Trump first mentioned it as a possibility and investigation and that he was taking it after consulting with his doctor. That's it. The media made you think otherwise.
Telling the public what drugs he's on is fine.. shouldn't we know what drugs POTUS is taking?
And the people who politicized it were medical journals who published fake studies with no data or vetting. Otherwise the comments would have passed on like every other trivial statement made by politicians. I mean Trump's statements may have been unwise or not backed by a double blind studies that doesn't make them untrue, not does it make them inherently political.
The immediate condemnation that HCQ was not only ineffective but harmful was based on data that does not exist. It was fake.
The only ones politicizing are the ones telling lies.
If you have genuine disagreements with trump, one ought to make them by issuing truths not made up fake studies.
Trump ongoingly and repeatedly pushed hydroxychloroquine, criticized published research showing it was ineffective, and most likely lied about taking hydroxychloroquine seeing as how no evidence or independent confirmation that he was on the drug ever surfaced.
It was not a one off thing, and it was not "mentioned as a possibility".
White house physician said he was on it.
Also studies are mixed on it's efficacy. The ones showing it was supposedly harmful were fake.
The only evidence we have that Trump took it is Trump saying he was taking it, and the press secretary while not giving a white house briefing directly saying it was prescribed[1], and the White House physician saying that he didn't see any harm in Trump taking it...[3] but I cannot find a single authoritative report [2] where someone claims to have actually prescribed the drug to Trump - from either the physician, or from Trump himself (remembering it is a prescription drug). The White House press office also never used those words that I can see, instead deflecting that whatever Trump said should be believed (while on the podium at a briefing, where there would be an accountability issue).
So, short version: it was implied by the people who would've had to prescribe it to him that they saw no problem giving it to him if he wanted it...but it seems like everyone carefully avoided saying they actually did prescribe it.
Now, on some level this is irrelevant whether he took it. Because he used the presidential podium to contradict medical professionals and push an ineffective treatment, created a shortage for a drug which a lot of people actually depended on (I knew a colleague who suddenly ran into trouble with this), which as it turned out provided no useful effect in preventing the president from actually catching COVID-19 and has since then continuously proven to be completely ineffective.
[1] https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/498803-white-hou...
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/may/19/trump-hydrox...
[3] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/may/19/sean-conley-...
> medical journals who published fake studies
There is someone else who thrives on calling things “fake” when they disagree with his opinions…
Is Donald Trump a scientific journal?
It was massively irresponsible for a political leader to bring up anything that wasn’t actually shown to work at that point, and the ensuing shitstorm was entirely predictable.
The responsible, statesmanlike thing to do would have been to tell the public all the stuff that he was doing behind the scenes to find solutions, not throw out something specific but unproven.
But his opposition outright lied and they knew it.
You’re just proving my point that it became more about sticking to your side and cheering for your team rather than relying on the medical evidence. This sort of stuff should not have been brought into the political sphere in the first place.
Many different measures have been implemented, you can't possibly pick one of them and say that particular one has had a definite impact on a certain thing.
At least where I live, the way that Covid deaths were recorded over the winter left plenty of leeway for those dying "with Covid" to have just died of the flu (to be specific, if a patient had symptoms or evidence of a viral respiratory disease being the cause of death, then all that was needed was a "clinical picture of Covid" to make it a Covid death).
That’s what gets to me too, and this is the major issue I had with Trump saying anything about anything. He was floundering to look like he had a plan and the moment he mentioned HCQ he turned the whole thing political. It was massively irresponsible.
It should be left to medical science, which is doing pretty damn well with vaccinations and treatments like dexamethasone.
If Ivermectin can be helpful that’s great, and if it’s not then never mind, let’s evaluate other things. But it seems like people need to latch onto something, and then their ego and tribal allegiances won’t let it go.