Eric Bolling to Dr. Fauci: If Your Family Had Coronavirus, Would You Recommend Hydrochloroquine?

Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and key expert on the coronavirus task force, was questioned on the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine as a potential remedy for coronavirus by Sinclair host Eric Bolling.

While President Donald Trump has repeatedly touted the unproven drug, Fauci has spent nearly as much time explaining that studies about its effectiveness are inconclusive.

“Let’s talk a little bit about hydroxychloroquine,” Bolling started in an interview airing on America: This Week. “And now the president’s been taking a lot of heat. Again, I want this to be nonpolitical. I just want to talk the science, so you’re the right guy for that.”

The Sinclair host asked the doctor why hydroxychloroquine isn’t being more widely used to treat the coronavirus: “Why wouldn’t we use this for something that’s killing people?”

“Well, it is being used, and it’s being used on the two different pathways. One is an off-label prescribing by physicians. And that has to be an agreement and an understanding between a physician and a patient that there are certain risks. Because, by the way, the dosages that you’ll be using for coronavirus are far greater than the dosages that you use for malaria or that you use for autoimmune diseases such as lupus.”

Fauci further billed evidence of the drug being effective against Covid-19 as “really scant.”

“There are other studies that show that doesn’t work at all,” he said, before Bolling jumped in.

“But, sir, you have a wife and three daughters. If one of them were gravely ill with Covid-19, would you recommend them trying hydroxychloroquine?” Bolling asked.

Fauci replied, “Well, my daughters are adults. What I would do is I would tell them to make their own decision myself. Myself, personally, if I were infected, I would want to go into a clinical trial.”

“I would want to do it under the auspices of a clinical trial, a well-controlled clinical trial. With regard to my family, they’re all adults. They would make their own decision based on a discussion between them and their physician and a weighing of the risk-benefit. I think everybody has a different viewpoint and you’ve got to respect the individual viewpoints of people,” Fauci continued. “That’s the reason why I do not criticize people who, together with their physician, make a decision that they may want to try something.”

“But in the same breath, I have to say there is not definitive evidence that it works,” Fauci continued. “And we are not quite sure yet of the toxicities because you’re using it in a different disease and you’re using it at a much higher dose. Ultimately, as the information gets accumulated, we will get a better idea. And also, I think importantly, in addition to the off-label use, there are randomized controlled trials that are looking at the safety and the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine.”

“So we will get the answer ultimately,” Fauci concluded.

Watch above, via Sinclair.