Dr. Fauci Hydroxychloroquine Statement Transcript: House Coronavirus Hearing July 31

Speaker 1: (00:00)
Dr. Fauci, one of the things… You made a comment a while ago with regards to hydroxychloroquine, and I have an article here that quotes the Henry Ford Health System, who did an extensive study on hydroxychloroquine, and they say that it significantly reduces the death rate of COVID patients. The study was highly analyzed by… And peer-reviewed unlike many other studies. And quoting the executive officer, who say, “As doctors and scientists, we look at the data for insight. And the data here is clear, there was a benefit to using the drug as a treatment for sick and hospitalized patients.”

Speaker 1: (00:36)
And in talking with a lot of older doctors who have been around a while, and I trust their judgment in their use of hydroxychloroquine, they say that the initial studies didn’t really use zinc with it. And they say that zinc is an enabler, to be able to help hydroxychloroquine actually do its job of going after and reducing deaths in patients. I had a long conversation with a doctor earlier in the week, and he said, “Yes, as long as zinc is there, it really definitely does work. Without it, it’s minimally effective.” Would you like to comment on that?

Dr. Fauci: (01:11)
Yeah. Thank you for that opportunity to comment. The Henry Ford Hospital study that was published, was a non-controlled, retrospective, cohort study. That was confounded by a number of issues, including the fact that many of the people who were receiving hydroxychloroquine were also receiving corticosteroids, which we know from another study, gives a clear benefit in reducing deaths with advanced disease. So, that study is a flawed study, and I think anyone who examines it carefully, is that it is not a randomized placebo-controlled trial. A statement-

Speaker 1: (01:51)
It’s still peer-reviewed.

Dr. Fauci: (01:51)
It doesn’t matter. You can peer-review something that’s a bad study. But, the fact is, it is not a randomized placebo-controlled trial. The point that I think is important, because we all want to keep an open mind, any and all of the randomized placebo-controlled trials, which is the gold standard of determining if something is effective, none of them had shown any efficacy by hydroxychloroquine. Having said that, I will state, when I do see a randomized placebo-controlled trial that looks at any aspect of hydroxychloroquine, either early study, middle study, or late, if that randomized placebo-controlled trial shows efficacy, I would be the first one to admit it and to promote it. But I have not seen yet a randomized placebo-controlled trial that’s done that. And in fact, every randomized placebo-controlled trial that has looked at it, has shown no efficacy. So, I just have to go with the data. I don’t have any horse in the game one way or the other, I just look at the data.

Speaker 1: (02:57)
Thank you very much [crosstalk 00:02:57].

Speaker 2: (02:57)
The gentleman’s time has expired.