Dr. Mehmet Oz was an advocate for coronavirus patients taking an anti-malaria medication that showed some signs of treating symptoms of the virus but said he changed his mind after a new study.
The doctor and television host, who has become a regular guest on Fox News’s pandemic coverage and has promoted hydroxychloroquine for weeks, reversed course Wednesday morning in an interview on Fox & Friends. He was asked about a study that found the drug, with or without the antibiotic azithromycin, does not make it less likely for a patient to require mechanical ventilation, and patients who took it actually had higher death rates compared to those who weren’t given the medication.
“The VA study looked at older and quite a bit sicker patients, all male patients, in their hospitals, and they showed that the drug by itself didn’t help, it might harm that population,” Oz said, adding, “The fact of the matter is, we don’t know. Thankfully these medications are prescription-only, so doctors are desperately awaiting the completion of the higher quality randomized trials, and we’ve covered them on the show several times.”
He then voiced support for Dr. Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, whom Oz had questioned previously.
“I got to say, I think at this point there’s so much data coming from so many places, we are better off waiting for the randomized trials Dr. Fauci has been asking for,” he said. “Otherwise, it’s — we keep reacting back and forth for studies that show opposite results. And a lot of it might have to do with when you get the medication.”
In an appearance earlier this month, Oz acknowledged that the drug was “not proven to be beneficial,” but noted: “If a small trial demonstrates statistically significant differences, you should respect it.”
“But we march into battle with the army we have, and doctors around the world are choosing hydroxychloroquine more than any other solution,” he wrote in an op-ed for the Washington Examiner this month.
Oz also encouraged New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to lift restrictions on the drug, which has been touted by President Trump as a “game-changer.”
“I think that was why Gov. Cuomo passed that law. To prevent people from taking it and putting it in their cupboards just in case,” Oz said on April 1. “I have more confidence in Americans than that … It’s an inexpensive, old malaria drug. We’ll have enough of it eventually. We ought to lift that ban.”
