Donald Trump He has insisted on Tuesday to defend the use of hydroxychloroquine, a treatment against malaria and lupus, despite the fact that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) does not endorse the drug as a treatment against coronavirus. The president of the United States assured, in a press conference, that the medicine can be used “successfully in the initial phases” of the disease. On Monday night, Trump shared several tweets that contained a video in which an alleged group of doctors advised the use of hydroxychloroquine in patients with covid-19. Twitter deleted the messages shared by Trump, arguing that it is false information that violated the conditions of the social network. Facebook and YouTube also removed content that in a few hours went viral.
The video also directly targeted the leader of the epidemiological strategy in the United States, Dr. Anthony Fauci. Trump has been suspicious of the leading role that Fauci has taken in recent weeks in the face of the advance of the pandemic. “He has very high approval. Why do I not have the high approval, and the administration, regarding the virus? ”He mentioned. The president assured that he follows the recommendations that Fauci and other experts have given to his Administration, and that he does not understand why the public has a different perspective on the specialists regarding him. “Nobody likes me. It can only be because of my personality, that’s all, ”he said.
The video that started the debate was originally published by America’s Frontline Doctors. Trump retweeted it Monday night and Twitter pulled it back several hours later. In almost 30 minutes, the message assured that the use of masks and the measures of confinement taken in some cities did not help to stop the infections.
A Twitter spokesperson has pointed out that the message retweeted by Trump is against the covid-19 information policies that the social network follows. On Facebook, they explained that they deleted it because it was “false information” about treatments against the coronavirus. YouTube has also removed it this Tuesday from the account of the extreme right web Breitbart. On Tuesday morning, Twitter limited access to the account of the president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., for 12 hours, after he shared the same video. The president also continued to retweet 14 messages related to information against the use of the mask and in favor of hydroxychloroquine treatments.
A fragment of the video deleted from Donald Trump’s social networks, in which Dr. Stella Immanuel defends the use of hydroxychloroquine to cure covid-19.
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The wave of messages against his government’s measures occurred a few days after Trump argued that the use of the mask can help reduce infections, in a turn of strategy for his reelection campaign. As of Tuesday morning, 4.3 million cases have been confirmed in the United States, according to data from Johns Hopkins University, and 148,000 people have died from the disease. Trump also relaunched last week the evening press conferences in which he talks about the progress of his Administration on the subject, but which have not been attended by government medical advisers.
“I have not been misleading the American public under any circumstances,” Dr. Fauci has defended on American television after the video went viral. Trump has been openly against the measures that the specialist has established to control the advance of the pandemic in the United States. The video released by the president also claimed that by banning hydroxychloroquine, the aim was to increase deaths to destabilize the Trump Administration and its reelection plans. “I’m just doing my job. We are in the midst of a crisis, “Fauci said when questioned about the video’s arguments.
Hydroxychloroquine has been removed by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) from its list of drugs that serve as an emerging treatment for covid-19. The US agency ruled out the drug a month ago after showing that there are risks to patients’ heart rhythms. Trump promoted the use of the drug a couple of months ago and even claimed that he was using it as a preventive measure to avoid contracting the disease.
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