Hydroxychloroquine report called bogus; 'Not a VA study'

FPI / May 21, 2020

Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie on Tuesday debunked the major media's widely used narrative surrounding a study which said the use of hydroxychloroquine is not safe to treat coronavirus patients.

“I want to knock down the phony story that this is somehow the VA going back on what the president told us to do, which was to use every means possible to protect and preserve the lives of our veterans,” Wilkie said at the White House meeting.

Wilkie said that the researchers of the hydroxychloroquine study repeatedly cited by the press took Veterans Affairs numbers and they did not clinically review or peer review them, including the various co-morbidities of the elderly patients.

“That was not a VA study,” Wilkie said as the president took questions from reporters during a cabinet meeting at the White House.

He noted that the military had been using the drug for years, typically using 42,000 doses of the drug in a day.

“Those of us who have had a military life, some of us around this table, we’ve been taking this drug for years,” he said. As the president mentioned, the Department of Defense and the VA have been using it for 65 years.

Wilkie said that the Veterans Affairs department used the drug as part of Trump’s order to use “every means necessary to preserve life” for veterans and had consulted with veterans and their families on the use of the drug.

Meanwhile, presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden on Tuesday criticized President Donald Trump for taking hydroxychloroquine as a prophylaxis.

"It’s like saying maybe if you inject Clorox into your blood it may cure you. C’mon, man! What is he doing? What in God’s name is he doing?" Biden said.

RedState's streiff noted: "If you ever thought that the assertion that Joe Biden is suffering from the onset of dementia was just a slur directed at a doddering old man, you can put that concern to bed."

Free Press International