Washington
A week after appearing to project a more serious tone about the coronavirus, US President Donald Trump is back to pushing unproven claims that an anti-malaria drug is an effective treatment and challenging the credibility of the nation’s leading infectious disease expert.
Dr Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, pushed back on Tuesday, saying he will keep doing his job.
Numerous studies, meanwhile, have shown that the drug, hydroxychloroquine, is not an effective treatment for Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. And the US Food and Drug Administration recently withdrew an order that allowed the drug’s use as an emergency treatment for Covid-19.
Yet overnight, after returning from a trip to North Carolina where he promoted efforts to develop a Covid-19 vaccine, Trump retweeted a series of tweets advocating for hydroxychloroquine.
The president also shared a post from the Twitter account for a podcast hosted by Steve Bannon, a former top White House adviser to Trump, accusing Fauci of misleading the public over hydroxychloroquine.
