April 6, 2020

Top health officials are increasingly unsettled by President Donald Trump’s continued championing of an unproven drug in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic, even as some of the president’s political and policy advisers and outside allies cheer him on.

A growing number of senior Trump appointees have moved toward viewing hydroxychloroquine, a pill typically used to treat malaria and lupus, as a potential salve for the Covid-19 outbreak — adding it to the national stockpile, urging manufacturers to ramp up its production and sending huge shipments of the drug to hospitals and pharmacies in hot zones like New York City where doctors are free to prescribe it to patients.

Trump has become an avid promoter of the drug from the White House podium. “What really do we have to lose?” he told reporters over the weekend. “It is a very strong, powerful medicine. It does not kill people. We have some very good results and some very good tests,” he added, glossing over concerns from some of his own officials, who fear that the evidence of the drug’s efficacy is anecdotal at best.

Read more:

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/06/trump-drug-coronavirus-hydroxychloroquine-170543