Donald Trump was grilled at Tuesday’s press briefing about hyrooxychloroquine, the anti-malaria drug he has encouraged people to take even though “[he’s] not a doctor.”
In the shocker of all shockers, Trump is now distancing himself from the drug after a VA medical center study showed it kills people.
The NIH has now recommended against doctors using the drug because of toxicity, NPR reports: “QTc prolongation increases the risk of sudden cardiac death. The recommendation against their combined use would seem to fly in the face of comments made by President Trump suggesting the combination might be helpful. On March 21, for example, the president described them in a tweet as having a ‘real chance to be one of the biggest game changers in the history of medicine.’
Don Lemon ripped the president in a Tuesday night segment.
Said Lemon, imitating the president: “What do you have to lose? Try it!”
“Okay. In all seriousness, a new study of patients at VA medical centers finds the drug not only has no benefit, it even has a higher death rate,” Lemon added.
“And so the president says this tonight,” Lemon continued, playing a clip of Trump telling ABC News reporter Jon Karl, “I don’t know of the report. Obviously there’ve been some very good reports, and perhaps this one’s not a good report, but be looking at it, we’ll have a comment on it … I’m always willing to take a look.”
Said Lemon: “Says he doesn’t know anything about that report showing that patients who took the drug had higher death rates than those who didn’t. The drug he promoted over and over and over. Now the president just says that he’s going to take a look. That’s not good enough. He’s got a responsibility to take this seriously. He promoted a totally unproven drug again and again, telling Americans desperate to do something, anything to save their lives, what have you got to lose, he said. Now he’s doing the ‘I barely know the guy’ routine with the drug that he said would be the game-changer and a gift from heaven.”
