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Researchers have been studying hydroxychloroquine to see if the drug can help treat or prevent the coronavirus. But several recent studies have raised doubts about its effectiveness. The Food and Drug Administration has warned against using hydroxychloroquine “outside of the hospital setting or a clinical trial due to risk of heart rhythm problems.” The National Institutes of Health has also advised that doctors use caution when prescribing it.
When asked by reporters why Trump was taking a drug whose effectiveness against COVID-19 had not been established and whose potential dangers had been widely reported, the president answers: “It seems to have an impact and maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t. But if it doesn’t, you’re not going to get sick or die. What do you have to lose?”
That answer didn’t seem to reassure Neil Cavuto, one of the daytime hosts on the normally Trump-friendly Fox News, who referred to a Veterans Administration study that showed that hydroxychloroquine posed severe risk to the elderly or those with underlying conditions. “It was a test on patients there, and those who took it in a vulnerable population, including those with respiratory or other conditions, they died,” Cavuto said, looking agitated. “I want to stress again: They died. If you are in a risky population here, and you are taking this as a preventative treatment to ward off the virus or in a worst case scenario you are dealing with the virus, and you are in this vulnerable population, it will kill you. I cannot stress enough: This will kill you.” (Immediately after Cavuto went off the air, and Greg Gutfield, one of the hosts of The Five, came on, he delivered a far different message about hydroxychloroquine. “If it’s available to you and you can take it, you do it,” Gutfeld said. “That’s a prudent way of looking at it.”
On Monday evening, the White House released a memo from the presidential physician, Dr. Sean Conley, saying that Trump “is in very good health and has remained symptom-free,” and that the president receives “regular COVID-19 testing, all negative to date.” Conley did not, however, say whether he’d actually prescribed the drug to Trump.
Later that evening, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi went on Anderson Cooper 360 to express her concern for the president’s health, a message that not everyone took literally. “I would rather he not be taking something that has not been approved by the scientists, especially in his age group, and in his, shall we say, weight group,” Pelosi said, before adding, with what seemed to be a trace of a smile: ‘Morbidly obese,’ they say.”
The actor and director Ken Olin tweeted immediately afterward: “@SpeakerPelosi just shoved in the knife, and twisted it, so elegantly.” while one of his followers commented “Anderson should win an Emmy for keeping a straight face.”