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Early in the pandemic, President Donald Trump and White House senior official Peter Navarro arranged the donation of 63 million doses of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) to America’s strategic drug stockpile to combat Covid-19. The government began securing HCQ in March 2020, after Trump, on the advice of his medical and scientific advisors, lauded HCQ as “very encouraging,” “very powerful,” and a “game-changer.” While HCQ (and its structurally similar analogue chloroquine) was not FDA-indicated for Covid-19, it was well-known to have specific off-label pharmacological functionality for preventing viral particle entry into cells, chemical derivatives of which have been utilized for antiviral use as far back as 1934.

Following Trump’s proposal, HCQ suddenly came under an unwarranted full-scale attack from federal officials, the press, so-called “fact-checkers,” and university professors. Many of the attacks contained outright falsehoods about HCQ’s pharmacology and safety or Trump’s endeavor to make HCQ available to eligible patients.

The FDA initially issued an emergency use authorization (EUA) for HCQ in March 2020, but withdrew authorization on June 15th 2020, stating the drug is “unlikely to be effective in treating COVID-19 for the [EUA] authorized uses.” Around the same time, the FDA also wrote a methodologically questionable report criticizing HCQ’s safety. The FDA’s narrative was based on preliminary and time-compartmentalized findings, and not a reflection of historical safety or based on the appropriate clinical use of HCQ dosing, prescribing, timing, and duration. The FDA then seemed to label its findings as conclusive, figuratively slamming the door shut on the consideration of new findings.

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