“Hydroxychloroquine is utilized by 1000's and 1000's of front-line employees, in order that hopefully they don’t catch this horrible illness or no
“Hydroxychloroquine is utilized by 1000’s and 1000’s of front-line employees, in order that hopefully they don’t catch this horrible illness or no matter you wish to name it.”
— in a cupboard assembly on Tuesday
This lacks proof. It’s definitely potential that some medical doctors and well being care employees are nonetheless taking hydroxychloroquine as a preventive therapy, however there’s little assist for the president’s repeated suggestion that the observe is widespread.
The American Medical Affiliation mentioned in an announcement that it “doesn’t know of any monitoring or surveys inspecting private use of hydroxychloroquine amongst well being care employees.”
The American Nurses Affiliation was extra emphatic, saying that it “has not obtained reviews from nurses or different front-line well being care employees using hydroxychloroquine as a preventative therapy for Covid-19. Moreover, to this point, analysis has not proven clear proof that hydroxychloroquine has a preventative impact for Covid-19.”
“We have not received from the state boards of pharmacy any new concerns regarding the continued stockpiling of hydroxychloroquine,” said Al Carter, the executive director of the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy.
“Once states began implementing emergency limitations and guidelines on the amount of hydroxychloroquine that could be prescribed and dispensed for acute use, the complaints from pharmacists and state boards of pharmacy decreased significantly,” Mr. Carter added.
Mr. Trump may have been referring to front-line workers who are participating in clinical trials on the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine in preventing Covid-19 infection. Thousands are currently enrolled in these trials, and many are still recruiting eligible volunteers. Participants in these trials, however, represent a tiny fraction of the health care and front-line workers across the country. There are over one million active doctors and nearly three million registered nurses alone.
Researchers conducting these trials also said that interest in taking the drug, even in a clinical setting, had waned recently.
Another doctor conducting a clinical trial who spoke on the condition of anonymity said many colleagues had stashes of hydroxychloroquine in their offices and used it as a preventive measure in the early days of the pandemic. Use is continuing but is no longer as widespread, the doctor said, especially after the F.D.A. warning and as supplies of personal protective equipment became less scarce. The doctor’s clinical trial, too, has lost recruitment because “people got scared,” the doctor said.
Dr. H. Michael Belmont, a professor of medicine at New York University, said his study had recruited 125 participants out of a capacity of 350, partly because of strict eligibility requirements, partly because cases in New York had decreased and partly because studies showing the drug’s ineffectiveness “reduced somewhat the enthusiasm.”
Taking hydroxychloroquine as a prophylactic should really be done only in a research setting, Dr. Belmont emphasized. “You do it outside a clinical trial, you lose the opportunity to answer scientific questions,” he said.
What Mr. Trump Said
“And if you look at the one survey, the only bad survey, they were giving it to people that were in very bad shape. They were very old, almost dead. It was a ‘Trump enemy’ statement.”
— in remarks to reporters on Tuesday
False. Mr. Trump was referring to a study of 368 Veterans Affairs patients — all male with a median age over 65 — hospitalized with Covid-19 infections. It found no evidence that hydroxychloroquine reduced patients’ chances of being put on a mechanical ventilator and that the drug was associated with “increased overall mortality.”
But he was wrong that it was the “only bad survey” that threw cold water on the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine.
When Mr. Trump dismissed the study of veterans this month, The Times noted that the current body of research was limited to a few studies criticized for methodological errors and was insufficient to support the use of hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine, another malaria drug, as treatments.
What Mr. Trump Said
Reporter: “The F.D.A. has said hydroxychloroquine should not be used outside of a hospital setting or outside of a research study.”
Mr. Trump: “No, that’s not what I was told. No.”
— in the cabinet meeting
The agency did authorize the use of the drugs “for treatment of the virus in hospitalized patients when clinical trials are not available, or participation is not feasible.”
Mr. Trump seemed aware of the warning just an hour before he denied its existence.
“The F.D.A. warned that hydroxychloroquine could cause serious side effects, especially with the heart, with your heart,” a reporter told the president, after a luncheon with Republican senators.