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Comment by anigbrowl | Hacker News Reader

A relevant data point. I don't think this is a good way to share public health information.

@realdonaldtrump 7:13 AM - 21 Mar 2020

HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE & AZITHROMYCIN, taken together, have a real chance to be one of the biggest game changers in the history of medicine. The FDA has moved mountains - Thank You! Hopefully they will BOTH (H works better with A, International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents).....

....be put in use IMMEDIATELY. PEOPLE ARE DYING, MOVE FAST, and GOD BLESS EVERYONE! @US_FDA @SteveFDA @CDCgov @DHSgov

https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/12413672399007785...

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Seems completely reasonable to me.

He says "have a real chance". He's not promising they work and stating that he and the FDA are doing everything they can to find treatments.

During the press conference it was also repeated multiple times that it wasn’t yet ready and they were only taking about getting it into the research phase, specially getting the FDA to fast track it as a possible treatment for COVID-19 so it can be studied in the US.

Dr Fauci spoke right after Trump first brought up the drug and confirmed it’s something not yet proven as a treatment, except some early studies in France, but something that should be looked into. Trump brought it up a few minutes later, again in the context of the FDA approving it for study.

Regardless, I’m sure it made a lot of doctors and pharmacists cringe hearing any drug brought up. I saw a lot of people afterwards saying Trump was recommending it as a treatment without any context, so in a politically charged sound-bite era there will always be the risk of it being misinterpreted... or people willfully ignoring the context and Guinea-pigging themselves.

One good thing is that it already requires a doctors prescription to buy (same with Canada).

It seems completely reasonable to you for the president to tweet out unqualified medical advice during a pandemic?

It's not medical advice. It's "hey, these drugs look promising, so the FDA is fast tracking things".

How could anyone construe that as medical advice?

If the president said "hey, the FDA just approved a great new cancer drug", is that medical advice for cancer patients? Of course not.

There was a similar discussion on HN about 1 week ago, where a commenter described making a "lightning strike" trip to Mexico to buy Chloroquine from a less regulated source, so they can dose themself if they get sick.

In a country where people literally can't afford to see a doctor, and the masses are panicked by a disease, when the leader tweets out a couple of drugs that look promising .... yes, I think it's reasonable to assume that some people will take it as medical advice.

People on HN might not, uneducated people easily could. Why do you think pharmaceutical commercials include so many warnings?

"be put in use IMMEDIATELY"

Here's a story where it was put in use immediately and saved the guys life. "Coronavirus Victim, 52, Said Good-Bye To Family, Prepared to Die; Says Hydroxychloroquine Saved His Life" https://www.dailywire.com/news/coronavirus-victim-52-said-go...

It can be a mistake to avoid helpful medication because one idiot kills himself with fish tank cleaner.

It can actually be used immediately at a doctors discretion - it's just not officially recommended yet in the US.

The Daily Wire is Ben Shapiro's right-wing fake news infotainment website. It's overtly political and puts opinion above fact.

The man in the story says he was also given benadryl and a drug he didn't recognize. So please don't pretend that one drug saved the man's life. For all we know, he was going to recover anyway, or one of the other drugs (which he doesn't even know what they are) helped him.

He says it should be put in use immediately. Are we reading the same material? How do you come to the conclusion that this is reasonable?

Sometimes, "reasonable" is a word that people use to verbally dance their way out of indefensible positions. Don't do that.

He's talking about the FDA.

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