Trump's daredevilry backfires as more than 100 Americans die from using HCQ as coronavirus remedy: Report
President Donald Trump may have stressed time and again in favor of taking hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) as a remedy for the deadly coronavirus pandemic despite the experts warning against it, and it has been revealed now that more than 100 Americans have died so far this year after trying to use it to treat Covid-19.
The revelations have been made by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s review of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)’s adverse events reporting system. While the cases of fatalities caused by HCQ in the first six months of 2020 have touched the three-figure mark, it was only 75 in the same period last year.
In May, Trump claimed that he has been taking the malaria drug regularly as a preventive measure against coronavirus and was slammed by the media and political opponents over the same. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi even mocked the president’s weight while reacting to the news. The latest data will now only make their argument stronger as a number of credible studies said the drug offered no benefit to those infected by the virus. The US has now nearly five million people affected by coronavirus while more than 161,000 have died.
Trump’s backing for the drug was based on the fact that it is FDA-approved, which is true. However, it has been approved by the FDA to treat malaria and other diseases like lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. The usage of the drug also comes with a warning that it can cause heart arrhythmias that might remain unnoticeable in some cases but could lead to severe heart dysfunction and even death. People with pre-existing heart conditions are discouraged from using HCQ.
But when Trump asked people “What do you have to lose?” while encouraging people to have HCQ, doctors started prescribing the drug widely. It has been reported that the number of HCQ prescriptions filled in one week of March was over 2000 percent higher than those done for the same medicine in 2019.
FDA revoked emergency usage but a bit late
The seeds of danger were hence sown. Even if the FDA later issued a warning against using the drug experimentally under close observation of a medical expert after arrhythmia was seen in trial participants treated with the drug, the damage had been done. By June, the agency revoked its emergency use authorization of HCQ to treat Covid-19 but enough of inappropriate usage of the medicine had already been done by then, raising the possibility of fatal consequences.
Between January and June, there were more than 6,500 adverse cases related to HCQ as reported to the FDA and more than 6,200 of them were “serious” meaning people could be disabled or dead. The numbers were much higher compared to those recorded last year. Three prominent experts in Trump’s coronavirus task force -- Deborah Birx, Anthony Fauci and Admiral Brett Giroir -- have warned against the use of HCQ to treat Covid-19. But it has been difficult to stop people from misusing it since it is an important remedy for malaria and gives relief to people having lupus.