If he gets enough of his worshippers killed...

In fact, they say the figure may be far higher given the study only concerns six countries from March to July 2020, when the drug was prescribed much more widely.

  Politico

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Fucking idiots

The Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office has been tasked with attempting to return a $2 million stockpile of a malaria drug once touted by former President Donald Trump as a way to treat the coronavirus.

In April, Gov. Kevin Stitt, who ordered the hydroxychloroquine purchase, defended it by saying that while it may not be a useful treatment for the coronavirus, the drug had multiple other uses and “that money will not have gone to waste in any respect.”

But nearly a year later the state is trying to offload the drug back to its original supplier, California-based FFF Enterprises, Inc, a private pharmaceutical wholesaler.

  Read Frontier

Maybe Republicans aren't the best thing for Oklahoma.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

How long till Brett Giroir gets fired in a tweet?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Trumpland isn't giving up

They've got 63 million doses of hydroxychloroquine to get rid of.

Vice President Pence on Tuesday met with doctors from the viral video that social media platforms have removed for spreading misleading information about coronavirus.

The doctors, who are members of the group America’s Frontline Doctors, posted on Twitter promoting the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine, which has not been proven to effectively treat COVID-19, to Pence during a meeting.

Pence's meeting with the doctors came after the group’s physicians spoke in a Monday video in front of the Supreme Court building, claiming that masks are not needed to prevent COVID-19 spread, and that hydroxychloroquine was a cure.

[...]

Simone Gold, the leader of America’s Frontline Doctors, tweeted that the doctors were requesting the administration help in “empowering doctors to prescribe hydroxychloroquine without political obstruction.”

[...]

The most prominent physician in the video, Stella Immanuel, who has made unfounded claims about alien DNA being used in medical treatment, was not present at the meeting with Pence.

  The Hill

At least THAT was smart.

Another doctor, James Todaro, posted that the group is “doing everything to restore the power of medicine back to doctors.”

“Doctors everywhere should be able to prescribe Hydroxychloroquine without repercussions or obstruction,” he tweeted.

Why do they need help from the federal government? No one is standing over doctors to prevent them from prescribing the drug. (Yet.)  I think Team Trump contacted these doctors to put them up to this BS, and I think this confirms it...

Jenny Beth Martin, the co-founder of Tea Party Patriots, the group that promoted Monday’s press conference, also confirmed the meeting on Twitter.

[...]

The vice president’s schedule listed the meeting as a session with “practicing physicians on COVID-19,” CNN reported. It’s not immediately clear how many patients the doctors have treated.

Both the Tea Party Patriots and America’s Frontline Doctors are advocating against any additional economic shutdowns to prevent coronavirus spread.

Any proper meeting by a vice president of practicing physicians to discus Covid-19 would have included doctors who are against prescribing hydroxychloroquine and for economic shutdowns.

"With hydroxy, all I want to do is save lives," Trump said. "All I want to do is save lives."

And he's going to blame the disastrous loss of lives on Democrats and scientific experts, saying they're blocking him from doing it.

By the way, when was America's Frontline Doctors formed?

Dr. Simone Gold is a doctor and lawyer in Los Angeles who publicly takes credit as the founder of “America’s Frontline Doctors,” a group whose website was set up 12 days ago, and amusingly appears to be down right now.

Gold has been a regular on the right-wing media circuit during the pandemic, appearing on Fox News on May 21, arguing that patients are being harmed by the shutdowns taking place across the country.

Gold also appeared on PragerU’s YouTube channel back in May, insisting that more people will die from the lockdowns than from the coronavirus pandemic, and has done YouTube videos for the Tea Party Patriots Foundation, the nonprofit co-founded by Jenny Beth Martin.

[...]

In short, [America’s Frontline Doctors are] pro-Trump ideologues who are pushing unproven science during a pandemic that’s so far infected over 4.3 million Americans and killed more than 148,000.

Strangely enough, “America’s Frontline Doctors” also appear to have ties to the Trump regime. In fact, one person who spoke at the press conference on Monday was at the White House for a roundtable discussion just a couple of weeks ago and Trump promoted multiple videos from the group on his Twitter account. It’s also no surprise that many of them have appeared on Fox News in recent months, the president’s favorite TV channel.

[...]

Below, we have a rundown of some of the people who spoke at yesterday’s press conference for “America’s Frontline Doctors” and how they make their living during this pandemic. Most are actually doctors, but not all of them are currently practicing medicine—like the guy who currently makes his money promoting bitcoin.

  Gizmodo

Continue reading.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

You knew this was coming

Trump on Tuesday doubled down on his promotion of hydroxychloroquine to treat Covid-19 despite no evidence of the malaria drug’s efficacy in doing so.

“Many doctors think it is extremely successful, the hydroxychloroquine coupled with the zinc and perhaps the azithromycin,” Trump asserted at a White House briefing, though there is no evidence from at least five rigorous clinical trials that hydroxychloroquine has any impact in preventing the virus or treating mildly to severely ill cases.

“I happen to think it works in the early stages,” the president continued, repeating his past claim, “I think front-line medical people believe that, too — some. Many.”

  Politico

"Many people" think what he thinks.

Trump initially revived the issue in a flurry of social media posts late Monday, tweeting more than a dozen times in defense of hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for Covid-19.

And we know why.

Debate over the drug has resurfaced after a study run by the Henry Ford Medical Center suggested this month that the pill could help mildly ill patients recover faster. While Trump and trade adviser Peter Navarro touted the research, experts swiftly pointed out that patients were not randomized, that there was no placebo to compare with, and that many were on steroids — which are known to help with inflammation.

Another great study by Donald LeTrompe.

Trump argued that [hydroxychloroquine] had been politicized because of his advocacy for it and complained that Fauci’s approval rating among the public was much higher than his own.

“He‘s got this high approval rating. Why don‘t I have a high approval rating with respect — and the administration — with respect to the virus?” Trump asked, painting Fauci simultaneously as both expendable and an important teammate.

"I" - "and the administration" as an afterthought, because he knows how vain and self-centered he sounds.

“It sort of is curious. A man works for us, with us, very closely — Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx, also — highly thought of, and yet they‘re highly thought of but nobody likes me. It can only be my personality. That‘s all,” he concluded.

Dear God. LOL. That's NOT the only reason, but isn't that enough?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

I missed this: why Team Trump keeps pushing hydroxychloroquine

Another great deal he made.

The federal government is stuck with 63 million doses of hydroxychloroquine now that the US Food and Drug Administration has revoked permission for the drug to be distributed to treat coronavirus patients.

The government started stockpiling donated hydroxychloroquine in late March, after President Trump touted it as "very encouraging" and "very powerful" and a "game-changer."

  CNN

"Donated" my ass. I'll believe that when I see the accounting.

Before the FDA revoked its authorization, the stockpile had already distributed 31 million doses. Novartis and Mylan donated doses of the drug to the stockpile.

For a big tax break, at the very least.

he FDA revoked its emergency use authorization to use the drug to treat Covid-19, saying there was "no reason to believe" the drug was effective against the virus, and that it increased the risk of side effects, including heart problems.

That leaves the Strategic National Stockpile with 63 million doses of hydroxychloroquine, plus another 2 million doses of chloroquine, a related drug donated by Bayer, according to Carol Danko, a spokesperson for the US Department of Health and Human Services.

[...]

"Nationally, we put a great emphasis on one drug, hydroxychloroquine," said David Holtgrave, the dean of the School of Public Health at the University at Albany, who co-authored a study of the drug as a treatment for coronavirus. "I worry that history will judge this as having over-invested in one treatment pathway as opposed to looking more broadly at a larger number of treatment candidates."

You think?

Hydroxychloroquine has been used for many years to treat diseases such as malaria, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus. After President Trump started touting hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for Covid-19, patients with those illnesses reported having trouble finding the drug.

I know where they can get 63 million doses. Perhaps donated.

In March, Trump tweeted that a French study showed hydroxychloroquine and the antibiotic azithromycin "have a real chance to be one of the biggest game changers in the history of medicine." He continued to be a cheerleader for the drug for several months, and even said he took it himself after being exposed to staffers with the virus.

That French study had so many problems that the society that published it has backed away from it.

First, the study didn't conclude that the drug worked for Covid patients -- just that it decreased the amount of the virus found in the nose and throat.

Also, it was a very small study -- just 20 patients -- and it ignored patients who took hydroxychloroquine and died or ended up in the intensive care unit.

Well, JFC. Who performed that study? Donald LeTrompe?

Since then, two major studies have found that the drug is ineffective against coronavirus.

But Art of the Deal stockpiled 63 million doses.

UPDATE:

Still, Navarro, the White House trade adviser, praised the administration’s announcement on Tuesday that it would lend $765 million to the Eastman Kodak Company under the Defense Production Act to facilitate increased domestic manufacturing of drugs — including hydroxychloroquine, according to The Wall Street Journal.

  Politico

What a fucking waste.

Trumpland's latest hero

A Houston doctor who praises hydroxychloroquine and says that face masks aren’t necessary to stop transmission of the highly contagious coronavirus has become a star on the right-wing internet, garnering tens of millions of views on Facebook on Monday alone. Donald Trump Jr. declared the video of Stella Immanuel a “must watch,” while Donald Trump himself retweeted the video.

  Daily Beast

Twitter suspended Junior for it. I guess they let Ding Dong Daddy do what he wants.

“Hydroxychloroquine” trended on Twitter, as Immanuel’s video was embraced by the Trumps, conservative student group Turning Point USA, and pro-Trump personalities like Diamond & Silk. But both Facebook and Twitter eventually deleted videos of Immanuel’s speech from their sites, citing rules against COVID-19 disinformation. The deletions set off yet another round of complaints by conservatives of bias at the social-media platforms.

Immanuel responded in her own way, declaring that Jesus Christ would destroy Facebook’s servers if her videos weren’t restored to the platform.

[...]

Before Trump and his supporters embrace Immanuel’s medical expertise, though, they should consider other medical claims Immanuel has made.

[...]

In [a] speech, Immanuel alleges that she has successfully treated hundreds of patients with hydroxychloroquine, a controversial treatment Trump has promoted and says he has taken himself.

[...]

Toward the end of Immanuel’s speech, the event’s organizer and other participants can be seen trying to get her away from the microphone.

[...]

She has often claimed that gynecological problems like cysts and endometriosis are in fact caused by people having sex in their dreams with demons and witches.

[...]

According to Immanuel, people can tell if they have taken a demonic spirit husband or spirit wife if they have a sex dream about someone they know or a celebrity, wake up aroused, stop getting along with their real-world spouse, lose money, or generally experience any hardship.

Pretty much everybody, then.

Alternately, they could just be having dream-sex with a human witch instead of a demon, she posits.

Phew.

She alleges alien DNA is currently used in medical treatments, and that scientists are cooking up a vaccine to prevent people from being religious. And, despite appearing in Washington, D.C. to lobby Congress on Monday, she has said that the government is run in part not by humans but by “reptilians” and other aliens.

You know, I might beleive that last one.

In a 2015 sermon that laid out a supposed Illuminati plan hatched by “a witch” to destroy the world using abortion, gay marriage, and children’s toys, among other things, Immanuel claimed that DNA from space aliens is currently being used in medicine.

[...]

Immanuel is a registered physician in Texas, according to a Texas Medical Board database, and operates a medical clinic out of a strip mall next to her church, Firepower Ministries.

[...]

Immanuel was born in Cameroon and received her medical degree in Nigeria. In a GoFundMe legal defense fund, which swelled from just $90 to $1,616 hours after her speech, Immanuel claims without offering any proof that members of a Houston networking group for women physicians are scheming to take her medical license away over her support for hydroxychloroquine. It’s not clear whether anyone is actually trying to take Immanuel’s license. But many of her earlier medical claims are definitely ludicrous.

[...]

Immanuel claimed in another 2015 sermon posted that scientists had plans to install microchips in people, and develop a “vaccine” to make it impossible to become religious.

“They found the gene in somebody’s mind that makes you religious, so they can vaccinate against it,” Immanuel said.

If only.

JFC, there's more. Check it out for yourself.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:  Junior got suspended for 24 hours for this kind of shit.  Will Rudy?

UPDATE:

One of the messages Trump retweeted the previous night featured a video of a woman who claimed to be a Houston physician, surrounded by others in white lab coats outside what appeared to be the U.S. Supreme Court, advocating on behalf of the antimalarial medication and discouraging the use of face masks. That post has since been flagged by Twitter and removed from the president’s feed. Twitter also restricted Donald Trump Jr.’s account on Tuesday after he shared a version of the same video.

The president on Tuesday questioned such decisions by social media companies, positing, “For some reason the internet wanted to take them down.”

“I don’t know why — they’re very respected doctors,” Trump said.

[...]

When asked by a reporter on Tuesday about Immanuel’s unorthodox medical views, Trump demurred, saying he knows “nothing about her” but calling her voice an important one.

“She says she’s had tremendous success with hundreds of different patients,” he maintained, before cutting short his session with reporters.

  Politico

Still hawking hydroxychloroquine

A week after appearing to project a more serious tone about the coronavirus, President Donald Trump is back to pushing unproven claims that an anti-malaria drug is an effective treatment and challenging the credibility of the nation's leading infectious disease expert.

[...]

[A]fter returning from a trip to North Carolina in which he promoted efforts to develop a COVID-19 vaccine, Trump retweeted a series of tweets advocating for hydroxychloroquine.

[...]

Dr Anthony Fauci pushed back Tuesday, saying he will keep doing his job.

[...]

I'll go along with the FDA," said Fauci, the longtime director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases. "The overwhelming prevailing clinical trials that have looked at the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine have indicated that it is not effective in coronavirus disease."

[...]

Asked if he can continue to do his job when Trump continues to publicly question his credibility, Fauci said Tuesday he would press ahead "no matter what" because of the stakes involved.

"I don't tweet. I don't even read them, so I don't really want to go there," Fauci said.

[...]

" This is what I do. This is what I've been trained for my entire professional life, and I'll continue to do it."

Asked about claims he has been misleading the public, Fauci said: "I have not been misleading the American public under any circumstances."

[...]

Numerous studies, meanwhile, have shown that the drug, hydroxychloroquine, is not an effective treatment for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. And the US Food and Drug Administration recently withdrew an order that allowed the drug's use as a emergency treatment for COVID-19.

[...]

Twitter Inc. on Tuesday said it had limited access to Donald Trump Jr's account for 12 hours, after he posted a video of doctors talking about hydroxychloroquine that violated the site's misinformation policy on COVID-19.

  alJazeera

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Finding their backbones

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has withdrawn the emergency use authorization for two controversial coronavirus treatment drugs promoted by President Trump because of serious safety issues.

The agency said recent clinical trial failures mean chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine may not be effective at treating COVID-19 or preventing it in people who have been exposed, and that their potential benefits do not outweigh the risks.

Doctors have warned that the drugs can cause serious heart problems, but the FDA had previously allowed their use for hospitalized patients and during clinical trials.

Trump spent weeks promoting the drugs as a potential miracle treatment for COVID-19, despite scant evidence. The FDA then issued the emergency use authorization in March. Critics accused the agency of caving to pressure from the administration, which the FDA has denied.

[...]

Clinical trials studying the drugs can also continue. The World Health Organization and the National Institutes of Health are still conducting trails.

  The Hill

As Trump loses support, people in high places are suddenly finding some grit.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Way to be on top of things, Ron

Florida is sitting on more than 980,000 unused doses of hydroxychloroquine, a drug President Donald Trump touted as a “game changer” in the fight against the coronavirus, after only a handful of hospitals in the state asked for access to the medicine.

Gov. Ron DeSantis said in April that the state was getting 1 million doses of the drug. The announcement was made during a press conference that came across as a commercial for hydroxychloroquine. Held in the Florida Cabinet room, the event featured the video testimonial of a patient who had taken the drug, a question-and-answer session with a doctor who endorsed the treatment, and DeSantis touting the drug by name, even as he referenced other experimental treatments for Covid-19 only vaguely.

[...]

The biggest batch — 7,500 — went to Baptist health in Duval County.

  Politico

So...is the Trump family heavily invested in hydroxychloroquine? Or are they just dupes, too?

DeSantis first gave attention to the drug as Trump, one of his biggest political allies, was increasing his focus on the treatment. DeSantis has based much of Florida’s coronavirus response on implicit and direct signals from the White House.

During his hydroxychloroquine press conference in April, DeSantis said he played a role in getting the drug to the U.S. Teva manufactures the drug in India, where officials did not allow shipment to leave the country until DeSantis asked Trump to speak to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

“I spoke to President Trump, and then he spoke to Prime Minister Modi, and Modi has made an exception for the United States,” DeSantis said.

[...]

Despite the governor’s pitch, few hospitals have requested the drug, which was provided free-of-charge from Israeli drug maker Teva Pharmaceuticals in a deal DeSantis said was facilitated by U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman.

There's a back room deal for something in there. Let's ask Jared. He's in tight with the Israelis.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Pressured?

Or legit?

Medical journal The Lancet publicly acknowledged Tuesday that a massive study on hydroxychloroquine that raised serious health concerns about the anti-malaria drug was potentially flawed.

The Lancet issued an "expression of concern" on a study it published last month of nearly 100,000 patients that tied hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine to a higher risk of death in hospitalized patients with the coronavirus.

The journal said that "serious scientific questions have been brought to our attention" about the study and that the authors have commissioned an independent review of the data.

[...]

Following the publication of the study, numerous scientists around the world raised concerns with what they said was inconsistent data in the report.

The study's authors, led by Mandeep Mehra of Harvard Medical School, have repeatedly declined to release their underlying data, despite signing a pledge to share information on the coronavirus.

Last week, the study’s research team corrected some of its data but said its conclusions remained the same.

  The Hill

UPDATE:

The World Health Organization (WHO) will resume a clinical trial to study the effects of the anti-malaria drug touted by President Trump as a treatment for COVID-19 after pausing it due to safety concerns, the organization said Wednesday.

Enrollment in the hydroxychloroquine arm of the Solidarity Trial was temporarily paused last week after an article in The Lancet medical journal warned about the safety of the drug.

[...]

In the U.S., a 2,000-person trial launched by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases is also underway.

  The Hill

Hydroxychloroquine study

A major study of the way hydroxychloroquine and its older version, chloroquine, have been used on six continents – without clinical trials – reveals a sobering picture. Scientists said the results meant the drug should no longer be given to Covid-19 patients except in proper research settings.

While the paper, published online in the Lancet medical journal, is not a trial designed to assess the drug, it shows that the rush to use it around the world may be ill-advised. Significant numbers of doctors have been prescribing it without evidence. It is known that the drug can cause heart irregularities, but many have claimed it is safe because of its long use treating malaria.

  Guardian

If by many you mean the Trump cabal.

There was a rush to use the drug in Covid-19 cases after the French doctor Didier Raoult said he was curing his patients at La Timone hospital, in Marseille. The US president then claimed hydroxychloroquine – less toxic than the original chloroquine – was a cure, and later said he was taking it himself against coronavirus.

The drugs are fairly safe for patients being treated for malaria, but Covid-19 is a very different disease. The authors of the paper pulled together results for more than 96,000 patients in 671 hospitals, taking one of the drugs, with or without an antibiotic such as azithromycin, between 20 December and 14 April.

The death rate among all groups taking the drugs was higher than among people who were not given them. One in six of those taking one of the drugs died, while one in five died if they were taking chloroquine with an antibiotic, and one in four if they were on hydroxychloroquine and an antibiotic. The death rate among patients not taking the drugs was one in 11.

The statistics are not exactly comparable because, as this was not a trial, there were differences in the age, gender, general health and stage of illness of the patients.

[...]

The team also found that serious cardiac arrhythmias, which cause the lower chamber of the heart to beat rapidly and irregularly, were more common in all the groups receiving one of the four treatment regimens. The biggest increase was in the group treated with hydroxychloroquine in combination with an antibiotic, where 8% of patients developed a heart arrhythmia compared with 0.3% of patients not given the drugs.

[...]

“Whilst controlled trials will be required for confident affirmation, the indications are that these drugs certainly ought not to be used outside of a trial setting where patients can be monitored for complications. One might also question whether the resources necessary for large studies might be better diverted to other causes, at the same time allowing the drugs themselves to be used for their original purpose.

“Furthermore, it is clear that high-profile endorsements of taking these drugs without clinical oversight are both misguided and irresponsible.”

That's our president: misguided and irresponsible. Not to mention ignorant and cruel.

It is definitely a waste of time and resources, not to mention irresponsible, to conduct trials (assuming you can find enough voluntary human guinea pigs), for covid-19 purposes when the study already shows the more likely negative - and fatal - results.

“It might even be said that to go on giving them, other than in a trial, is unethical, given this evidence that is not yet contradicted by other available evidence.”

Yeah. Unethical.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Zzzzzzzzing!

They also discuss the firing of Steve Linick and aSaudi arms sales.

"Looking for a new outlet"

Amazingly, but to no one's surprise, Dastardly Don is openly admitting he sees news outlets as nothing more than PR machines.

What about OANN?  That's certainly Trump-favorable.  And that's an understatement.

Also, Cavuto expected this, I'm sure.  They'd like to get him fired.  Or "Shepard Smith'd" as somebody put it.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

He says he's taking hydroxychloroquine

And he probably has stock in it.

That's not all Cavuto said.  Listen to the clip.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

Indeed.

And I'm wondering how a civilian would get access to/a prescription for HQ outisde of a clinical trial or for treating malaria, arthritis or lupis.

UPDATE:

"Maybe it does. Maybe it doesn't. I'm not a doctor."

Jesus.

Yeah, he's got stock.

UPDATE:

Aaaand they're off!

UPDATE:

LOL.

UPDATE:

UPDATE:

“Not a chance,” said [former Trump Organization executive vice president Barbara] Res. [...] “I don’t think he would subject himself to any potential harm. He wants everyone to think he’s taking it and to think everything he has said all along about it has been right. That’s what he wants. That’s why he’s saying he’s taking it.”

[...]

“He’s going to prove that he was right,” said Sam Nunberg, a former Trump political adviser, “when everybody else said he was wrong.”

[...]

“He’s got to tell those people, ‘Of course I’m taking hydroxy,’” former Trump White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci explained. “‘They’re telling you it doesn’t work, but I’m telling you it does. I am your chief of the red tribe of Trump.’”

  Politico