Trump and Fox News want to send their hydroxychloroquine hype down the memory hole

They’ve suddenly stopped talking about an unproven drug they touted as a possible miracle cure. It’s not an accident.

After weeks of hyping it as a potential coronavirus miracle drug, President Donald Trump and Fox News have suddenly lost faith in hydroxychloroquine.

A study of coronavirus patients in Veterans Affairs hospitals released Tuesday found more deaths among those treated with hydroxychloroquine than those treated with standard care. Researchers reported finding no benefit to its use.

The study, which the National Institutes of Health posted to its website and is the largest of its kind, was not peer-reviewed. The authors concluded more rigorous studies are needed before adopting widespread use of the drug.

Asked about the findings during the White House briefing hours after it was published, Trump dodged, saying “I don’t know of the report,” and tried to distance himself from the drug.

“We’ll be looking at it, we’ll have a comment on it at some point,” he said.

Those comments represented a remarkable reversal for Trump. Seemingly tantalized by the possibility of wriggling his way out of the coronavirus mess with the help of a miracle drug, the president urged coronavirus patients and their doctors to use hydroxychloroquine repeatedly earlier this month, saying things like “it’s looking like it’s having some good results,” “I haven’t heard a bad story,” “it doesn’t kill people,” and “I hope they use it because I’ll tell you what, what do you have to lose?”

Even if it helped Trump provide hope to the public that an effective coronavirus treatment wasn’t far away, it was clear at the time that this rhetoric was irresponsible. Hydroxychloroquine is an effective treatment for malaria, but doctors have long warned that taking it can result in drug-induced cardiac arrest for a small subset of the population. There is at least one documented instance of a man dying in Arizona after he tried to self-medicate with chloroquine phosphate.

Those risks might be worth taking if it turned out that hydroxychloroquine was effective in helping people recover from coronavirus infections. But health officials said at the time the research to determine that hadn’t been conducted.

A day after Trump called the drug a “game-changer,” his top health official on coronavirus, Dr. Anthony Fauci, told the press it was too soon to say whether the drug was safe or effective. “The information that you’re referring to specifically is anecdotal,” he said. “It was not done in a controlled clinical trial. So you really can’t make any definitive statement about it.”

The new study is not a controlled clinical trial, but researchers argue their work confirms more study is necessary before embracing wide use of hydroxychloroquine.

The Associated Press write-up provides details:

Researchers analyzed medical records of 368 male veterans hospitalized with confirmed coronavirus infection at Veterans Health Administration medical centers who died or were discharged by April 11.

About 28% who were given hydroxychloroquine plus usual care died, versus 11% of those getting routine care alone. About 22% of those getting the drug plus azithromycin died too, but the difference between that group and usual care was not considered large enough to rule out other factors that could have affected survival.

Hydroxychloroquine made no difference in the need for a breathing machine, either.

Researchers did not track side effects, but noted a hint 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’s infatuation with hydroxychloroquine can be traced back to a controversial French study released in March on a small number of Covid-19 patients that found hydroxychloroquine could lessen the duration of infection. As Media Matters for America has detailed, the French study and similar anecdotal evidence from China was covered by Fox News, amplified by Trump, with Trump’s amplification in turn being covered by Fox — in other words, it was the perfect illustration of the Fox-to-Trump feedback loop.

As it became clear that the United States was going to be especially hard hit by the coronavirus pandemic, Trump became insistent that the drug could be a savior, despite Fauci’s position.

While Trump hyped hydroxychloroquine during the briefings, Fox News hyped it morning, afternoon, and night. To cite just a couple of notable examples, trade adviser Peter Navarro went on Fox & Friends for an interview earlier this month in which he said of the debate between Trump and doctors, “I think history will judge who’s right on this debate, but I’d bet on President Trump’s intuition.” A guest on primetime host Laura Ingraham’s show went as far as to suggest the coronavirus outbreak was all but finished.

But these talking points didn’t gain traction on other networks, where hype about unproven and potentially dangerous drugs by people who aren’t doctors was treated with the skepticism it deserves.

But just as Trump and Fox News have tried to do with the months-long period in January, February, and March in which they downplayed the coronavirus, they’re now trying to put their hydroxychloroquine hype down the memory hole.

On Wednesday morning, Dr. Oz — who just weeks ago was writing op-eds touting “the tantalizing possibility that hydroxychloroquine may prevent infection” and asserting that “doctors around the world are choosing hydroxychloroquine more than any other solution” — went on Fox & Friends and said he thinks it’s important for wait for more studies.

“We are better off waiting for the randomized trials Dr. Fauci has been asking for,” he said.

Dr. Oz’s more measured comments aren’t an aberration — Media Matters reports that “promotion of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine on Fox has plummeted in recent days: In a five-day period from April 11 to April 15, the treatment was mentioned on the network 87 times. Over the next five days, April 16 to April 20, it was mentioned only 20 times — a 77 percent decrease in coverage.”

To be clear, it’s good that Trump and Fox News are now urging caution until the research is more definitive. But the study of VA patients shouldn’t have been necessary for them to get there.

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