C
Chris Smith
Guest
- Hydroxychloroquine is not a viable coronavirus treatment. That’s the general scientific consensus, but the anti-malaria drug has strong supporters nonetheless.
- President Jair Bolsonaro, who just tested positive for the novel coronavirus, told the media he started taking hydroxychloroquine as a treatment.
- Bolsonaro went above and beyond to promote hydroxychloroquine as a miracle cure despite mounting evidence to the contrary.
- A report details the several steps that Bolsonaro took in the past few months to increase the supply and manufacturing of the anti-malarial drug, while removing any opposition that advocated the cautious use of hydroxychloroquine.
- All the while, Brazil’s COVID-19 caseload increased exponentially, and the country now has the second-largest number of cases after the US.
Historians will not be able to explain the world’s reaction to the novel coronavirus pandemic without dedicating a long chapter to the massive hydroxychloroquine controversy that’s still out of control. The drug that works against malaria and is safe to use against other ailments can’t save the lives of COVID-19 patients, and it can’t prevent an infection. Extensive studies have confirmed as much. But early research did a lot of harm when it said the drug could be used during the pandemic. President Trump quickly became a fervent supporter of the unproven drug, and he went as far as to inexplicably use it as a preventative measure after a couple of White House staffers contracted the illness.
That was back in May. Since then, a variety of studies proved that hydroxychloroquine can’t offer protection against infection, it can’t reduce mortality rates for COVID-19 patients, and it can cause significant side-effects that can even lead to death. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) revoked the drug’s emergency use authorization in June, and the World Health Organization (WHO) stopped its hydroxychloroquine clinical trial. More recently, an outlier study said hydroxychloroquine actually does help COVID-19 patients, but it was met with plenty of criticism for the methods it employed. Sadly, this was enough for Trump to start promoting it again. At the same time, there have been several reports of people dying of COVID-19 following improper treatment that included the use of hydroxychloroquine.
If you thought any of that was as bad as it gets, then you haven’t been paying attention to the world’s second-largest COVID-19 epicenter. With more than 1.7 million cases and nearly 68,000 deaths so far, Brazil is second only to America when it comes to its abysmal failure to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus. Yet President Jair Bolsonaro has already surpassed Trump when it comes to the use of hydroxychloroquine as an official treatment for COVID-19.
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Brazil’s President Bolsonaro loves hydroxychloroquine even more than Trump originally appeared on BGR.com on Thu, 9 Jul 2020 at 10:05:35 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Via BRG - Boy Genius Report