NEWS & VIEWS
Detroit is leading the nation’s first large-scale study on whether hydroxychloroquine can prevent COVID-10.
SHUTTERSTOCK
A ‘miracle cure’?
Detroit is at the center of a nationwide debate about a potential coronavirus drug touted by Trump B y Lee DeVito
Detroit’s former public
health director Dr. Abdul El-Sayed weighed in on the debate around hydroxychloroq uine, an antimalarial drug that has been touted as a potential cure for coronavirus patients by P resident Donald Trump in recent weeks. Last week, officials announced Detroit’s H enry F ord H ealth System would conduct the nation’s first large-scale study of the drug. El-Sayed cautioned that despite the drug’s promise, the science just isn’t there to back it up yet. “The President’s promotion of #Hydroxycloroq uine shows a failure to understand science,” he tweeted Sunday evening. “In science we don’t promote a treatment until there’s solid, reproducible R C T [ randomiz ed controlled trial] evidence behind it. Without evidence, a treatment may be ineffective, even harmful.” El-Sayed was referring to a Sunday White House press briefing in which Trump doubled down on his promotion of the drug. Without citing evidence,
Trump said “there are signs that it works ... some very strong signs,” and claimed it could also be used as a preventive measure. Then, when a C N N reporter asked the N ational Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Dr. Anthony F auci about the medical evidence for hydroxychloroq uine, Trump interrupted, refusing to let F auci answer. “Do you know how many times he’s answered that q uestion? ” Trump cut in. “Maybe 1 5 .” Trump even said he would take the drug himself. “So, what do I know, I’m not a doctor. I’m not a doctor. But I have common sense,” he said, adding, “What really do we have to lose? ” In another interview on Sunday, Fauci cautioned of the drug’s ability to fight coronavirus: “the data are really just suggestive.” El-Sayed later appeared on C N N later to explain. “Dr. Anthony F auci is a respected scientist, he will always lead with the sci-
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ence,” he said. “And the science shows that right now there’s mixed evidence, and none of that is all that promising, particularly considering that the gold standard kind of test that you’re looking for is a randomiz ed control trial. And that evidence just hasn’t panned out.” El-Sayed added that there was a “fissure” between Trump and Fauci’s messages. “On the other hand, you’ve got President Trump, who, from the beginning, has been leading with a short-term political perspective,” he said. “And his short-term political perspective is that he’s looking for any ounce of hope, even if it’s false hope, that he can throw out there. And so I think, unfortunately, we’re starting to see a little bit of a fissure where the president continues to want to go back and say, ‘Look, we’ve got this drug’ — and he’s not saying this, but he’s hinting — ‘Look, there’s a miracle cure. It’s just around the corner.’ And Dr. Fauci is just saying, ‘Look, there’s a process that we follow,
by which we decide if and when there is a medication that is safe and effective in patients.’ Let’s not give people false hope. Let’s always lead with the science. And when we lead with the science, what we say will be true.” H ydroxychloroq uine has become the center of a political storm in Michigan. In March, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s administration issued a letter to doctors threatening “administrative action” if they prescribed the drug to coronavirus patients. M etr o T im es ’ comments section trolls accused the Democratic governor of opposing the drug simply to spite Trump and endangering lives, but R epublican State Sen. Mike Shirkey later clarified to T h e Detr oit N ew s that the prohibition was to prevent doctors from hoarding the drug and depriving it from non-C O V ID-1 9 patients, who need it to treat lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, and other ailments. At the news briefing, Trump also falsely said the F ood and Drug Administration “gave it a rapid approval.” In fact, the F DA issued a limited Emergency U se Authoriz ation for hydroxychloroq uine to be distributed from its stockpiles, but warned that it “is not F DA-approved for treatment of C O V ID-1 9 .” In a bit of a reversal, last week, officials announced that Detroit is now leading the nation’s first large-scale test of the drug for coronavirus patients. At H enry F ord H ealth Systems, more than 3 ,0 0 0 volunteer frontline hospital workers are being asked to take the drug to see if it can be used as a preventive measure for C O V ID-1 9 , the disease caused by the coronavirus. “I think that there is some great potential here amidst all of the sadness and hardship that we’re going through right now,” Whitmer said during a town hall last week. But as Whitmer’s former gubernatorial rival El-Sayed cautioned, until the trial is over, we can’t say for sure. F or example, he tweeted, “Aspirin is a safe drug—EXCEPT FOR IN KIDS W/ F EV ER S, in whom it was used for a long time because we ASSU MED it was so safe,” he wrote. “It’s why we have to STU DY it.” In another tweet, El-Sayed was more blunt. “’Is #Hydroxychloroquine a safe & effective #COVID19 treatment?’ isn’t a *political* question — it’s a SCIENTIFIC one,” he tweeted. “The answer: WE JUST DON’T KNOW YET. ANY other answer is political spin — which has been the problem w/ the #COVID response all along. You can’t spin science.”
