GOP 'snake-oil salesmen' are still pushing Trump's favorite discredited COVID-19 cure: public health expert

A top public health expert on Tuesday shredded Senate Republicans for continuing to push President Donald Trump's favorite COVID-19 treatment, despite mountains of medical studies showing it is not effective.

Dr. Ashish Jha, the Dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, wrote an editorial for the New York Times in which he took Senate Republicans to task for devoting an entire hearing to anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine, which Trump months ago pushed as a "game changer" despite the fact that subsequent research found that it did little to mitigate the effects of the novel coronavirus in most patients.

"Almost nine months into the pandemic, during a surge, with 1,500 daily deaths, senators saw fit to rehash a medical dead end," he wrote. "Trial after trial has found no evidence that hydroxychloroquine improves outcomes for Covid-19 patients; some studies have found that it causes more harm than good."

Jha expressed particular contempt for Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), who invited three doctors who had pushed hydroxychloroquine while ignoring the mountain of evidence that undermines their claims about it being a good treatment for COVID-19.

"The history of medicine is littered with snake-oil salesmen who championed useless or harmful treatments based on personal experience," he wrote. "Senator Johnson and his witnesses questioned the integrity of the medical community, suggesting scientists were part of some 'deep state' conspiracy to deny Americans access to lifesaving therapies. We’ve heard this before — including from President Trump, who has accused doctors of inflating Covid-19 cases for profit."

Read the whole editorial here.