NIAID director Anthony Fauci told MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell on Wednesday that all of the randomized, controlled clinical trials for hydroxychloroquine have "consistently" shown that the anti-malarial drug is "not effective" for the treatment of COVID-19.
Why it matters: President Trump has doubled down on his promotion of hydroxychoroquine as a coronavirus treatment in recent days, even after the FDA ended its emergency use authorization due to possible heart complications.
- Trump and his son, Donald Trump Jr., drew backlash after retweeting a viral video earlier this week that falsely claimed hydroxychloroquine is a "cure" for the virus.
- Twitter removed the tweets and temporarily barred Trump Jr. from tweeting or retweeting.
What they're saying: "If a study that's a good study comes out and shows efficacy and safety for hydroxychloroquine or any other drug that we do, if you do it in the right way, you accept that scientific data," Fauci said.
- "But right now today, the cumulative scientific data that has been put together, and done over a number of different studies, has shown no efficacy."
- So when there's a video out there for a bunch of people spouting something that isn't true, the only recourse you have is to be very, very clear in presenting the scientific data that essentially contradicts that."
