Trump spars with Fauci, reporter on unproven drug

In an extraordinary exchange, President Donald Trump and the government's top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, publicly contradicted each other Friday on whether a malaria drug would work to treat people with coronavirus disease.

The scene played out on national television during the daily White House briefing on the outbreak.

A reporter asked both men if a malaria drug called hydroxychloroquine could be used to prevent COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, as Trump had suggested a day earlier when Fauci wasn't with him at that briefing.

Although there has been much back and forth about that drug in recent days, there is no medicine specifically approved for treating COVID-19.

Fauci took the question and got right to the point. "No," he said. "The answer ... is no."

"The information that you're referring to specifically is anecdotal," Fauci added firmly. "It was not done in a controlled clinical trial, so you really can't make any definitive statement about it."

He went on to explain that the Food and Drug Administration is looking for a way to make the drug available to patients for emergency use, but in a manner that gives the government data about whether it's safe and effective. Fauci is director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at NIH and in more than 30 years has handled HIV, SARS, MERS, Ebola and now the new coronavirus.

But Trump stuck to what his gut was telling him. As the two men took turns at the podium, Trump said he disagreed with the notion that there is no magic drug for the coronavirus disease. "Maybe and maybe not," he said. "Maybe there is, maybe there isn't. We have to see."

He struck an upbeat note, while trying not to directly challenge Fauci. "It may work, may not work. I feel good about it. That's all it is, just a feeling, you know, I'm a smart guy. I feel good about it," Trump said.

The president also attacked a NBC reporter who asked if his "impulse to put a positive spin on things may be giving Americans a false sense of hope."

Trump shot back at Peter Alexander calling him a "terrible reporter" and saying he "should be ashamed" of himself.

Hydroxychloroquine and a similar drug — chloroquine — are available now and can be prescribed off-label by doctors in the United States. They may interfere with the coronavirus being able to enter cells, and some scientists have reported possible encouraging signs in test-tube and other small studies.

The vast majority of people recover from the new virus. According to the World  Health Organization, people with mild illness recover in about two weeks, while those with more severe illness may take three to six weeks to recover.