Trump again pushes unproven drug as COVID-19 treatment
Published:Tuesday | July 28, 2020 | 9:44 AM
WASHINGTON (AP) — A week after appearing to project a more serious tone about the coronavirus, President Donald Trump is back to spreading misinformation about how to combat the virus and the credibility of Dr Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert.
Fauci pushed back Tuesday, saying he will keep doing his job.
Trump pushed unproven claims that an anti-malaria drug, hydroxychloroquine, is an effective treatment for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. But numerous studies have shown that hydroxychloroquine is not effective and the US Food and Drug Administration recently withdrew an order that allowed the drug’s use as a emergency treatment for COVID-19.
Trump returned to his earlier advocacy for hydroxychloroquine after returning from a trip to North Carolina Monday where he promoted efforts to develop a COVID-19 vaccine.
Trump retweeted a series of tweets advocating for hydroxychloroquine, including a video of a doctor claiming to have successfully used the drug on hundreds of patients.
The president also shared a post from the Twitter account for a podcast hosted by Steve Bannon, a former top White House adviser to Trump, accusing Fauci of misleading the public over hydroxychloroquine.
Fauci, a leading member of the White House coronavirus task force, responded to Trump’s tweets during an appearance Tuesday on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
“I go along with the FDA,” said Fauci, the longtime director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
“The overwhelming prevailing clinical trials that have looked at the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine have indicated that it is not effective in coronavirus disease.”
It’s not the first time Fauci has come under attack from Trump and those close to him.
The president’s top trade adviser, Peter Navarro, who has clashed with Fauci over hydroxychloroquine, recently penned a scathing attack on the doctor that was published by USA Today.
The newspaper later said the opinion piece did not meet its standards.
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