Donald Trump has revealed he is taking hydroxychloroquine to protect against coronavirus, an anti-malaria treatment the Food and Drug Administration has warned against on the grounds that it can cause fatal heart conditions in some cases.
The president was roundly criticised over the admission, with House speaker Nancy Pelosi warning that it places “morbidly obese” people like Trump in particular danger and Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer branding him “reckless, reckless, reckless”.
Trump has also provoked controversy by lashing out at Fox News and praising its late “great” CEO Roger Ailes, despite his being accused of serial sexual harassment, and threatening to permanently withhold US funding from the World Health Organisation.
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President writes to WHO threatening to permanently freeze funding
Also on Twitter, Trump whacked up a copy of his letter to the director-general of the World Health Organisation (WHO), Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, in which he threatened to make his freeze on US funding to the UN medical body permanent and said he was weighing up the future of American membership.
The president blames the WHO for failing to act swiftly on the coronavirus and being in bed with China. But then he blames a lot of people for the crisis, from the Democrats and Obama to his own CDC.
The United States contributed more than $400m (£327m) to the WHO in 2019, or roughly 15 per cent of the organisation’s budget, so we’re not exactly talking small change here.
Gino Spocchia has this report.
Trump praises late Fox CEO accused of serial sexual harassment
The president also provoked controversy by lashing out at Fox News on Twitter last night and praising its late “great” CEO Roger Ailes, despite his being accused of serial sexual harassment prior to his death in 2017, a crisis that forced him out of the network and saw it pay out $45m (£37m) in compensation to his victims, several of whom were high-profile presenters.
It’s not like the memory of Ailes is lost to the mists of time. The matter was revived just last year when the Hollywood movie Bombshell dramatised events at Fox, starring Charlize Theron, Nicole Kidman, Margot Robbie and John Lithgow as the disgraced executive.
It’s also an extraordinary piece of hypocrisy from Trump, who has been allowing his eldest son and campaign team to portray election rival Joe Biden as a sexual predator in its many smears against him over the Tara Reade allegation. The president has of course been accused of multiple counts of historic sexual misconduct himself, most recently by the writer E Jean Carroll.
The president’s rant came as he lashed out at network broadcaster Neil Cavuto – a semi-regular target who had the audacity to warn his viewers that hydroxychloroquine could kill them.
“Looking for a new outlet!” Trump raged in response.
What are the side effects of hydroxychloroquine and is it safe?
Here’s Alex Woodward on the treatment the president asked White House physician Sean Conley to put him on despite widespread concern about its consequences.
Dr Conley said yesterday that the “the potential benefit from treatment outweighed the relative risks” – not exactly a ringing endorsement of the decision.
Nancy Pelosi warns ‘morbidly obese’ president putting himself at risk by ignoring scientists
The president has been roundly criticised over his hydroxychloroquine admission, with House speaker Nancy Pelosi warning it places “morbidly obese” people like Trump in particular danger and Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer branding him “reckless, reckless, reckless”.
“He’s our president, and I would rather he not be taking something that has not been approved by the scientists, especially in his age group and his, shall we say, weight group… morbidly obese, they say,” Pelosi said on CNN.
On MSNBC, Schumer called Trump’s remarks “dangerous.”
“Maybe he’s really not taking it because the president lies about things characteristically,” he said. “I don’t know whether he is taking it or not. I know him saying he is taking it, whether he is or not, is reckless, reckless, reckless.”
“That seems to me to be a crazy thing to do,” said David Juurlink, head of clinical pharmacology at the University of Toronto, in conversation with Politico. “If the drug had no side effects, it would be a reasonable thing to do.”
Dr Vin Gupta on MSNBC was even more blunt, saying the president should be “ashamed” for putting people’s lives at risk with his bad example:
Here’s Gino Spocchia on the speaker’s remarks, which will no doubt infuriate the notoriously touchy and deeply vain Trump.
Trump reveals he’s taking unproven hydroxychloroquine to fend off coronavirus
Donald Trump has revealed he is taking hydroxychloroquine to protect against coronavirus, an anti-malaria treatment the Food and Drug Administration has warned against on the grounds that it can cause fatal heart conditions in some cases.
The president told reporters at the White House on Monday he has been taking the drug and a zinc supplement daily “for about a week and a half now.”
“I take it,” he told reporters. “All I can tell you is, so far, I feel okay.”
Trump spent weeks pushing the drug as a potential cure for Covid-19 against the cautionary advice of many of his administration’s top medical professionals. The drug has the potential to cause significant side effects in some patients and has not been shown to combat the new coronavirus.
Trump said his doctor did not recommend the drug to him but he requested it from the White House physician.
Trump and his right-wing media allies like Laura Ingraham have repeatedly pushed hydroxychloroquine with or without the antibiotic azithromycin but no large, rigorous studies have found them safe or effective for preventing or treating Covid-19. They can cause heart rhythm problems and other side effects.
Two large observational studies, each involving around 1,400 patients in New York, recently found no benefit from hydroxychloroquine. Two new ones published on Thursday in The British Medical Journal the same conclusion.
Here’s John T Bennett’s report.
Hello and welcome to The Independent‘s rolling coverage of the coronavirus outbreak in the US and the Donald Trump administration’s response to it.
