Wednesday on MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports,” National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Dr. Anthony Fauci said the video retweeted by President Donald Trump that featured doctors at a press conference touting Hydroxychloroquine as a coronavirus treatment was “people spouting something that isn’t true.”
Mitchell said, “The president, again today, repeated his endorsement of Hydroxychloroquine, which the FDA said in June should not be used for COVID because it does not have known effects, known benefits, and it does have known risks for cardiac effects. So how damaging is that, that he retweeted the video and defended it again today?”
Fauci said, “The only thing that I can do, Andrea, is do what I’ve done all along, consistently, is that you look at the scientific data and the evidence. The scientific data, the cumulative data on trials, clinical trials that were valid, namely clinically trials that were randomized and controlled in the proper way, all of those trials showed consistently that Hydroxychloroquine is not effective in the treatment of coronavirus disease or COVID-19.”
Mitchell said, “My family received an email yesterday from a young friend of ours, a university graduate. She’s now back home in our village in rural western Kenya, asking us if now there’s a cure because she had seen the video. And now I see in the newspapers in Kenya, warnings in columns to tell people not to believe that video. If this can be transmitted around the country, and globally, so rapidly, don’t we have to do more to stop these dangerous conspiracies from misleading people?”
Fauci said, “Yeah, you’re absolutely correct, Andrea, and that’s the reason why I’m very explicit and unambiguous when we say we’ve got to follow the science. If a study, that’s a good study, comes out and shows efficacy and safety for Hydroxychloroquine or any other drug that we do, if you do it in the right way, you accept the scientific data. But right now, today, the cumulative scientific data that has been put together and done over a number of different studies has shown no efficacy. So when there’s a video out there from a bunch of people spouting something that isn’t true, the only recourse you have is to be very, very clear in presenting the scientific data that essentially contradicts that.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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