Dr. Oz Responds to Study Showing No Benefit to Hydroxychloroquine: ‘We Are Better Off Waiting For the Randomized Trials’

Dr. Mehmet Oz doesn’t want to rule out hydroxychloroquine yet despite new indications that the anti-malaria drug is not an effective coronavirus remedy.

A study conducted by the Veterans Health Administration evaluated hundreds of Covid-19 patients and found that hydroxychloroquine offered no treatment benefits for them, and the drug might have actually had a negative effect instead.

According to AP, while the “nationwide study was not a rigorous experiment,” with 368 patients “it’s the largest look so far of hydroxychloroquine with or without the antibiotic azithromycin for COVID-19.”

This comes after President Donald Trump and opinion hosts on Fox News spent weeks lauding hydroxychloroquine as a possible solution to the public health crisis — Fox host Laura Ingraham even went to the White House to push the drug — all while health officials like Dr. Anthony Fauci pointed out there was not enough evidence of its effectiveness.

Oz was among the pundits who promoted the drug, though mentions of hydroxychloroquine have declined substantially on Fox News in recent days. When asked Wednesday on Fox & Friends for his reaction to the new study, Oz noted it focused on “older and sicker patients” before pivoting to other studies in defense of hydroxychloroquine.

They weren’t getting the data at the time that they were actually giving the medications. Studies that have done this perspectively — so looking forward and giving it as collecting data as they are going along like in France or the randomized trials from China — have shown benefits, but really only when given earlier to patients. The fact of the matter is we don’t know. Thankfully these medications are prescription only so doctors are desperately awaiting the completion of the higher-quality randomized trials… Let’s get that data so we know what we are dealing with.

Oz went on to say “we are better off waiting for the randomized trials Dr. Fauci has been asking for. Otherwise we would keep reacting back and forth for studies that show opposite results…We don’t have randomized data in the United States to educate us well enough right now.”

Watch above, via Fox News.

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