Top government infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci dismissed allegations, shared by President Trump on Twitter, that he “misled” the public about the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine as a coronavirus therapy.
“I go along with the with the [Food and Drug Administration],” Fauci said on Good Morning America Tuesday. “The overwhelming prevailing clinical trials that have looked at the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine have indicated that it is not effective in coronavirus disease.”
Trump retweeted a series of endorsements of hydroxychloroquine Monday evening, all of which said that the use of the drug could save hundreds of thousands of lives if utilized to treat COVID-19. One of Trump’s retweets came from a podcast from Steve Bannon, a former White House strategist, in which a guest said that Fauci had “misled” the American public on hydroxychloroquine. The FDA has said that the drug is not effective in treating COVID-19 and that its benefits do not outweigh the risks.
Twitter removed one of Trump’s retweets, a video that showed doctors gathered in front of the Supreme Court in Washington to praise the benefits of using hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19 patients. Twitter removed the tweet, which had already gone viral, citing its coronavirus misinformation policy.
The FDA rescinded emergency use authorizations for hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine in June. Just three months prior, the FDA had granted emergency use authorizations to the drugs to be used in hospital settings as Trump touted the drug. The FDA was then scrutinized for bowing to political pressure from the Trump administration to approve the drugs to treat the coronavirus.
Fauci has served as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for more than three decades and has advised several presidents throughout his career.
[Related: Trump says he still has good relationship with ‘alarmist’ Fauci]
“I’m just going to certainly continue doing my job,” Fauci said in response to the criticism. “We’re in the middle of a crisis with regard to … a pandemic. This is what I do. This is what I’ve been trained for my entire professional life.”
As of Tuesday morning, about 4.3 million infections have been confirmed across the United States, and more than 148,000 people have died.
