Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease effort, said Wednesday that trials have shown “consistently” that hydroxychloroquine is “not effective” in treating coronavirus.
His comments come as President Donald Trump faces questions over his promotion of a now-deleted video in which one doctor claimed the drug was a “cure” for COVID-19.
Speaking with Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC, Fauci said the data doesn’t support the claim.
“The scientific data, the cumulative data on trials, clinical trials that were valid — namely, clinical trials that were randomized and controlled in the proper way — all of those trials show consistently that hydroxychloroquine is not effective in the treatment of coronavirus disease or COVID-19,” he said.
Describing the video Trump promoted as “a bunch of people spouting something that isn’t true,” Fauci said, “the only recourse you have is to be very, very clear in presenting the scientific data that essentially contradicts that.”
Late Monday, Trump retweeted the video from the account “@stella_immanuel,” who wrote: “Covid has cure. America wake up.”
The video showed a group calling itself America’s Frontline Doctors standing in front of the Supreme Court. During her speech, Stella Immanuel, a Houston-based physician who describes herself on Twitter as a doctor and “God’s battle axe and weapon of war,” claimed hydroxychloroquine was a “cure” and said masks were no longer needed.
Meanwhile, multiple studies have disputed those claims of efficacy when paired with other antiviral drugs. And the Food and Drug Administration last month revoked an emergency approval that enabled doctors to prescribe the anti-malarial drug to COVID-19 patients even though it was not yet approved for such use.
Twitter, Facebook and YouTube subsequently removed the video from their platforms — with Twitter removing the tweet Trump promoted and temporarily barring his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., from posting after he shared the same video.
Immanuel, a vocal supporter of Trump on social media, has used Facebook and Twitter to spread conspiracy theories, including that the coronavirus was manufactured in China. She also operates the religious organization “Fire Power Ministries” from her Houston clinic, where she posts videos expressing extreme beliefs, including falsely attributing medical issues such as miscarriage, gynecological problems and impotence as stemming from spiritual possession by demon spirits.
Addressing such comments at his Tuesday briefing, Trump said, “She was on air along with many other doctors.”
“They were being fans of hydroxychloroquine, and I thought she was very impressive in the sense that — from where she came, I don’t know which county she comes from — but she said that she’s had tremendous success with hundreds of different patients, and I thought her voice was an important voice,” Trump said after earlier calling Immanuel “spectacular.” “But I know nothing about her.”
Speaking Wednesday with reporters outside of the White House, Trump echoed his earlier remarks saying he was “very impressed with her and other doctors that stood with her.”
“So what they did is they took down their voice,” he said of social media companies. “Now, they seem to never take down the other side. They only take down conservative voices. It’s a shame.”
In a gaggle with reporters Wednesday, White House adviser Peter Navarro lamented that he has “tens of millions of [hydroxycloroquine] doses sitting in the strategic national stockpile which I can’t move.”
“Do me a favor, let’s think about Americans dying when bad stories get written about hydroxy,” he added.
