering the information at the end of a roundtable with restaurant owners.

Trump said he asked his doctor about taking it after hearing from people who had done so. “Here’s my evidence — I get a lot of positive calls about it,” he said.

“I’ve taken it for about a week and a half now. And I’m still here,” he said.

The president said that he had asked the White House physician about it and that he did not start taking it in response to a specific exposure.

Trump has been promoting the drug, used to treat malaria and lupus, in briefings and on Twitter. The drug’s impact on the virus is being studied, but there is no definitive evidence yet from clinical trials — and there have been some warnings about side effects, including from the Food and Drug Administration.

Medical experts have urged caution around the drug, and last month the FDA strongly warned against using hydroxychloroquine without medical supervision, such as in a hospital or as part of a clinical trial.

Although researchers have been skeptical of hydroxychloroquine’s role in treating COVID-19, there is more enthusiasm about its potential to prevent infection. That’s because multiple studies have shown that the drug can prevent coronavirus replication.

Two such studies are currently underway.

One is being conducted by scientists and physicians at the University of Minnesota and will involve 1,500 volunteers at high risk for contracting COVID-19, either because they are health care workers or live with someone who has the disease. The study is actively recruiting high-risk health care workers and first responders from around the United States.

That study began clinical trials on April 6 to determine whether hydroxychloroquine is effective at preventing infection from SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes the disease COVID-19.

The other is a multicenter study led by Duke University that is also aimed primarily at health care workers. It aims to enroll 15,000 volunteers.

Neither study has released any results.

Dr. David R. Boulware, a medical professor who launched the University of Minnesota study, said there is no data showing that using hydroxychloroquine as a preexposure prophylaxis is effective.

“It may be. It may not be. We do not know,” he told NPR.

“The only way I would recommend taking hydroxychloroquine is within a clinical trial,” he said.

[NPR]

Trump attacks whistleblower Bright as ‘disgruntled employee’

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President Trump on Thursday criticized health official Rick Bright and said he should “no longer” be working for the federal government shortly before the whistleblower was slated to testify before a House panel about the Trump administration’s response to the novel coronavirus.

Trump tweeted that he had never met nor heard of Bright and claimed that the former federal vaccine doctor was “not liked or respected” by people whom the president has consulted, labeling him a “disgruntled employee.”

“I don’t know the so-called Whistleblower Rick Bright, never met him or even heard of him, but to me he is a disgruntled employee, not liked or respected by people I spoke to and who, with his attitude, should no longer be working for our government!” Trump tweeted Thursday morning.

Bright is expected to deliver critical testimony to a House committee later Thursday saying that the Trump administration was unprepared for the coronavirus pandemic. He plans to warn that without a coordinated national response, this year will be “the darkest winter in modern history,” according to a leaked copy of his prepared remarks.

Bright served at the helm of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority from 2016 until last month, when he was reassigned to a narrower position based at the National Institutes of Health.

Bright filed a whistleblower complaint following his reassignment alleging that his early warnings about the virus were met with indifference at the Department of Health and Human Services and that his efforts to push back on the use of hydroxychloroquine to treat the coronavirus, something Trump touted, contributed to his removal from the high-level post.

Bright is seeking to be reinstated in his former position and asked for a full investigation into the decision to reassign him.

Bright, who first came forward with his claims in late April, is slated to testify before the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health at 10 a.m. Thursday morning.

Trump has repeatedly said he didn’t know Bright, while dismissing him as a seemingly “disgruntled employee.”

“I don’t know who he is. I did not hear good things about him at all,” Trump told reporters at the White House on May 6. “And to me he seems like a disgruntled employee that’s trying to help the Democrats win an election.” 

[The Hill]

HHS ousts vaccine expert who pushed back on COVID-19 treatment

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The former head of the office involved in developing a vaccine for COVID-19 said he was removed after he pushed to vet and to limit drug treatments often touted by President Trump. “Specifically, and contrary to misguided directives, I limited the broad use of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, promoted by the Administration as a panacea, but which clearly lack scientific merit,” Dr. Rick Bright said in a statement released by his lawyers Wednesday.

In tweets and public remarks, Mr. Trump has referred to hydroxychloroquine as a potential “game-changer” in treating COVID-19. The president has recommended the use of the antimalarial drug as a potential treatment for the coronavirus, despite limited evidence that the drug would be effective.

Bright was the director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) and HHS deputy assistant secretary for preparedness and response by the administration.

He said that he was “involuntarily transferred to a more limited and less impactful position at the National Institutes of Health,” a transfer that he believes came in response to his “insistence that the government invest the billions of dollars allocated by Congress to address the COVID-19 pandemic into safe and scientifically vetted solutions, and not in drugs, vaccines and other technologies that lack scientific merit.”

“I am speaking out because to combat this deadly virus, science — not politics or cronyism — has to lead the way,” he said in his statement. Bright is a career official and not a political appointee. He has requested that the inspector general for the Department of Health and Human Services investigate his dismissal.

Bright said that he’s “prepared to look at all options and to think ‘outside the box’ for effective treatments,” but “I rightly resisted efforts to provide an unproven drug on demand to the American public.”

He demanded that the drugs only be used under a doctor’s supervision and only to “hospitalized patients with confirmed COVID-19” because of the “potentially serious risks associated with them, including increased mortality observed in some recent studies in patients with COVID-19.”

“Rushing blindly towards unproven drugs can be disastrous and result in countless more deaths. Science, in service to the health and safety of the American people, must always trump politics,” Bright said.

[CBS News]

Trump Has ‘Financial Interest’ in Hydroxychloroquine Manufacturer

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President Donald Trump has a “small financial interest” in the drugmaker of an anti-malarial drug that he has been touting as a “game changer” in treating coronavirus, according to The New York Times. Over the past two weeks, Trump and his Fox News allies have aggressively promoted hydroxychloroquine as a potential cure despite top infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci urging caution and noting that there was not enough evidence of the drug’s efficacy.

The Times reports that the president’s family trusts all have investments in a mutual fund whose largest holding is Sanofi, the manufacturer of Plaquenil, the brand-name version of hydroxychloroquine. Associates of the president, such as major Republican donor Ken Fisher and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, have also run funds that hold investments in the pharmaceutical firm.

[The Daily Beast]

Trump Refuses to Allow Dr. Fauci to Answer Question on Dangers of Hydroxychloroquine

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During a press briefing Sunday night purportedly aimed at providing the U.S. public with crucial information amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, President Donald Trump refused to allow the nation’s top infectious disease expert to answer a reporter’s question about the efficacy of an anti-malaria drug that the president has recklessly touted as a possible COVID-19 treatment despite warnings from medical professionals.

Before Dr. Anthony Fauci could respond to the question about hydroxychloroquine, Trump—who was standing back and off to the side of the podium—complained that Fauci had already spoken about the drug “15 times.”

“You don’t have to ask the question again,” said Trump, stepping forward and moving closer to Fauci as another reporter began asking a separate question.

“This is a really chilling moment from a science standpoint, with Trump having just pushed an unproven COVID treatment and Fauci, the top infectious disease expert in the U.S., getting muzzled on live TV,” tweeted Andrew Freedman, a climate reporter for the Washington Post. “Was clear Trump didn’t want to be contradicted.”

Dr. Lucky Tran, a biologist, said Trump’s interruption was “unacceptable.”

“Dr. Fauci, one of the world’s top infectious disease scientists, was just censored live at a White House press conference,” tweeted Tran.

The exchange came just hours after Fauci, in an appearance on CBS‘ “Face the Nation” Sunday morning, said that “in terms of science, I don’t think we could definitively say [hydroxychloroquine] works.”

“The data are really just at best suggestive,” said Fauci. “There have been cases that show there may be an effect and there are others to show there’s no effect.”

During a press briefing Saturday evening, Trump said “I really think they should they should take it,” referring to coronavirus patients and hydroxychloroquine. Three people in Nigeria overdosed on the drug last month after the president said, without evidence, that the drug may be able to combat the novel coronavirus.

In a joint statement on March 25, the American Medical Association, American Pharmacists Association, and American Society of Health-System Pharmacists said “there is no incontrovertible evidence to support off-label use of medications for COVID-19.”

“What do I know?” Trump asked during the press briefing Sunday night. “I’m not a doctor.”

Media

Trump Again Touts Hydroxychloroquine, Which Has Major Potential Side Effects, as COVID-19 Treatment

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President Donald Trump is again touting a drug used to treat certain other diseases and says he may take it himself in hope that it will help fend off the new coronavirus.

Trump says “there’s a rumor out there” that hydroxychloroquine is effective, declaring “I may take it.”

He has often pointed to hydroxychloroquine as a possible cure and urged people to take it, despite more sober assessments of its effectiveness by medical professionals.

The drug has long been used to treat malaria, rheumatoid arthritis and lupus. Very small preliminary studies suggested it might help prevent coronavirus from entering cells and possibly help patients clear the virus sooner.

But the drug has major potential side effects, especially for the heart, and large studies are underway to see if it is safe and effective for treating COVID-19.

[Time]

Reality

Trump calls for anti-malaria drug to be used ‘immediately’ despite caution from top health expert

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Donald Trump has called for an anti-malaria drug to be used to treat the coronavirus “immediately”, despite his top health expert having said that evidence for its effectiveness was so far “anecdotal”.

On Saturday morning the president tweeted: “HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE & AZITHROMYCIN, taken together, have a real chance to be one of the biggest game changers in the history of medicine. The FDA has moved mountains – Thank You! Hopefully they will BOTH (H works better with A, International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents) be put in use IMMEDIATELY. PEOPLE ARE DYING, MOVE FAST, and GOD BLESS EVERYONE! @US_FDA @SteveFDA @CDCgov​ @DHSgov.”

Hydroxychloroquine is an anti-malarial drug while azithromycin is an antibiotic.

Mr Trump had mentioned hydroxychloroquine as a possible treatment on Thursday, before being publicly rebuked by Anthony Fauci, his lead expert in the fight against Covid-19. The coronavirus has infected at least 18,000 people in the US and killed more than 270.

On Thursday the president said: “I do want to say – to me, something so big – the FDA has approved compassionate use for a significant number of patients. We have a drug called chloroquine. A derivation would be hydroxychloroquine, which I hear even better about.

“It’s a common malaria drug. It’s been available, so therefore the safety level we understand very well. It’s been relatively safe. And it showed very encouraging early results. Really encouraging. 

“If we – if this works as well as – hopefully it might. The FDA, which would have taken normally much longer to do under our great Secretary … the head of the FDA has been – Dr Stephen Hahn – he has been fantastic. He got it approved very quickly.  I won’t even tell you how quickly, but let’s put it this way: It’s approved.  And we’re encouraging you to take a look at it. We have ordered a lot of it, and you can too. It’s by prescription.

“It’s a very powerful drug for malaria and also for various forms of very serious arthritis. But we think it has a very serious – a very good impact on what we’re talking about with respect to the virus. So you’ll take a look at that. Then you can coordinate with us. But I think, to me, that’s a game changer.”

But asked about whether the drug was a promising solution, Dr Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told a White House news conference on Friday that the “the answer is no”.

He said that “the evidence you’re talking about … is anecdotal evidence”

“It was not done in a controlled clinical trial. So you really can’t make any definitive statement about it.”

Dr Fauci told CNN “there’s no magic drug”.

This is not the first time during the coronavirus crisis that the president has clashed with his health experts. Having repeatedly claimed that a vaccine could be developed within months, Dr Fauci and others were forced to stress that it would take at least a year and perhaps longer than 18 months.

[The Independent]