A large study of hydroxychloroquine, the malaria and lupus drug President Donald Trump pushed for weeks, finds it not only delivered “no benefit” to COVID-19 patients but caused “more deaths,” according to The Associated Press.
The study is “the largest look so far of hydroxychloroquine with or without the antibiotic azithromycin for COVID-19.”
The study shows the rate of death more than twice as high for coronavirus patients who were given hydroxychloroquine than those were received normal treatment without the malaria drug. The rate of death was exactly twice as high for patients given a treatment of hydroxychloroquine with azithromycin.
“Now, we have purchased and we have stockpiled 29 million pills of the hydroxychloroquine, 29 million,” Trump announced earlier this month. “A lot of drugstores have them, by prescription, and also — and they are not expensive — also we’re sending them to various labs, our military, we’re sending them to the hospitals. We’re sending them all over.”
The study “hints that hydroxychloroquine might have damaged other organs. The drug has long been known to have potentially serious side effects, including altering the heartbeat in a way that could lead to sudden death.”
Trump repeatedly said: “What do you have to lose?” when pushing the drug.
The President falsely claimed it was safe because the FDA had approved it, but off-label usage can be risky, as this study proves.