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AMA Coronavirus Hydroxychloroquine President Donald Trump

Against the advice of medical experts, President Donald Trump again promoted

the use of the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine as treatment for coronavirus

on Sunday, asking “What do you have to lose?” The American Medical

Association’s top doctor says lives could be lost.

“There could be negative side effects,” said Dr. Patrice Harris, president of the

AMA, during an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. “There could be deaths. This is

a new virus, and so we should not be promoting any medication or drug for any

disease that has not been proven and approved by the FDA.”

Harris was asked to weigh in on the president’s optimistic remarks from a press

conference earlier Sunday, during which he again touted the drug, despite

repeated warnings from the nation’s top infectious diseases expert, Dr. Anthony

Fauci, that there is no strong evidence that it’s effective against coronavirus.

“What do you have to lose?” Trump asked during the White House briefing. “I want

them to try it, and it may work and it may not work. But if it doesn’t work, there is

nothing lost by doing it.”

According to the American Medical Association expert, there’s a lot to lose.

“You could lose your life,” Harris said. “It’s unproven. And so certainly there are

some limited studies, as Dr. Fauci said. But at this point, we just don’t have the

data to suggest that we should be using this medication for COVID-19.”

She said there are only mixed results for the drug’s efficacy, and no drug should

be promoted unless it’s scientifically proven to be effective.

Dr. Megan Ranney, an emergency room physician and researcher at Brown

University, echoed these remarks in a subsequent interview. She said the

president’s advice to Americans made her “nervous” and there is, in fact, a “lot to

lose.”

“This medication has major side effects including paranoia, hallucinations, suicidal

thoughts, suppression of your blood counts so that you become more susceptible

to infections. It can cause severe cardiac arrhythmias that can even cause death,”

she said.

“They are not common side effects, but they are common enough that this should

not be taken willy-nilly. It is not like water, it is not harmless, and it may have major

side effects.”

She said she expected results from clinical trials for the drug to come through in

as soon as a month or two.

hydroxychloroquine is not approved bythe FDA for coron… serious side effectsserious side effects

Patriots United

While the medication is FDA-approved as a treatment for lupus, rheumatoid

arthritis and other conditions, federal officials are still investigating its efficacy as

a treatment for coronavirus, for which it has not been approved.

Not only could the drug be dangerous to users when taken inappropriately,

stockpiling is harming those with existing conditions who depend on the

medication.

The AMA has issued a joint statement with the American Pharmacists Association

last month advising against the “inappropriate ordering, prescribing or dispensing

of medications to treat COVID-19,” warning of “grave consequences” for those

who already relied on those drugs.

Fauci, who leads the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and is a

key member of Trump’s coronavirus task force, has persistently stated the

treatment’s benefits are unproven against coronavirus.

“In terms of science, I don’t think we can definitively say it works,” he told CBS’s

Face the Nation. “The data are really just at best suggestive. There have been

cases that show there may be an effect and there are others to show there’s no

effect.”

A small study in China found that patients with mild illness due to COVID-19 were

able to recover faster after taking hydroxychloroquine, and other anecdotal

reports in China and France also suggested it may help. However, other clinical

studies have found it not to be effective.

The results now are conflicting, however, experts say they’ll have more definitive

answers after ongoing randomized clinical trials for the potential treatment.

A HuffPost Guide To Coronavirus

Stay up to date with our live blog as we cover the COVID-19 pandemic

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What coronavirus questions are on your mind right now? We want to help you find answers.

Everyone deserves accurate information about COVID-19. Support journalism without a paywall

— and keep it free for everyone — by becoming a HuffPost member today.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost.

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