The top U.S. infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, rejected President Donald Trump’s renewed claims that hydroxychloroquine is an effective treatment for COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. Fauci also went on the defensive after a controversial tweet suggested the doctor has misled the public about the drug.
Trump defended the use of hydroxychloroquine in more than a dozen tweets late Monday after publicly appearing to take a more serious tone about the coronavirus in recent days.
Trump renewed his advocacy of the anti-malarial medicine, despite numerous studies showing it is not an effective treatment for COVID-19 and the fact the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently reversed an order allowing it to be used as an emergency treatment.
Among Trump’s tweets was a post from the Twitter account for a podcast hosted by former Trump advisor Steve Bannon, accusing Fauci of misleading Americans about hydroxychloroquine.
Another Trump tweet featured a woman who said in a video she was a Houston, Texas physician standing outside what seemed to be the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington promoting the use of the drug and discouraging the wearing of protective face masks.
Twitter subsequently flagged the post, and a company spokesman confirmed the tweet, which has been removed from Trump’s feed, violated its COVID-19 misinformation policy. Facebook also removed the video, with a spokesman saying it shared “false information about cures and treatments of COVID-19.” The White House has not commented on the tweets.
“I go along with the FDA,” Fauci said in an interview Tuesday on ABC’s "Good Morning America". “The overwhelming prevailing clinical trials that have looked at the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine have indicated that it is not effective in coronavirus disease.”
Trump also retweeted another Bannon post that alleged Fauci “has misled the American public on many issues, but in particular, on dismissing #hydroxychloroquine.”
Fauci responded by saying, “I have not been misleading the American public under any circumstances.”
Fauci, a senior member of the White House coronavirus task force, has been the target of criticism from Trump and administration officials before.
Trump recently accused Fauci of making “mistakes” in his guidance to the public about the coronavirus. White House trade advisor Peter Navarro recently wrote an op-ed in USA Today that took aim at Fauci, criticizing his position on hydroxychloroquine.
Fauci said Tuesday he remains undeterred by the criticism. “We’re in the middle of a crisis with regard to an epidemic, a pandemic; this is what I do. This is what I’ve been trained for my entire professional life, and I’ll continue to do it.”
