Trump's revelation a day earlier that he was taking hydroxychloroquine caught many in his administration by surprise
Calls to centers involving hydroxychloroquine increased last month to 96, compared with 49 in April 2019, according to data from the American Association of Poison Control Centers provided to the AP. It was the second month of elevated reports involving the drug, following 79 calls in March.
The problems reported included abnormal heart rhythms, seizures, nausea and vomiting.FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn said in an emailed statement Tuesday: “The decision to take any drug is ultimately a decision between a patient and their doctor.” As research started to emerge that hydroxychloroquine was not helpful, and even potentially harmful, in battling COVID-19, the president’s public rhetoric in support of the drug had faded. But his private hopes had not, according to three White House officials and Republicans close to the White House not authorized to speak publicly about private discussions. Trump alleged without evidence Tuesday that one government study that showed negative effects from the drug was meant to embarrass him. “If you look at the one survey, the only bad survey, they were giving it to people that were in very bad shape,” Trump said. That was an apparent reference to a study of hundreds of patients treated by the Department of Veterans Affairs in which more people in a group who were administered hydroxychloroquine died than among those who weren’t.Two large observational studies, each involving around 1,400 patients in New York, recently found no COVID-19 benefit from hydroxychloroquine. Two new ones published Thursday in the medical journalAt least two White House staffers tested positive for COVID-19 earlier this month, sparking concerns about the steps taken by the administration to protect the president and sending Vice President Mike Pence and other officials into varying forms of self-isolation.and has introduced daily testing for the virus for the president, vice president and those they come in close contact with. Trump says he continues to test negative for the coronavirus.on Tuesday that he was not taking the drug because his doctor did not recommend it, but said he “would never begrudge any American taking the advice of their physician.” Trump said he took hydroxychloroquine with an “original dose” of the antibiotic azithromycin. The president has repeatedly promoted the use of the drug with or without the azithromycin, but no large, rigorous studies have found them safe or effective for preventing or treating COVID-19. Prescriptions for hydroxychloroquine surged roughly 80% in March to more than 830,000 compared with same period in the prior year, according to data tracking firm IQVIA. That jump in prescribing came before the federal government accepted nearly 30 million doses of the drug donated to the strategic national stockpile by foreign drugmakers. Since then, millions of those tablets have been shipped to U.S. hospitals nationwide for use treating patients with COVID-19.
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