Seeing New Research, Pascrell Again Warns of Trump ‘Miracle’ Drug

Two weeks ago Pascrell and Menendez called on FDA to stop green-lighting unproven COVID-19 treatments because of White House pressure

PATERSON, NJ – U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell, Jr. (D-NJ-09) today reacted harshly to a report in the Associated Press about the results of a study done of COVID-19 patients at U.S. veterans hospitals that found that “[a] malaria drug widely touted by Donald Trump for treating coronavirus showed no benefit in a large analysis of its use in U.S. veterans hospitals” and that there were “more deaths among those given hydroxychloroquine versus standard care.”

“The report analyzing hydroxychloroquine as a potential COVID-19 treatment at our veterans hospitals is a bombshell indictment of the damage Trump and his administration does to Americans by putting politics before science,” said Rep. Pascrell. “The world class medicine and doctors we enjoy today are the fruit of generations of painstaking work by our ancestors. Evidence-based science is the only way out of this crisis, not unproven miracle therapies personally favored by Donald Trump. Trump’s frequent touting of this treatment was deeply irresponsible, and may have heaped unnecessary pain and suffering, not to mention false hope, upon Americans struck by this terrible illness. I have repeatedly warned the FDA about the danger of prizing Trump’s political pressure over scientific process. Unless we are guided by science and science alone, we will have more unnecessary deaths on our hands.”

On April 8, Rep. Pascrell and Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) wrote to Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Steven Hahn calling on the FDA to be guided by science and not politics or political interference in granting approvals for therapeutics to combat COVID-19.

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