Donald Trump has been pushing chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine at such an ignorantly fevered pace that it makes one wonder whether he owns the two drugs. These drugs are mostly used to treat people with malaria. They can also be used to treat symptoms of lupus, and hydroxychloroquine is sometimes prescribed for those suffering from rheumatoid arthritis. Both drugs are rumored to be unproven therapeutic treatments for COVID-19, but the lack of any thorough scientific evidence has not stopped the right wing of our country from pretending that these drugs will save people from the 2019 novel coronavirus. There’s just not enough hard data to prove that. There are only anecdotal stories, which wouldn’t allow a medical professional to say with any real authority that these drugs do anything for patients who have contracted the virus.
Since all reputable scientists and medical practitioners will not lie about what Trump and Fox News are willing to lie about, the Trump administration is working on having less scrupulous specialists promote the anecdotal therapeutic evidence of the drugs’ efficacy. Donald Trump has turned to television personalities and snake oil salesmen like Dr. Mehmet Oz for advice on the pandemic.
Dr. Mehmet Oz, known as television’s Dr. Oz, has become a right-wing go-to under the Trump administration. This is the result of Oz being exposed as a fraud who presents dubious homeopathy and diet treatments as proven science to make money. Now the Trump administration and Fox News are pushing him front and center since the top infectious disease specialist in the country, Dr. Anthony Fauci, won’t sell this deadly concoction to the American public in the hope of lubricating the Trump administration’s historic failures in public health safety and economic security.
Speaking with the Fox & Friends cast of characters, Dr. Oz explained how he was trying to survey people by way of his Twitter account to find out whether anyone who had actually had COVID-19 and was treated with hydroxychloroquine could tell him about their experience. Asked by Fox News host Dummy McDumbellstein whether he had heard from people, Oz explained that he had heard from one person who thought they might have had COVID-19.
OZ: I’m following up with her. Again, one more time, if you have had COVID-19 and you have lupus, on this medication hydroxychloroquine … I just want to understand why you have it. It might be that it reduces the incidents, it might reduce the symptoms of it. We’re not sure, it might have no impact at all.
Dr. Oz then jokingly called this wildly unscientific “study” of his "the Kilmeade hypothesis." This is funny because people are dying. Getting scientific information on dieting from Dr. Oz is not advisable, much less serious treatments for new infectious diseases.
Here’s a reminder of Dr. Oz’s bonafides.
And the rest of the internet was also able to give some analysis.
And a visual reminder.
And let’s rope in Dr. Drew, because fuck him for being a complete libertarian tool about this.
And let’s end on a classic.
