33 min ago
Fact check: Trump again touts unproven drugs for coronavirus
From CNN's Marshall Cohen
President Donald Trump and members of his administration on Monday again mentioned two drugs that could potentially help combat the coronavirus.
Over the weekend, large drugmakers announced that they were providing millions of doses of the drugs to the federal government, and the Food and Drug Administration issued emergency approval for the Trump administration’s plan to send the drugs to hospitals across the country.
The medicines,
chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, are anti-malaria drugs that have been used off-label at hospitals to treat coronavirus patients.
Facts First: While public health officials are hopeful that the drugs will work against coronavirus, Trump's tone hasn't matched the science, which is extremely limited and anecdotal at this early stage.
Trump's over-the-top optimism has been tamped down by the medical professionals on the White House task force handling the pandemic. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top public health official on infectious disease, said the proof is only anecdotal. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar was similarly careful with his language on Monday, and referred to the drugs as "potential Covid-19 treatments.”
Trump has repeatedly touted the drugs in recent weeks, even though there hasn't been any clinical trials in humans proving that they work for coronavirus. Earlier this month,
Trump tweeted that the drugs "have a real chance to be one of the biggest game changers in the history of medicine.”
CNN Health’s Arman Azad
wrote about this on Sunday. He said: “Thus far, there is little scientific evidence that chloroquine, or its closely-related analogue hydroxychloroquine, are effective in treating Covid-19… While there's limited evidence on the efficacy of chloroquine, or hydroxychloroquine, the FDA said the drugs’ benefits outweighed their risk."