Trump Urges Coronavirus Patients to Take Unproven Drug

On Saturday, he continued with that message. “If this drug works, it will be not a game changer because that’s not a nice enough term. It will be wonderful,” he said. “It will be so beautiful. It will be a gift from heaven if it works.”

With no proven treatment for the coronavirus, many hospitals in the United States have simply been giving hydroxychloroquine to patients, reasoning that it might help and probably will not hurt, because it is relatively safe. But it is not considered safe for people with abnormal heart rhythms.

At the Saturday briefing, Dr. Stephen Hahn, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, said the agency had given special permission for imported hydroxychloroquine to be used in the United States, in part to make sure that there would be enough for patients who need it for chronic diseases like lupus.

On Friday, Dr. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, warned Americans against assuming the drug would be a silver bullet against the coronavirus, noting that evidence of its effectiveness was scant and more studies were needed.

But on Saturday, Mr. Trump continued to wax enthusiastic.

“We’re going to be distributing it through the Strategic National Stockpile,” he said, adding, “we have millions and millions of doses of it. Twenty-nine million to be exact.”

The Department of Health and Human Services directed questions to the Strategic National Reserve, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Mr. Trump said he also had spoken to Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India about procuring millions more doses of hydroxychloroquine from that country.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/04/health/coronavirus-drug-trump-hydroxycholoroquine.html