I think it’s time to ask if the political games the media played during the Trump administration and the conflict of interest in some members of the National Institute of Health resulted in the deaths of Americans. Hot Air posted an article today about s recent study on the use of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) to treat Covid patients.

The article reports:

For most of us, the whole controversy over the use of hydroxychloroquine in treating COVID-19 patients seemed mostly political in nature and less so about the drug’s effectiveness. Once Donald Trump came out in support of it, the gloves came off. At least half of the country decided that HCQ was not a scientific treatment for the coronavirus because the bad Orange Man was an anti-science president. Never mind that it was Trump who expedited the vaccine process to historic speed with Operation Warp Speed. He put together a White House coronavirus task force before many people (especially on the left) were willing to acknowledge the pandemic that originated in China. When Trump announced that he was taking HCQ himself, he was roundly mocked. Nevertheless, others in the medical community studied the use of the drug during the pandemic and found some positive results.

The article notes that hydroxychloroquine costs under $10 for the course of a COVID-19 treatment and the drug being promoted by the National Institute of Health (NIH) during the Trump administration, remdesivir, costs about $3,500 per treatment. Hydroxychloroquine has been used for years with known side effects. The side effects of remdesivir are unknown.

The article suggests we follow the money and continues with the following excerpt from The Washington Times:

Although, many doctors around the world were finding success with HCQ, in February 2020 NIH started enrolling patients for a remdesivir COVID-19 trial, with Dr. Fauci overseeing its progress. He had the final say on all the press releases, and presumably was working closely with Gilead. On April 16 something funny happened with the trial — the endpoints of it were quietly changed and updated on the clinicaltrials.gov website. Instead of evaluating remdesivir’s ability to prevent death from COVID-19, the study was redesigned to evaluate how fast a patient recovered from remdesivir.

…On May 1, the NIH’s COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines panel members granted emergency use of remdesivir and stated HCQ could only be used in hospitals or in studies. Investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson found 11 members of that panel had financial ties to Gilead. Two were on Gilead’s advisory board, others were paid consultants or received research support and honoraria. None of the members, however, had ties to HCQ, which is made by numerous generic manufacturers, and “is so cheap, analysts say even a spike in sales would not be a financial driver for the companies,” Ms. Attkisson reported.

Ms. Attkisson also found one of the authors of a small Veterans Administration trial that claimed HCQ caused increased deaths received a $247,000 grant from Gilead in 2018.

The article at Hot Air concludes:

You may remember that when Trump was hospitalized with COVID-19, he was treated with remdesivir and did, indeed, experience a speedy recovery. By the way, Gilead spent $2.45 million in the first quarter of 2020 lobbying the federal government.

The results of the latest study showing success with HCQ in patient recovery time for those on a ventilator is very encouraging. Perhaps the Follow the Science people should practice what they preach. How many lives were lost because of tunnel vision?

This is disgusting. All of the members of the NIH who had ties to Gilead should be fired. Lives were lost because they were greedy.