Trump Says He’s Taking Hydroxychloroquine Preventatively

membership ticker

Right now is no time to come up short.

It's time to fight like hell for a democracy where minority rule cannot impose an extreme and cruel agenda, where the Big Lie is called a Big Lie, where facts matter, and where accountability at the polls and in the press has a fighting chance. We have our work cut out for us, and we urgently need to raise about 400,000 by Thursday, June 30, to finish our fiscal year on track and give it everything we possibly can. Please help us get there with a donation if you can right now.

$1,150,000

$1,350,000

Right now is no time to come up short. It's time to fight like hell for a democracy where minority rule cannot impose an extreme and cruel agenda, where facts matter, and where accountability at the polls and in the press has a fighting chance. We have our work cut out for us, and we still need to raise upwards of 400,000 by June 30 to give it everything we can. Please help:

SMG/Zuma

The coronavirus is a rapidly developing news story, so some of the content in this article might be out of date. Check out our most recent coverage of the coronavirus crisis, and subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily newsletter.

For weeks, President Trump has been touting the anti-malarial medication hydroxychloroquine as a “miracle drug” for treating COVID-19. On Monday, he admitted that he has been taking it prophylactically for a week and a half.

“A lot of good things have come out about the hydroxy,” he said. “I happen to be taking it. I happen to be taking it.”

Trump slipped the revelation in at the end of a “roundtable with restaurant executives and industry leaders” in which he railed against the whistleblower who revealed the Trump–Ukraine scandal and defended Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s alleged habit of having a staffer perform household tasks. (Trump’s justification? “Maybe his wife isn’t there.”) But of all the absurd things Trump said, his purported use of a non-approved drug for an illness he doesn’t have takes the cake.

When asked for evidence of the drug’s efficacy, Trump replied, “Here’s my evidence: I get a lot of positive calls about it.”

The drug, which is used to treat lupus and arthritis, has not been proven to be effective in treating COVID-19, though a clinical trial is underway. In an observational study of hospitalized COVID-19 patients published in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers found that “hydroxychloroquine administration was not associated with either a greatly lowered or an increased risk of the composite end point of intubation or death” and noted that randomized, controlled trials are still needed. The Food and Drug Administration has warned against its use outside of hospital settings.

Watch the video below: