President Trump has scored a minor victory over the Trump
pandemic. Bloomberg News reports
Share
|
Nigeria reported two cases of chloroquine poisoning after
U.S. President Donald Trump praised the anti-malaria drug as a treatment for
the novel coronavirus.
Health officials are warning Nigerians against
self-medicating after demand for the drug surged in Lagos, a city that’s home
to 20 million people. Two people were hospitalized in Lagos for chloroquine
overdoses, Oreoluwa Finnih, senior health assistant to the governor of Lagos,
said in an interview.
“Please don’t panic,” she said via text message. “Chloroquine
is still in a testing phase in combination with other medication and not yet
verified as a preventive treatment or curative option.”
Nigeria’s Centre for Disease Control warned that the World
Health Organization hasn’t approved use of the drug against the virus. Africa’s
most populous country reported 22 infections as of Saturday.
Trump said Thursday that chloroquine and its less-toxic
cousin hydroxychloroquine had shown “tremendous promise” to treat the new
illness.
The president doubled down on Saturday, telling his Twitter
followers that hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin “taken together” could be
“one of the biggest game changers in the history of medicine.” He urged they
“be put in use IMMEDIATELY.”
Trump also retweeted an online post about a small study of
26 patients that showed success in eradicating the new coronavirus when the two
drugs were taken together. Some hospitals have already begun stockpiling
hydroxychloroquine, and medical institutions are gearing up to conduct further
studies. In the meantime, experts say using the drug and its cousin chloroquine
to treat Covid-19 isn’t backed by enough scientific evidence.
The Food and Drug Administration hasn’t approved the
antimalarials to treat Covid-19, the respiratory illness caused by the
coronavirus.
As the government's reigning infectious disease expert, Dr.Anthony
Fauci clarified some of Trump's comments about the drug on
Friday after the president said he had a "good feeling" about it. He
said that hydroxychloroquine could not be used to prevent COVID-19.
"Many of the things out there are what I have called
'anecdotal reports,'" he told reporters at a press briefing. “The
information that you’re referring to specifically is anecdotal. It was not done
in a controlled clinical trial, so you really can’t make any definitive
statement about it.”
He reiterated those remarks on Saturday, the same day that
Trump tweeted that "HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE & AZITHROMYCIN, taken together,
have a real chance to be one of the biggest game changers in the history of
medicine."
“I’m not totally sure what the president was referring to,”
Fauci said. “Many things you hear out there are what I call anecdotal reports.
They may be true, but they’re anecdotal. .. If you really want to definitively
know if something works, you have to do the kind of trial that you get the good
information with.”
It is theoretically possible that the President doesn't
understand this, and hence would not be pleased to learn that his praise for
the drugs has led to a dangerous surge in their usage in Nigeria.
Theoretically. Instead, Dr. Fauci, explaining his
disagreement with the President, noted Trump is a
smart guy.... He’s not a dummy. So he doesn’t take it —
certainly up to now — he doesn’t take it in a way that I’m confronting him in
any way. He takes it in a good way.
He's not a dummy. He understands the implications of the
misinformation, disinformation, and lies he traffics in. As the number of
deaths rises, the falsity is not a bug; it's a benefit.
No comments:
Post a Comment