Cardiologist on CNN Calls Out WH Physician for Treating Trump With Unproven Drug Hydroxychloroquine: ‘Responsible Doctor Would Say No’
On CNN, cardiologist Dr. Eric Topol called out the White House physician for reportedly acceding to President Donald Trump’s request to be treated with the unproven drug hydroxychloroquine, which presents elevated risks for people with pre-existing heart conditions, like the president has.
Appearing on AC: 360, Topol noted to host Anderson Cooper that there have been no definitive studies confirming the safety and efficacy of hydroxychloroquine, and that it has known harmful side effects for someone with comorbidities like Trump’s. The doctor honed in on his criticism of Conley just minutes after the White House released a letter from him vaguely explaining this decision.
“After numerous discussions, he and I regarding the evidence for and against the use of hydroxychloroquine, we concluded the potential benefit from treatment outweighed the relative risks,” Conley wrote of a treatment that the numerous public health agencies have warned against. “In consolation with our inter-agency partners and subject matter experts around the country, I continue to monitor the myriad studies investigating potential Covid-19 therapies, and I anticipate employing the same shared medical decision making based on the evidence at hand in the future.
Letter from Trump’s doctor regarding hydroxychloroquine pic.twitter.com/DrryCrFc02
— Jason Leopold (@JasonLeopold) May 19, 2020
After discussing the letter, Cooper put a question to Topol: How would he respond if a patient like Trump, who is elderly, overweight, and has a documented hearth condition, asked to use the drug to prevent contracting the virus.
“The responsible doctor would say ‘No, there’s no data to support this,'” Topol said, pulling no punches. “There’s a risk that we know of and it’s significant. And so we can’t prescribe that. So in a way it’s complicit. It’s really unfortunate because it is — somehow it promotes the drug in a reckless way. And moreover, it’s this whole commitment to the ‘game changer’ and all the other things that were being done for many weeks. It really is deeply concerning. ”
Watch the video above, via CNN.
