> When you go with a brand-new drug, you don’t know that that’s going to happen. You have to see and you have to go — long test. But this has been used in different forms — very powerful drug — in different forms. And it’s shown very encouraging — very, very encouraging early results. And we’re going to be able to make that drug available almost immediately. And that’s where the FDA has been so great. They — they’ve gone through the approval process; it’s been approved. And they did it — they took it down from many, many months to immediate. So we’re going to be able to make that drug available by prescription or states.
> I spoke with Governor Cuomo about it at great length last night, and he wants to be right on — on the — he wants to be first on line. And so I think that’s a tremendous — there’s tremendous promise, based on the results and other tests. There’s tremendous promise. And normally the FDA would take a long time to approve something like that, and it’s — it was approved very, very quickly and it’s now approved, by prescription. Individual states will handle it. They can handle it. Doctors will handle it. And I think it’s going to be — I think it’s going to be great.
> Then we’re quickly studying this drug, and while we’re continuing to study it — but the studying is going to be also done in — as it’s given out to large groups of people, perhaps in New York and other places. We’ll study it there.
From his March 19 statement: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-pres.... In total, he mentioned the drug by name 11 times during that statement (according to Ctrl+f).
That's just completely unheard of in Australia. You cannot advertise prescription drugs to consumers, period.
Maybe Americans are just more likely to self-diagnose and self-medicate in general? Or visit the doctor with an agenda for a drug, and see the doctor's prescription as mere paperwork?
* Or maybe I misunderstood them. I could always be the one reading into things.
Can we agree that it's not great to be giving out incomplete or incorrect information on such a prominent stage?
"It's shown very encouraging -- very, very encouraging early results...Normally the FDA would take a long time to approve something like that, and it's -- it was approved very, very quickly and it's now approved, by prescription."
However, the FDA after the briefing issued a statement saying it had not approved the drug for use against Covid-19 and is still studying its effectiveness against the disease.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/23/africa/chloroquine-trump-nige...
He didn't say "drink an additive commonly used at aquariums to clean fish tanks."
http://bannerhealth.mediaroom.com/chloroquinephosphate
I don't see why every story needs to be about him.
Surely you've noticed that some folk take the President's public statements at face value.
Once a drug is approved by the FDA for one disease, it can be used off-label for other purposes.
Like I could go and say "The FDA has approved Rogaine." It's true, but it's a useless statement in the context of Covid-19.
Just because he didn't say anything 100% explicitly the cause it and may have been misinterpreted is honestly besides the point. When you are given the power of the presidency, you should either treat your public words with care of just quit forever for all our sakes.
This is just how having power _works_. It's a two-way street, and the idealistic American Way.
EDIT: Anyone care to explain the downvotes? This is my opinion on those gifted with power in all situations. It goes for companies as well. If you're the CEO, VPE, whatever. There should be checks to balance that gifted power. One check is a higher standard of public speaking due to your newfound influence.
Edit: Yes, I realize what he probably meant. I know how meds work. I still think he should have chosen his wording more carefully.
It goes without saying that like all prescription drugs which have been proven safe, chloroquine should only be taken when prescribed by a doctor, at the recommended dosage. Obviously if you self-medicate with any safe prescription drug, you risk harming yourself by overdosing.
I don't think it's a good idea to take the President's happy talk at face value, but then I also didn't think it was ever a good idea to spend money on Trump University, or donating to Trump charities; on the other hand, enough people did that the matters ended up in court and the two branded entities mentioned above were both found to be liable for misinforming their customers/donors.
There are a lot of stupid folk among the public, and it is to them that scam artists like Jim Bakker or Alex Jones market quack cures. There's an appetite for quack cures because they seem affordable relative to the often-inaccessible costs of basic medical treatment, because we don't have a universal public health system in the USA. The sad fact is that people sell snake oil because there are fat profits to be made by doing so, even though most of us recognize such products as little better than placebos at best or dangerous at worst.
This is why we have product regulation, credentialing and so on; it's hard for people to personally assess the quality of every product or service and there are unscrupulous people who are willing to exploit that difficulty.
He's talking to a broad, panicked audience and anyone doing so ought to choose their words carefully. Something like "Great news is that we've already had safety data for this stuff, so we're going straight to efficacy trials!" would convey plenty of optimism without encouraging yahoos to do dumb things.
This doesn't mean it's safe to take, it just means that taking it as prescribed is believed to lead to better outcomes than trying to survive Malaria without taking it.
There's any number of things that chemotherapy or radiation might help with, but unless it is terminal cancer, chances are you are better off without those treatments.
In medical terms, 'safe' is almost always relative. Tylenol is 'safe', and yet it kills many people every year.
Instead, it says: "Do not take more than your recommended dose. An Advil overdose can damage your stomach or intestines. Use only the smallest amount of medication needed to get relief from your pain, swelling, or fever."
People come up with crazy, brain dead ideas all the time. There are flat earthers for crying out loud.
I'm not sure the difference between this and the dosages and chemical makeup of the actual drug being touted by Trump but I imagine anyone with a lick of sense would avoid consuming chemicals designed for fish tanks.
Both counterions get used in medicines, but it's tough to say in general if it matters: sometimes it makes a difference, other times it's just whatever's easier/cheaper to make.
And yeah, his language is imprecise enough that you could pick it apart and find a reasonable motivation behind it if you looked hard enough. But even a really charitable reading can only upgrade his remarks from “flagrantly dangerous” to “unnecessary and not very helpful”, and we should expect more from the president than that.
The quote (heavily pruned, but you can look it up in the link to verify I didn't change the meaning) is:
> Now, a drug called chloroquine ... is a common malaria drug. It is also a drug used for strong arthritis... in a somewhat different form ... But the nice part is, it’s been around for a long time, ... it’s not going to kill anybody.
> When you go with a brand-new drug, you don’t know that that’s going to happen. ... But this has been used in different forms — very powerful drug ... And it’s shown very encouraging — very, very encouraging early results. And we’re going to be able to make that drug available almost immediately. [The FDA has] gone through the approval process; it’s been approved. ... So we’re going to be able to make that drug available by prescription or states.
There is more, and it's similar in tone. So I don't think he said "Please go take the following drug without advice from your doctor" but he did say that it was powerful, safe, and already approved by the FDA. So I think it's fair to say that he was incautious in talking about a potentially dangerous, experimental treatment.
https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu//NSAEBB/NSAEBB80/new/doc%2012/Pre...
Look, I've been highly critical of Trump's handling of the crisis but you can't really pin this particular incident on him.
We can have no civil society without these oaths being taken seriously, and holding people accountable for breaking them. It does not matter if they are CEOs, CFOs, CIOs, senators, representatives, or presidents. We are lost if they are treated as mere scraps of paper or words people say as blasé ritual.
From a pharmaceutical company, this would be patently illegal advertising since it's mentioning an off-label use of a drug. From a politician with zero medical knowledge, it's vastly irresponsible given the size of audience who listens to him and trusts him.
Obviously, self medicating a prescription drug is irresponsible. None of what the president says changes that. He said the FDA approved it. Independent of the truth value of that statement, it would still be approved of as a prescription drug.
Sorry, no matter what the president says, self-medicating is nuts.
Agreed.
> no matter what the president says,
That doesn't mean giving prominent authority figures a pass on outright falsehoods. He said the FDA approved chloroquine to be prescribed for Covid-19. The FDA said they had not done that.
It doesn't matter, because chloroquine is already FDA approved to treat COVID 19. Let me explain: chloroquine is an FDA approved drug for malaria, which means doctors can prescribe it for whatever they want. It has been approved as a legal prescription drug and doctors can prescribe anything for any reason whatsoever.
That does not mean it's now okay to take it without a prescription.
And even that information was wrong. That's the point I'm trying to make.
So everything below him explicitly telling everyone to obtain and consume chloroquine doesn't count, right? He's the goddamn president. I expect his words to be very carefully weighted.
By now we know that's not the reality the US lives in.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.businessinsider.com/trump-u...