Hydroxychloroquine is a widely used drug. It is considered safe but, like all drugs, it has risks and counterindications. There is not enough evidence to say that it can reliably treat or cure COVID-19, but that’s only because the matter needs further study.
Unfortunately, the media have created such a massive political stink over this drug that some people who might benefit from the treatment won’t even participate in trials for it — apparently because of their politics.
NPR reported this week that scientists at Columbia and elsewhere are having a hard time getting eligible patients to volunteer. Why? You could say it’s because President Trump has talked the drug up, but, of course, there was also never any cause for his critics or for the media to talk it down so forcefully when in reality, the jury is still out. Media reports now have people scared to death of a drug that might work for them, and all because it has come to be associated with Trump.
Here we have the opposite error to that of scientism. People who feign respect for science have concluded that truth in medicine is now based on how much we like the people propounding various theories. This is the classic fallacy of argumentum ad hominem in its purest form. “This fallacy,” as the linked video explains, “attacks the character of the individuals who advance a statement instead of trying to disprove the truth of that statement.”
It is an unpopular thing to say nowadays, but the fact that Donald Trump believes something does not make it any truer or falser than it would be if he believed the opposite.
NPR’s report says that people have become personally and politically invested in the drug’s failure. This is really a shame, and a crime against logical thinking. As one scientist exclaims in frustration: “Who would be rooting for us not to find a therapy, for God’s sake?”
Who indeed?
Another classic fallacy is the argument from authority. Trump’s supporters, who jumped on the bandwagon of hydroxychloroquine on his nonexpert say-so, are surely guilty of this. But then, so are those hailing Joe Biden’s attack on Trump for taking the drug. The former vice president compared the taking of an FDA-approved drug to “inject[ing] Clorox.” What an idiotic thing to say, especially if it causes people to refuse a drug that might still ultimately help at least some of them.
Again, Trump may be wrong, but if you really believe in science, you don’t let politics or even his fallacious thinking infect the pending settlement of scientific judgment.
And, of course, Nancy Pelosi now thinks she has a medical degree. She diagnoses Trump as “morbidly obese” and declares obesity a counterindication for hydroxychloroquine. Neither has any scientific basis. Our Food and Drug Administration does not include obesity as a counterindication for the drug. And as for the former, I understand fighting fire with fire when it comes to insults and Trump, but he’s barely even obese, let along “morbidly” so.
According to his physical from last February, Trump’s body mass index rounds down to 30, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s threshold for obesity. He could perhaps be described as “just barely obese.” But like “morbidly obese,” that isn’t a technical term. And in fact, the use of BMI as a bright-line measurement for obesity is somewhat controversial anyway.
I’m not sure which medical school Pelosi, Biden, or Trump attended. I didn’t attend one at all — but I did take and pass a very rigorous course on logic in college. Maybe we all ought to go back to thinking about science as a field whose outcomes are not determined by political beliefs or personalities, but by truths and valid arguments.
