President Donald Trump, for a number of weeks, has persistently pushed an antimalarial drug he claims could help patients suffering from the ill effects of coronavirus, even though there’s no scientific evidence backing its use for that purpose.
The drug in question, hydroxychloroquine, has been touted by some doctors overseas as being successful in treating symptoms and COVID-19 itself, but other studies have shown minimal evidence of its effectiveness. Trump’s own expert immunologist on his coronavirus task force has noted, those anecdotal findings lack scientific backing, and more research is needed.
“The data are really just at best suggestive,” Anthony Fauci said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” Sunday. “There have been cases that show there may be an effect … and there are others to show there’s no effect…. So I think in terms of science, I don’t think we could definitively … say it works.”
That didn’t stop Trump, however, hours after Fauci’s appearance on the program, from continuing to sing the drug’s praises during a press conference on Sunday.
“What do I know? I’m not a doctor,” Trump said. “But I have common sense. The FDA feels good about it; as you know, they approved it.”
The Food and Drug Administration has approved hydroxychloroquine for use by those suffering from malaria, as well as for some lupus patients. But the FDA has not confirmed that the drug is effective for use against coronavirus.
Many have wondered why Trump continues to tout the drug, then, when his medical experts say it shouldn’t be promoted in such glowing terms. Some, such as MSNBC “Morning Joe” co-host Mika Brzezinski, have suggested there might be a financial component that’s motivating the president.
“A lot of people would say, follow the money,” Brzezinski said on a recent episode of the program. “There’s got to be some sort of financial tie to someone somewhere that has the president pushing this repeatedly.”
While no direct financial ties have been found linking Trump to the drug, some indirect ones are surfacing.
Trump’s former “fixer” lawyer Michael Cohen, who is serving a prison sentence after pleading guilty to a number of election-related charges, had in fact crafted a contract with a Swiss-based drug company called Novartis, one of the biggest manufacturers of hydroxychloroquine in the world. In exchange for paying Cohen $100,000 per month for over a year starting in February 2017, the company expected Trump’s lawyer to provide them with access to the president’s attitudes on health care policy, including provisions in the Affordable Care Act that were relevant to them.
The payments were officially made to Cohen’s shell company, Essential Consultants LLC, which collected a number of payments from other companies as well that sought the same privileges. (Through that company, Cohen also paid off adult film actress Stormy Daniels with “hush money” payments that were made to keep her quiet about an affair she had had with Trump years ago.)
The deal was a bad one for the company, Novartis later admitted. They believed Cohen would get them deeper insights on the president’s thinking than what he delivered — unfortunately for Novartis, they couldn’t back out of the agreement even after deciding, following one meeting with Cohen, that they didn’t need his services after all.
“As the contract, unfortunately, could only be terminated for cause, payments continued to be made until the contract expired by its own terms in February 2018,” the company said in a statement.
It’s unclear at this time to what extent Trump knew about Novartis’s payments, or whether it influenced him one way another — or even if Trump himself has interests in the company, due to his refusal to release his tax returns and other financial documents.
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
Over 80 percent of Truthout‘s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and the remaining 20 percent comes from a handful of social justice-oriented foundations. Over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors, many of whom give because they want to help us keep Truthout barrier-free for everyone.
You can help by giving today. Whether you can make a small monthly donation or a larger gift, Truthout only works with your support.