Drug That Trump Touted as ‘Miracle Drug’ For COVID Linked to Almost 17K Deaths, According to Study

A medicine notoriously promoted by Donald Trump has been associated with approximately 17,000 Covid fatalities, according to a recent scientific analysis.

During the initial wave of COVID-19, patients were administered the anti-malaria medication hydroxychloroquine, according to researchers, "despite the absence of evidence documenting its clinical benefits." According to the French report, the medication may have caused the deaths of 16,990 people in the US, France, Belgium, Italy, Spain, and Turkey, per Independent.

The report was released in Biomedicine & Pharmacotherapy's February edition. The data, according to researchers, was taken from a study that was published in the scientific journal Nature and revealed an 11% rise in death rates associated with the prescription of the medication. The study indicated that this rise was driven by effects such as cardiac rhythm abnormalities and the drug's usage instead of other effective treatment courses.

Trump previously referred to the medicine as a “miracle cure” and acknowledged using it as a preventative treatment in May 2020, The New York Times reported. “All I can tell you is so far I seem to be OK,” Trump was heard telling reporters at the time. “I get a lot of tremendously positive news on the hydroxy. What do you have to lose? Take it.”

Trump's praise for the medicine was met with quick criticism from several medical professionals, and it came only a month after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a safety warning regarding the medicine. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country's top infectious disease specialist, especially active during COVID, has repeatedly said that there is no clear evidence to justify the drug's use.

In March 2020, when asked if it should be considered a treatment for COVID-19, Dr. Fauci said, “The answer is no,” per The Guardian. Faced with questioning from the press about his forceful advocacy of an untested cure, Trump went on to argue against waiting for scientific testing. “In France, they had a very good test,” Trump said at the time. “But we don’t have time to go and say, ‘Gee, let’s take a couple of years and test it out, and let’s go and test with the test tubes and the laboratories.’”

Researchers from France and Canada claim to have used this number to examine hospitalization data across the six nations, medication usage, and the rise in the drug's relative risk of mortality. The researchers had another sordid observation to denote. Because their analysis only examined six nations between March and July 2020, the actual mortality toll may be far greater.

Hydroxychloroquine rose to popularity in part because of French virologist Didier Raoult, who led the Méditerranée Infection Foundation hospital but was eventually ousted amid rising criticism. The board of the International Society of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy issued a statement two weeks after Raoult's paper was originally published online, denouncing it. The board, the statement reads, “believes the article does not meet the Society’s expected standard, especially relating to the lack of better explanations of the inclusion criteria and the triage of patients to ensure patient safety.”