When the Food and Drug Administration suddenly revoked its own approval for emergency use of two anti-malaria drugs to treat Covid-19 patients, the government was left with a huge, useless stockpile of the medications.
The FDA’s change of position on Monday came as an embarrassing surprise to federal officials, from President Trump on down. Trump had called the related drugs, hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine, “game changers” for fighting the virus.
But now those who followed Trump’s lead don’t know what to do with 66 million doses of the two medications that they had rushed to obtain, reports the New York Times.
Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro was a leading figure in helping distribute millions of hydroxychloroquine pills. Naturally, Navarro blames others for the current situation.
“This is a Deep State blindside by bureaucrats who hate the administration they work for more than they’re concerned about saving American lives,” Navarro told the Times in an interview.
Dr. Peter Lurie, president of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, told the Times it is “quite clear” the FDA was “strong-armed” into its emergency-use decision for the two drugs by Navarro and others — including “radio, television talk show hosts, the president’s pals” and others.
Now, Lurie told the Times, FDA officials have “mud on their faces because they’ve belatedly come to their senses and done the right thing.”
“Medical experts across the country — including those who are researching hydroxychloroquine … applauded” the FDA’s decision, which came after it concluded the drugs’ potential benefits did not outweigh the risks, which include potentially fatal heart-rhythm effects, the Times says.
The FDA says the White House and Trump cabinet members like Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar were told of the decision before it was announced.
“But Mr. Navarro’s anger seemed to capture the futility of the administration’s headlong efforts to yield to the president’s wishes and rush the two drugs into use, yet another example of how politics and science have collided in Mr. Trump’s Washington,” the Times says.
As of Monday, the newspaper says, the government has distributed 31 million tablets of hydroxychloroquine to state and local health departments, hospitals and research institutions; 63 million tablets remain, along with 3 million doses of chloroquine, donated by pharmaceutical giant Bayer.
The chloroquine hasn’t been touched, since it came from a Bayer factory in Pakistan that hasn’t been certified as safe for drugs used in the U.S.
