Trump again pushes disproven drug as COVID-19 treatment

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s attempt to project a more serious tone about the coronavirus lasted for about a week.

On Tuesday, he resumed spreading misinformation about how to fight the virus and amplifying criticism of Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, who said he’d keep his head down and do his job.

Social media platforms worked to remove multiple versions of a video promoted by Trump that included unproven claims about treating people who test positive for the virus, but only after more than 17 million people had seen one version of it.

As he often does, the president used Twitter, where he has more than 84 million followers, to sow fresh doubt about the most effective ways to treat COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, and risked undermining his own recent admonitions to wear masks and maintain a social distance while hoping a vaccine will emerge in the coming months.

Trump retweeted a series of tweets advocating for the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine to be used in COVID-19 patients, including a video of a doctor claiming to have successfully used the drug on hundreds of patients.

Numerous studies have shown that hydroxychloroquine is not effective and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently withdrew an order that allowed the drug’s use as a emergency treatment.

Trump also shared a post from the Twitter account for a podcast hosted by Steve Bannon, a former top White House adviser to Trump, accusing Fauci of misleading the public over hydroxychloroquine.

Fauci, a leading member of the White House coronavirus task force, responded to Trump’s tweets during an appearance Tuesday on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

“I go along with the FDA,” said Fauci, the longtime director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases. “The overwhelming prevailing clinical trials that have looked at the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine have indicated that it is not effective in coronavirus disease.”

It’s not the first time Fauci has come under attack from Trump and those close to him.

In recent nationally televised interviews, Trump himself has described Fauci as “a bit of an alarmist” and accused him of making “mistakes” in his coronavirus guidance to the American people.

Last week, Trump said the situation would probably worsen before it gets better. He also canceled GOP convention events scheduled for August in Jacksonville, Florida, citing the virus.

More than 4 million people in the U.S. have been infected by the coronavirus and the death toll is nearing 150,000, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.

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