Researchers at the Henry Ford Health System in Southeast Michigan found that early administration of the drug hydroxychloroquine makes hospitalized patients much less likely to die.
The study, published in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases, found that hydroxychloroquine provided a “66% reduction in risk ratio,” and hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin a 71 percent reduction, compared to none of the treatments.
Hospital mortality was 18.1 percent with both drugs, 13.5 percent with only hydroxychloroquine, 22.4 percent with azithromycin alone, and 26.4 percent with neither drug. “Prospective trials are needed” for further review, the researchers note.
“Our results differ from some other studies,” said Dr. Marcus Zervos, who heads the hospital’s infectious disease unit, at a press conference. “What we think was important in ours … is that patients were treated early. For hydroxychloroquine to have a benefit, it must start before patients begin to experience some of the serious immune reactions that patients may have with COVID “.
A Trump campaign statement hailed the study as “fantastic news.”
“Fortunately, the Trump Administration secured a massive supply of hydroxychloroquine for the national reserve months ago,” the statement read. “However, this is the same drug that the media and the Biden campaign spent weeks trying to discredit and spread fear and doubt because President Trump dared to mention it as a possible treatment for the coronavirus.”
He added: “The new Henry Ford Health System study should be a clear message to the media and Democrats: Stop the strange attempts to discredit hydroxychloroquine to satisfy your own anti-Trump agenda. It may be costing lives.”
The findings, conservatives said, highlighted efforts by media supporters to undermine confidence in the drug simply to undermine the president.
“So fewer people died because they took the drug @realDonaldTrump suggested … Thank you, POTUS for doing the right thing even in the face of a DC culture that attacks you no matter what you do,” wrote former Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell. .
Federalist Sean Davis added: “The media and incompetent corrupt government officials lied to you about social estrangement. They lied to you about hydroxychloroquine. They lied to you about the risks to children and the general population. They didn’t lie to help you, but to control you, and they won’t stop. “
At a White House briefing on March 19, Trump had commented: “Now, a medication called chloroquine, and some people would add, hydroxychloroquine, then chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine … [has] it showed very encouraging, very encouraging results. “The President acknowledged that the drug may” not go as planned “and that more testing is needed, but that” we will be able to make that drug available almost immediately. “
That statement provoked an immediate mockery of the journalists.
“Trump sells unsubstantiated hope in dark times,” read a March 20 “analysis” by CNN’s Stephen Collinson. Saying that Trump was “embracing the boldness of false hope” and embracing “premature optimism,” Collinson said “there is no doubt that he overstated the immediate prospects for the drug” because the FDA had not provided an explicit timeline to approve the medicine to treat coronavirus.
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The media attack continued. “Trump is giving people a false hope of curing the coronavirus. Everything is snake oil,” said a Washington Post headline. The Post’s editorial board added: “Trump is spreading false hopes of a virus cure, and that’s not the only harm.”
“The most promising response to the pandemic will be a vaccine, and researchers are rushing to develop it,” the document insisted, although it does not have medical experts. “Mr. Trump’s inappropriate exaggeration has already led to the hoarding of hydroxychloroquine and diverting supplies to people with other diseases that need it. His comments raise false hopes. Instead of rolling the dice to unproven therapy, let us place our trust in the scientists”. “
President Donald Trump speaks during a visit to Fincantieri Marinette Marine, Thursday, June 25, 2020, in Marinette, Wisconsin (AP Photo / Evan Vucci)
The editorial board of USA Today was equally aggressive and mocking and wrote: “Coronavirus treatment: Dr. Donald Trump sells snake oil and false hopes.”
“There are no approved therapies or medications to treat COVID-19 yet, but the president touches on preliminary trials of chloroquine at the White House briefing and unproven remedies on Twitter,” the newspaper wrote, just days before the FDA will approve the drug.
Communications strategist Drew Holden flagged these and many other examples of misinformation from the media on the subject in a lengthy Twitter thread.
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Salon, Holden noted, called Trump’s hope for the new treatment “the most dangerous flim-flam: false hope and funny advice.”
The New Yorker reflected on “The Meaning of Donald Trump’s Coronavirus Quackery,” noting that “Trump’s pronouncements are a reminder, if need be, of his disregard for rigorous science, even amid the worst pandemic that hit the United States in a century. “
Michael Cohen, a columnist for the Boston Globe, urged networks to stop issuing press releases about Trump’s coronavirus because he was spreading “misinformation” about a possible cure.
And, NBC News complained, “Trump, by promoting unproven drug treatments, insults an NBC reporter at a coronavirus briefing.”
Kurt Eichenwald of the New York Times reported that a “Louisiana MD” on the “front line of the COVID-19 fight” had told him that “hydroxychloroquine doesn’t work” and that “fans who don’t [sic] I understand that the investigation “was driving demand for the drug” (“Tell me skeptical of your source here, Kurt,” Holden wrote).
Vox scoffed at Trump’s “new favorite treatment” for the drug, saying there is “missing” evidence that it works.
The media withdrew a bit from this narrative as more positive evidence emerged.
“Malaria medicine helps virus patients get better, in a small study,” the New York Times reported in April, adding: “A group of moderately ill people were given hydroxychloroquine, which seemed to ease their symptoms. quickly, but more research is needed. “
Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, went from threatening doctors who prescribed the drug with “administrative action” to requesting that the federal government send her a little bit to her state. Other state leaders have followed suit, including Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak, also a Democrat.
And, an international survey of thousands of doctors rated hydroxychloroquine as the “most effective therapy” for the coronavirus.
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The Food and Drug Administration stopped the emergency use authorization for the drug earlier this month, saying preliminary data showed it was not effective. However, research into its possible applications to treat the coronavirus has continued.
