Trump again pushes unproven drug as COVID-19 treatment
WASHINGTON (AP) — A week after appearing to project a more serious tone about the coronaviru s, President Donald Trump is back to pushing unproven claims that an anti-malaria drug is an effective treatment and challenging the credibility of the nation's leading infectious disease expert.
Dr. Anthony Fauci pushed back Tuesday, saying he will keep doing his job.
Numerous studies, meanwhile, have shown that the drug, hydroxychloroquine, is not an effective treatment for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. And the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently withdrew an order that allowed the drug's use as a emergency treatment for COVID-19.
Yet overnight, after returning from a trip to North Carolina where he promoted efforts to develop a COVID-19 vaccine, Trump retweeted a series of tweets advocating for hydroxychloroquine.
The president also shared a post from the Twitter account for a podcast hosted by Steve Bannon, a former top White House adviser to Trump, accusing Fauci of misleading the public over hydroxychloroquine.
Fauci, a leading member of the White House coronavirus task force, pushed back Tuesday during an appearance on ABC's “Good Morning America.”
“I go along with the FDA,” said Fauci, the longtime director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases. "The overwhelming prevailing clinical trials that have looked at the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine have indicated that it is not effective in coronavirus disease.”
It's not the first time Fauci has come under attack from Trump and those close to him.
The president's top trade adviser, Peter Navarro, who has clashed with Fauci over hydroxychloroquine, recently penned a scathing attack on the doctor that was published by USA Today. The newspaper later said the opinion...
