"The President is talking about hope for people and it's not an unreasonable thing to hope for people so when you have approved drugs that physicians have the option and a decision between the physician and the patient are you gonna use the drug that someone says from an anecdotal standpoint not completely proven but might have some effect..."
Which is utterly gobbledygook divergent from the facts about the two drugs in discussion. It is not true that the evidence supporting these two drugs is anecdotal. These two drugs have been shown in scientific studies and peer-reviewed publications to have strong positive effects against COVID19. Period.
But Fauci's words have hidden the truth from you.
Fauci rambled,
"...there are those who lean to the point of giving hope and saying give that person the option of having access to that drug and then you have the other group which is my job as scientist to say my job is to ultimately prove without a doubt that a drug is not only safe but that it actually works."
No. The standard of evidence he is requiring is not his job as a scientist. It is a wildly inappropriate exaggeration utterly unsuited to the situation, and his description of the facts is utterly misleading. Not to mention it's a word-salad.
In one month's time, there will be hundreds of thousands of cases of COVID19. There will be many thousands of deaths. And Fauci is taking the position that he and the US government should not approve Hydroxychloroquine because it might not be safe and might not be effective, based on his smear of high-quality science as mere anecdote.
Definition of "anecdotal evidence" from Merriam-Webster:
evidence in the form of stories that people tell about what has happened to them.
Example: His conclusions are not supported by data; they are based only on anecdotal evidence.
Is that what the following is?
Gautret et al. (2020) writing Hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin as a treatment of COVID‐19: results of an open‐label non‐randomized clinical trial. state:
"We therefore recommend that COVID-19 patients be treated with Hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin to cure their infection and to limit the transmission of the virus to other people in order to curb the spread of COVID-19 in the world." - Gautret et al, International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents – In Press 17 March 2020 – DOI : 10.1016/j.ijantimicag.2020.105949
The words "clinical trial" in the title actually mean "clinical trial". That's, like, different, than "anecdotal", Tony?
Then we hear from Wang, M., Cao, R., Zhang, L. et al. in Remdesivir and chloroquine effectively inhibit the recently emerged novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) in vitro. Cell Res 30, 269–271 (2020).
Wang et al writes,
"Our findings reveal that remdesivir and chloroquine are highly effective in the control of 2019-nCoV infection in vitro. Since these compounds have been used in human patients with a safety track record and shown to be effective against various ailments, we suggest that they should be assessed in human patients suffering from the novel coronavirus disease."
That's scientific evidence was published in Nature Cell Research - probably the most prestigious scientific journal in that field in the world. Nature is "anecdotal evidence" to Dr. Tony "lost the fastball" Fauci.
New York state starts their mass trials of both these drugs on Tuesday Gov. Cuomo just said as much on live national t.v.. they have 75K Hydro ,750K chloro, and 10K zithro if these drugs work as advertised then within 7 days the results should start to be known. The FDA is allowing these trials to gather the required information to issue a department approval in the use for unrestricted treatment with these drugs. Even if they work no drug is 100% we still need a vaccine to break the chains of infection these drugs only treat people who are sick enough to seek out hospital care. There’s not enough supply to treat tens of millions of people which would be the case if we let everyone back into circulation again. This bug is at least twice as contagious as flu and flu infects tens of millions in a season. There’s simply not enough doses available and since the drugs likely take precursor chemicals from China the hope of ramping up what production we have stateside is probably slim.
Mr. President,
Australia has approved this therapy after secret trials.
Time to tell the FDA times up. Let’s roll!