The war on hydroxychloroquine

I’ve often said that political correctness was going to get us killed. The coronavirus is a prime example. Because President Trump suggested on March 19 that hydroxychloroquine might be a viable treatment for coronavirus, mainstream media outlets have waged all-out war on the drug. This malaria drug, that’s been approved for use in the U.S. since 1955, has shown promising results with doctors all around the world. The FDA even issued an emergency use order. Governor Cuomo was the first governor to insist the drug be allowed in New York the day after President Trump mentioned it in a press briefing. 

Even a Democrat lawmaker from Michigan is crediting Trump with potentially saving her life. State Representative Karen Whitsett of Detroit was diagnosed with coronavirus on March 31. While in the hospital, Whitsett learned Democrat Governor Gretchen Whitmer had issued an order prohibiting the use of hydroxychloroquine for coronavirus patients. The governor backed down several days later. Whitsett told Laura Ingraham on Fox News, “If President Trump had not talked about this it wouldn’t have been something that would be accessible for anyone to be able to get right now.” Within hours of her first dose she was on the road to recovery. “It has a lot to do with the president…bringing it up,” she told The Detroit Free Press.

She’s not alone. Doctors around the world are having great success with hydroxychloroquine in combination with other drugs like azithromycin and zinc. Many have been on death’s door, and this anti-malaria drug has been a life-saver.

Still, outlets like CNN and MSNBC continue to try and scare people away from the drug. Both outlets even went so far as to link an idiot in Arizona who ingested fish tank cleaner and died to Trump’s comments about the possibility that this drug might help. Hydroxychloroquine and fish tank cleaner are not even remotely the same thing. And the guy in Arizona and his wife ingested the cleaner even when they didn’t have coronavirus. You can’t fix stupid.

But you can fix disinformation. The mainstream media were spectacularly wrong when they attacked Trump for giving “false hope” on a “potentially dangerous drug.” There’s nothing at all dangerous about hydroxychloroquine. Reported side effects are nausea and vomiting. Sure beats the hell out of dying. 

That’s not the point with the mainstream media. The objective is to blame Trump for the coronavirus and give him no credit with coming up with any solutions. There are two major decisions President Trump has made during all of this that were game-changers. Pushing this anti-malaria drug was one of them. The other was curtailing travel from China way back in January. Those two decisions alone probably saved thousands of American lives.

Did the liberals and the media admit their mistake? No, they doubled down. They ratcheted up the hysteria. One unhinged state representative from Ohio claimed she’d contacted The Hague to bring charges against the president for “crimes against humanity” for continuing to push the drug. This even after Governor Cuomo of New York reported encouraging results in his state.

Then Mika Brzezinski on “Morning Joe” hit an even lower low. She suggested Trump was pushing the drug because he was making money from it. All of this is designed to keep doctors and patients away from the drug for fear that it might actually work. These people, as usual, have become part of the problem.

The question is how many people have needlessly died because the liberal media and Democrat lawmakers didn’t want to admit that Trump was right?

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show, on SuperTalk 99.7WTN in Nashville. He's also co-host of The PodGOATs podcast and I'm Calling Bovine Scatology.