Trump's Effort Paying Off

"Many people who are dying, both here and around the world were on their last legs anyway, and I don’t want to sound callous about that."  -Bill O’Reilly, April 8, 2020

Donald Trump knows better than to be so blunt. However, The Washington Post has reported

Rick Bright, former director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, told Congress on Thursday that political pressure forced “dozens of federal scientists” to spend a harried 48-hour stretch rushing to put together a protocol for approving hydroxychloroquine for widespread use in covid-19 patients. Ultimately, that approach wasn’t taken. The FDA issued an emergency authorization for hospitalized covid-19 patients who cannot participate in a clinical trial.

In his whistleblower complaint, Bright said he was removed from his position in part because of his reluctance to promote the use of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, because they had not been tested and deemed safe for treating covid-19....

“So we have had some great response, in terms of doctors writing letters and people calling on the hydroxychloroquine,” Trump told reporters Thursday. “And this guy is fighting it. There’s no reason to fight it. There’s no reason. But more importantly than that, we’ve had tremendous response to the hydroxy.”

But doctors, health experts and officials from Trump’s own administration say the evidence does not back up the president’s positive assertions. Those assertions, which Trump has claimed are partly based on “a feeling,” could be costing lives, they said.

One can only hope, President Trump (and O'Reilly) can almost be heard thinking. In one study of Veterans Affairs patients

More than 27 percent of patients treated with hydroxychloroquine died, and 22 percent of those treated with the combination therapy died, compared with an 11.4 percent death rate in those not treated with the drugs, the study said.

And in a collateral benefit for Donald Trump, as of March the USA had

all but exhausted its supplies of two anti-malarial drugs that are being used by some doctors in the U.S. and China to treat the coronavirus, but which lack definitive evidence as effective treatment or approval from the Food and Drug Administration.

Hopes that the decades-old drugs could be effective against the coronavirus were also boosted by President Trump, who told a White House press briefing last week that the compounds were “a game-changer'' and have shown “very, very encouraging results.'' He made similar remarks Friday and tweeted the recommendation again on Saturday morning, saying he hoped the medicines will "be put in use IMMEDIATELY.”

The sudden shortages of the two drugs could come at a serious cost for lupus and rheumatoid arthritis patients who depend on them to alleviate symptoms of inflammation, including preventing organ damage in lupus patients.

That sounds like a win-win for a President who last week in Allentown, Pennsylvania, described his concept of beauty- death to the weak- as nurses who are

warriors aren't they, when you see them going into those hospitals and they're putting the stuff that you deliver, but they're wrapping themselves, and the doors are opening, and they're going through the doors, and they're not even ready to go through those doors, they probably shouldn't, but they can't get there fast enough, and they're running into death just like soldiers run into bullets in a true sense, I see that with the doctors and the nurses and so many of the people that go into those hospitals, it's incredible to see, it's a beautiful thing to see.

We're presently at 91,000+ deaths in the USA from covid-19, and Donald Trump's frustration is only that we cannot get to the six digit milestone soon enough.

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