Source: UtahPolicy.com Author: Golden Webb
In a letter, Sens. Mike Lee, Ted Cruz, and Ron Coleman express their concern that the FDA’s apparent blacklisting of hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for COVID-19 “may be directly costing lives.”
The letter, reports LifeSiteNews, asks U.S. Food & Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn to justify his agency’s decision to revoke its approval of the use of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) despite strong evidence for its success as a COVID treatment.
President Trump first called attention to the possible use of HCQ, an immunosuppressive drug, as a palliative treatment for coronavirus symptoms back in March. Predictably, Trump’s innocent endorsement produced a kind of anti-HCQ hysteria that swept through the mainstream media, which now eagerly began looking for evidence to prove the president wrong. In May, that hysteria seemed vindicated when the influential British medical journal The Lancet published a bombshell study discrediting the use of HCQ for COVID cases. The study generated frontpage headlines worldwide and led several countries to impose outright bans on the drug. In June, however, The Lancet retracted the study and issued an apology after it was discovered that the study’s conclusions were based on fraudulent data.
Here in Utah, during the height of the national anti-HCQ media craze, the Salt Lake Tribune ran a series of news stories and opinion pieces designed to cast doubt on the use of the drug. As a result of the Trib’s crusade, which was largely driven by the hype surrounding another questionable, non-peer-reviewed anti-HCQ study that one expert described as “a sham,” Gov. Gary Herbert cancelled an order that would have stockpiled as many as 200K doses of HCQ for the treament of Utah coronavirus patients.
Recently, the Democratic governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz, quietly lifted his ban on the use of HCQ in his state. Now, Sens. Lee, Cruz, and Coleman are urging the FDA to give the green light to other states seeking to follow Walz’s lead.
As they note in their letter: “We have heard from licensed physicians [who’ve detailed how the FDA’s inconsistent stance on HCQ] has affected their ability to treat patients [and] led to misinformation and confusion across the country. … The licensed physicians we have heard from stressed the potential benefits of early outpatient treatment of HCQ for individuals infected with COVID-19 …
However, the physicians are concerned that the FDA’s actions regarding HCQ may be directly costing lives by limiting outpatient access to this potentially beneficial treatment.”
Related: Finally, States Are Retracting Hydroxychloroquine Bans
Death toll mounts as FDA denies HCQ for outpatient therapy
US Senators request HCQ decision information from FDA’s Stephen Hahn
Hydroxychloroquine works in high-risk patients, and saying otherwise is dangerous