During the daily press conference of the White House task force on coronavirus Saturday, President Donald Trump once again touted a two-drug cocktail he said may be a possible solution to the COVID-19 outbreak in the United States, which has infected 26,000 Americans so far.
However, using the two drugs Trump referenced — Hydroxychloroquine and Azithromycin — together can cause cardiac arrhythmia and sudden death, and that has many physicians worried that Trump is giving people hope and could lead to deaths from the combination of the two, HuffPost notes:
“Concerned physicians responded to Trump’s tweet crowing about what could be ‘one of the biggest game-changers in the history of medicine’ with warnings about the serious side effects — and urgent pleas not to try to obtain the drugs without a medical prescription in consultation with a doctor.”
HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE & AZITHROMYCIN, taken together, have a real chance to be one of the biggest game changers in the history of medicine. The FDA has moved mountains – Thank You! Hopefully they will BOTH (H works better with A, International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents)…..
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 21, 2020
….be put in use IMMEDIATELY. PEOPLE ARE DYING, MOVE FAST, and GOD BLESS EVERYONE! @US_FDA @SteveFDA @CDCgov @DHSgov
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 21, 2020
During the Saturday press conference, Trump hyped the two-drug cocktail, rhetorically asking:
“What do we have to lose? I feel very good about it.”
But once Trump had departed the briefing, his top coronavirus adviser, Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, was less enthusiastic than his boss about using Hydroxychloroquine and Azithromycin as some sort of silver bullet:
“Fauci responded that there may be positive ‘anecdotal reports’ — informally observed individual cases — about the drugs, but they haven’t yet been proven to work, or to be safe. ‘If you really want to definitively know if something works, you got to do the kind of trial that [gives you] the good information,’ he said. ‘The president is talking about hope for people,’ not science, he noted.”
Other medical experts weighed in on Trump’s touting of the pharmaceutical cocktail via Twitter:
Please don’t take hydroxychloroquine (Plaquenil) plus Azithromycin for #COVID19 UNLESS your doctor prescribes it. Both drugs affect the QT interval of your heart and can lead to arrhythmias and sudden death, especially if you are taking other meds or have a heart condition.
— Dr. Edsel Salvana (@EdselSalvana) March 21, 2020
?Hydroxychloroquine (plaquenil) can prolong the QT interval (heart rhythm) and can cause a FATAL arrhythmia. Azithromycin can also prolong the QT interval, so use of these 2 drugs together should ONLY be done under the supervision of a doctor. pic.twitter.com/ghtYMmFjBA
— Dr. Dena Grayson (@DrDenaGrayson) March 21, 2020
The combination of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin to treat the coronavirus has not been proven safe and effective through large scale clinical trials. There is only anecdotal evidence from case reports in countries overseas. Promising them as miracle drugs gives false hope.
— Eugene Gu, MD (@eugenegu) March 21, 2020
Dr. Trump, unlike a real medical professional, only has a degree in business. And based on how many times he’s filed for bankruptcy, he didn’t learn very much during his college years.
Featured Image Via NBC News
