A Yale professor claimed on Fox News that if the experimental anti-malaria drug Hydroxychloroquine was used to treat more coronavirus patients nationwide, it could save up to 100,000 lives.
Professor Harvey Risch, a professor of epidemiology for Yale’s School of Public Health, made the comments Tuesday on Laura Ingraham’s show, “The Ingraham Angle.” He explained that if the drug were used more widely and implemented as a “prophylactic” for emergency workers and medical personnel, as other countries have already done, then anywhere from 75,000 to 100,000 Americans could be saved.
Dr. Risch noted that “there are many doctors that I’ve gotten hostile remarks about saying that all the evidence is bad for it,” when such assertions are actually “not true at all.” He acknowledged that there is a “propaganda war” being waged against the drug purely because President Trump endorsed the drug early on, with his political opponents being determined to see any method supported by the president shot down rather than be implemented nationwide.
The evidence has always supported President Trump’s assertion that Hydroxychloroquine, originally used to treat malaria, is one of the most effective drugs against the Chinese coronavirus. Most recently, a study from the Henry Ford Health System in Southeast Michigan found that Hydroxychloroquine administration to coronavirus patients resulted in a “66 percent hazard ratio reduction.” The study concluded that, while more trials would be necessary, it was clear that “treatment with Hydroxychloroquine alone, and in combination with azithromycin, was associated with reduction in COVID-19 associated mortality.”