Despite risks, Trump says he's taking hydroxychloroquine

President Donald Trump said he is taking a malaria drug to protect against coronavirus, despite warnings from his own government that it should only be ministered for COVID-19 in a hospital or research setting due to potentially fatal side effects.

Trump told reporters Monday he has been taking drug, hydroxychloroquine, and a zinc supplement daily “for about a week and a half w.” Trump spent weeks pushing drug as a potential cure or prophylaxis for COVID-19 against cautionary vice of many of his ministration's top medical professionals. drug has potential to cause significant side effects in some patients and has t been shown to combat new coronavirus.

Trump said his doctor did t recommend drug to him, but he requested it from White House physician.

"I started taking it, because I think it’s good," Trump said. "I’ve heard a lot of good stories.”

White House physician, Dr. Sean Conley, said in a statement released through White House press office that, after “numerous discussions” with Trump about evidence for and against using hydroxychloroquine, “we concluded potential benefit from treatment outweighed relative risks.”

Food and Drug ministration warned health professionals last month that drug should t be used to treat COVID-19 outside of hospital or research settings, due to sometimes fatal side effects. Regulators issued alert for drug, which can also be used to treat lupus and arthritis, after receiving reports of heart rhythm problems, including deaths, from poison control centers and or health providers.

Trump dismissed reports of side effects, saying, “All I can tell you is, so far I seem to be OK.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told CNN, "He's our president, and I would rar he t be taking something that has t been approved by scientists, especially in his group and his, shall we say, weight group ... morbidly obese, y say.”

Trump is 73. At his last full checkup in February 2019 he passed official threshold for being considered obese, with a Body Mass Index of 30.4. According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a BMI of 40 or above is considered “severe” obesity, which some also call “morbid” obesity.

Senate Democratic leer Chuck Schumer called Trump's remarks “dangerous.”

"Maybe he's really t taking it because president lies about things characteristically,” Schumer said on MSNBC. He ded: “I don’t kw wher he is taking it or t. I kw him saying he is taking it, wher he is or t, is reckless, reckless, reckless.“

At least two White House staffers tested positive for COVID-19 earlier this month, sparking concerns about steps taken by ministration to protect president and sending Vice President Mike Pence and or officials into varying forms of self-isolation.

White House has since mandated that those in West Wing wear face coverings and has introduced daily testing for virus for president, vice president and those y come in close contact with. Trump says he continues to test negative for coronavirus.

Trump last underwent an “interim” checkup in a vember visit to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center that was t ted on his public schedule. His last complete physical took place in February 2019.

Several prominent doctors said y worried that people would infer from Trump’s example that drug works or is safe.

“re is evidence that hydroxychloroquine is effective for treatment or prevention of COVID-19,” said Dr. Patrice Harris, president of American Medical Association. “ results to date are t promising.”

People should t infer from Trump’s example “that it’s an approved approach or proven,” because it’s t, said Dr. David Aroff, infectious diseases chief at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville.

Hydroxychloroquine can cause potentially serious heart rhythm problems even in healthy people, but “it’s hard to infer” that Trump’s artery plaque, revealed in tests from his 2018 physical, makes drug especially dangerous for him, Aroff said.

White House officials did t say wher any or ministration officials were also taking drug.

Trump said he took hydroxychloroquine with an “original dose” of antibiotic azithromycin. president has repeatedly pushed use of drug with or without azithromycin, but large, rigorous studies have found m safe or effective for preventing or treating COVID-19.

Two large observational studies, each involving around 1,400 patients in New York, recently found benefit from hydroxychloroquine. Two new ones published Thursday in medical journal BMJ reached same conclusion.

One, by French researchers, gave 84 hospitalized patients drug and 97 ors usual care. re were differences in odds of death, need for intensive care or developing severe illness.

or study from China was a stricter test: 150 ults hospitalized with mild or moderate illness were randomly assigned to get hydroxychloroquine or usual care. drug me difference in rates of clearing virus or time to relief of symptoms, and y brought more side effects.

In April, National Institutes of Health launched a study testing hydroxychloroquine versus a placebo drug in 500 hospitalized COVID-19 patients. Last week, NIH anunced ar study to see if hydroxychloroquine plus azithromycin can prevent hospitalization or death in people with mild to moderate illness. About 2,000 U.S. ults with confirmed coronavirus infections and symptoms such as fever, cough or shortness of breath will get drugs or placebo pills.

U.S. prescriptions for hydroxychloroquine surged roughly 80% in March to more than 830,000 compared with same period in prior year, according to data tracking firm IQVIA. That jump in prescribing came before federal government accepted nearly 30 million doses of drug donated to strategic national stockpile by foreign drugmakers. Since n, millions of those tablets have been shipped to U.S. hospitals nationwide for use treating patients with COVID-19.

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