Report stating Trump benefits financially by promoting hydroxychloroquine rubbished by fact-checkers
President Donald Trump was reportedly lobbied to tout anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for novel coronavirus by Fox News host Laura Ingraham and two other doctors who appear regularly on her show. Ingraham reportedly made an Oval Office visit to meet the president even as it was revealed that he has a financial stake in a French firm that makes the drug.
Trump, after the meeting with Ingraham in March, appeared enthusiastic for hydroxychloroquine, a drug that has shown some promise in COVID-19 treatment but has not undergone rigorous testing yet. The New York Times, in its report on Tuesday, April 7, claimed that the president has a small personal financial interest in Sanofi, the French company that makes Plaquenil, the brand name of the drug generally used to treat malaria.
The investment, however, is part of the Trump family's broader stake in a mutual fund whose largest holding is in Sanofi. There is no evidence yet to suggest that Trump is motivated by personal gain.
However, fact-checking site Snopes said Trump’s financial stake in Sanofi is virtually negligible — contained indirectly via mutual funds — and administered through three family trusts he does not control. As a generic drug, hydroxychloroquine is unlikely to provide any one company with significant profits compared to other proprietary drugs.
The president, over the past few weeks, has touted the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine in coronavirus treatment, despite medical experts, including top immunologist Dr. Anthony Fauci, urging a more cautious approach of the drug. Fauci, a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, pointed out last week that there were no reputable scientific studies showing the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine in coronavirus treatment.
Trump, however, has continued to focus on the drug. The Republican is looking for a magic bullet to make the coronavirus crisis in the country go away so that the economy can reopen before the 2020 presidential election in November, sources told the Times.
"The president lives in a world of wishes and hope," one person said. "It's the only thing anyone has held out as offering an immediate reprieve from what's become his greatest challenge - and political threat,' said a former senior administration official. This official described Trump's "overwhelming desire for a silver bullet to make it all go away."
Trump, in a press conference on Sunday, April 5, had given his own reasons for advocating the drug, saying: "I want people to live and I'm seeing people dying. What really do we have to lose?" The Republican announced that his administration had bought 29 million doses of the drug to fight the virus in the country.
"But what do I know? I'm not a doctor," Trump conceded. "I'm not acting as a doctor. I'm saying, do what you want."
Ingraham recently promoted hydroxychloroquine on her 10 pm Fox News show. Her meeting with Trump included two of her guests she refers to as her "medical cabinet": Ramin Oskoui, a Washington D.C.-based cardiologist, and Stephen Smith, a New Jersey-based infectious disease specialist. While Trump requested FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn to be in the room as well.
Smith reportedly gave a presentation about hydroxychloroquine based on his own experiences and studies, two White House officials told The Washington Post. Smith, while talking to the newspaper, said: "I'm a guy who looks at data. I came as a scientist and physician. I trained under Dr. Fauci and respect him a lot."
Meanwhile, American Medical Association's president, Dr Patrice Harris, in a statement to the Associated Press, said that she personally would not prescribe the drug to a coronavirus patient. She said that the side effects of the drug were too "great and too significant to downplay," adding that taking the drug for some could result in their heart stopping as it is known to cause hearth rhythm issues.
The novel coronavirus cases in the United States have crossed 368,449, with nearly 11,000 people dead because of COVID-19. The US, at the moment, is the worst affected country yet.