"Really Want to Flood NY and NJ": Internal Documents Reveal Team Trump's Chloroquine Master Plan
Source: Vanity Fair
On the afternoon of Saturday, April 4, President Trump stood at the White House podium and escalated his marketing blitz on behalf of hydroxychloroquine, hyping the old malaria drugs alleged promise in treating COVID-19, as well as his administrations success in acquiring huge amounts of it.
We have millions and millions of doses of it29 million to be exact, he said, as the official tally of COVID-19 cases in the U.S. topped 260,000 and governors across the country pleaded for federal support to acquire tests, ventilators, and protective gear for health care workers. Were just hearing really positive stories, and were continuing to collect the data. That evening, according to emails obtained by Vanity Fair, Trumps political appointees would ramp up the pressure on career health officials to make good on the presidents extravagant promises, despite clear warnings from federal clinicians about the risks and unproven benefits of chloroquine-based treatments for COVID-19.
The president had been touting hydroxychloroquine for weeks, sparking worldwide shortages of the drug and prompting negotiations with Indian prime minister Narendra Modi to lift export restrictions on its active ingredients. But on March 24, the federal governments top interagency working group of clinicians and scientists privately threw cold water on his claims, according to a federal official with knowledge of the working groups deliberations. In an internal consensus statement, a medical countermeasures group within Health and Human Services recommended that chloroquine-based COVID-19 treatments should be studied only in controlled, hospital-based clinical trials, as their safety and efficacy was not supported by data from reliable clinical trials or from non-human primates and carried potential risks. The medicineswhich are used to treat malaria as well as autoimmune conditions such as lupuscan have serious side effects, including heart arrhythmias.
And yet, just hours after that April 4 press conference, White House officials pushed ahead with a massive behind-the-scenes pressure campaign on the governments top health officials to deliver huge amounts of chloroquine drugs to just about anyone who wanted them, according to documents reviewed by Vanity Fair. That night, Brett Giroir, the assistant secretary for health in the Department of Health and Human Services, sent an email with the subject line Hydroxychloroquine to a group including FEMA administrator Pete Gaynor, HHS assistant secretary for preparedness and response Robert Kadlec, and Navy Rear Admiral John Polowczyk, who leads a supply-chain task force at FEMA.
Read more: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/04/internal-documents-reveal-team-trumps-chloroquine-master-plan
ArizonaLib
(1,242 posts)I think by Sunday we are going to reach the +56,000 death mark with this pandemic.
geardaddy
(24,926 posts)and close to 1 million cases in the US.
Bernardo de La Paz
(48,988 posts)The web site page is so full of trackers and fingerprinters that it comes up completely blank.
muriel_volestrangler
(101,306 posts)The email read:
WH call. Really want to flood Ny and NJ with treatment courses. Hospitals have it. Sick out patients dont. And cant get. So go through distribution channels as we discussed. If we have 29 million perhaps send a few million ASAP? WH wants follow up in AM.
We can get a lot more of this. Right Bob? Millions per week?
Bernardo de La Paz
(48,988 posts)JudyM
(29,230 posts)dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)Did he pick them because he is pissed at NY/NJ ( Cuomo, Christie)
or because he has familiar crooked distribution sites out there
or because both states are desperate for help
or because both states have huge number of possible patients in a small area
or..????
In any event, always happy to see that they keep putting printed evidence out for all to see.
paleotn
(17,911 posts)What in the hell is wrong with these people? If it didn't work, people would still die. Hospitals would fill up and we'd all be far worse off. And that would make things better how? THIS is what you get with rank incompetence. Didn't they give one thought to the downsides, much less the worse case scenario and how THAT might play out? Obviously not.
JudyM
(29,230 posts)NCjack
(10,279 posts)ananda
(28,858 posts)Sheesh
Lulu KC
(2,565 posts)mahina
(17,643 posts)Lulu KC
(2,565 posts)It was kind of on the lower right side of the CNN website last night at 4 a.m. I am not seeing it exploding yet and am waiting...waiting.
mahina
(17,643 posts)Malevolent bonehead