After weeks of singing the praises of the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine as a preventative measure against the coronavirus, and saying last week that was taking the drug himself, President Donald Trump revealed in an interview on Sinclair Broadcasting on Sunday that he had “Finished, just finished,” his course of the unproven treatment. “And by the way, I’m still here…To the best of my knowledge, here I am.”
That, on the same day the World Health Organization placed a pause in COVID-19-related testing of hydroxychloroquine after the esteemed medical journal The Lancet published a finding that, among patients with coronavirus who received the drug, the authors “estimated a higher mortality rate.”
“The Executive Group has implemented a temporary pause of the hydroxychloroquine arm within the Solidarity Trial while the data is reviewed by the Data Safety Monitoring Board”-@DrTedros #COVID19
— World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) May 25, 2020
“The authors reported that among #COVID19 patients receiving the drug, when used alone or with a macrolide, they estimated a higher mortality rate”-@DrTedros
— World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) May 25, 2020
The Food and Drug Administration had also issued a warning of potential harmful side effects to the drug, including ventricular tachycardia and ventricular fibrillation and, in some cases, death. But Trump has still promoted it as a potential effective treatment for the virus.
“I happen to be taking it…Right now,” Trump said to surprised reporters at the White House last Monday. “Yeah. Couple weeks ago I started taking it. Cause I think it is good. I have heard a lot of good stories. And if it is not good, I will tell you, alright, I am not going to get hurt by it.”
“What do you have to lose?” Trump said at the time.
