Donald Trump does not give up. Despite the lack of convincing results, the President of the United States continues to defend the use of an anti-malarial treatment, hydroxychloroquine, to fight Covid-19. Monday, May 18, he also took a pill every day of this drug "For a week and a half", with the consent of his doctor. "I started taking it because I think it's good, I heard a lot of good stories" about this, he added, adding that he is not a carrier of the infection. "You would be surprised to find out how many people take it, especially those on the front line" in the hospital, "Before catching" the virus, he added.
Donald Trump fell in love with this drug very early on. He praised the supposed virtues at the height of the epidemic, in March and April, while his experts, starting with the director of the National Institute of Infectious Diseases, Anthony Fauci, pleaded for caution and insisted on the need for scientifically conducted tests.
"You know the expression, I used it for certain reasons: What do you have to lose? What do you have to lose? (…) If it works, it would be a shame to miss it ", he said in April during one of his daily briefings on the pandemic.
Political quarrel
Very quickly, the use of what he presented as a "game changer" (game-changing) has become a political quarrel. Especially since a host of the conservative Fox News chain followed assiduously by the president, Laura Ingraham, took up the cause for hydroxychloroquine, even obtaining according to the American press the favor of an interview at the White House to defend directly to the president.
Lobbying paid off: On March 28, the Food and drug administration (FDA) granted emergency authorization to allow hospitals to use hydroxychloroquine from the US national stock to treat patients who would not otherwise be eligible to a clinical trial. A month later, on April 24, the FDA took a step back by warning, however. "Serious heart rhythm problems" caused by the use of this drug. Donald Trump has stopped mentioning it.
When Fox News asked him about the silence in an interview on May 3, the president said: "Here is what we are reduced to in this country: the Democrats, the radical left, whatever you want, prefer to see people, I will be very nice, I will not say die. I’m going to say that they would prefer people not to recover because they think it would be good for me if it worked. "
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