The United States has revoked the emergency authorization for malaria drugs championed by Donald Trump for treating Covid-19, amid growing evidence they don’t work and could cause serious side effects.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said on Monday the drugs hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine were unlikely to be effective in treating the coronavirus. C
iting reports of heart complications, the agency said the drugs’ unproven benefits “do not outweigh the known and potential risks”.
Trump criticized the FDA decision. “I took it and I felt good about taking it. I don’t know if it had an impact, but it certainly didn’t hurt me,” Trump said on Monday.
Trump said there had been “great reports” out of France, Spain and other places, without offering any evidence or further explanation.
France is one of the countries that has already stopped using the drug for Covid-19 patients.
In a separate announcement, the FDA also warned doctors against prescribing the drugs in combination with remdesivir, the lone drug currently shown to help patients with Covid-19.
The agency said the anti-malaria drugs could reduce the effectiveness of remdesivir, which the FDA cleared for emergency use in May.
Hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine are frequently prescribed for lupus and rheumatoid arthritis.
The FDA granted emergency use for the anti-malaria drugs in late March at the same time the US government accepted 30m doses of hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine that had been donated by two foreign drug manufacturers. Millions of those doses were shipped to US hospitals to treat patients who weren’t enrolled in clinical trials.
