Vanity Fair has this scoop on team trump’s plan to push hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) and distribute millions of doses of it to hospitals and drug stores, after trump fell in love with HCQ as the magic cure for the Coronavirus. Like a bunch of cheap drug pushers, they wanted to use the power of the presidency and our tax dollars to push an unproven and dangerous drug to the population, with the hope that it would miraculously cure COVID-19 and save trump’s presidency.

x Emails obtained by V.F. show how Trump appointees pressured career health officials to deliver chloroquine drugs to almost anyone who wanted themÃ¢ÂÂeven as internal studies warned of the risks and unproven benefits of using the drug for COVID-19 https://t.co/lcnaBx8pdd Ã¢ÂÂ VANITY FAIR (@VanityFair) April 24, 2020

On April 4, trump from the White House podium hyped the magical powers of HCQ and proclaimed that “We have millions and millions of doses of it—29 million to be exact. We’re just hearing really positive stories, and we’re continuing to collect the data.” That evening, his political appointees ramped up the pressure on career health officials to start pushing HCQ to states.

Brett Giroir, the assistant secretary for health at HHS, sent an email with the subject line “Hydroxychloroquine” to a group including FEMA administrator Pete Gaynor, HHS assistant secretary for preparedness and response Robert Kadlec, and Navy Rear Admiral John Polowczyk, who leads a supply-chain task force at FEMA. The email read:

WH call. Really want to flood Ny and NJ with treatment courses. Hospitals have it. Sick out patients don’t. And can’t get. So go through distribution channels as we discussed. If we have 29 million perhaps send a few million ASAP? WH wants follow up in AM. We can get a lot more of this. Right Bob? Millions per week?

Some officials including Rick Bright, head of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), a small agency within HHS that partners with private scientific ventures to create vaccines, drugs, and diagnostics, pushed back against sending it to drug stores and wanted a more restrictive approach.

But,

Brett Giroir argued strongly against limiting the drugs to hospitals. “NOPE. Needs to go to pharmacies as well,” he wrote. “The EUA matters not. The drug is approved [and] therefore can be prescribed as per doctor’s orders That is a FINAL ANSWER.”

The article does not go into much detail about the chain of events that followed the initial set of emails or how successful the effort was.

The article points out that on April 21, the administration’s top coronavirus vaccine developer, Rick Bright, was fired. The next day Bright issued a statement, first reported by the New York Times, stating that he was fired for resisting efforts “to fund potentially dangerous drugs promoted by those with political connections.”

“Specifically, and contrary to misguided directives,” he said, “I limited the broad use of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, promoted by the administration as a panacea, but which clearly lack scientific merit.” On April 23, attorneys for Bright said they would file a formal whistleblower complaint on his behalf.

There is lot more detail in the VF article.

Other stories on HCQ

Here is some earlier reporting on the stockpiling of HCQ by HHS and FEMA -

x "Potentially serious issues w/ product so let's be careful when we take that win," @US_FDA chief of staff emailed colleagues. If "it is not toxic we will release it to" @PHEgov. 2/ Ã¢ÂÂ Katherine Eban (@KatherineEban) April 16, 2020

x Active ingredients came from Ipca plant in Indore, India that @US_FDA never inspected. Meanwhile, 3 inspected Ipca plants in India faced @US_FDA restrictions for manipulating quality data. 5/ Ã¢ÂÂ Katherine Eban (@KatherineEban) April 16, 2020

Apparently, FEMA sent out 19.1 million HCQ tablets, including to Pittsburgh, Milwaukee, Miami and Chicago.

x New: The Strategic National Stockpile has sent out 19.1m hydroxychloroquine tablets, a FEMA spox confirms. They're sending tablets to Pittsburgh, Miami, Milwaukee, NYC, Chicago, and other cities.

Story: https://t.co/gDiBD0qm6Q Ã¢ÂÂ Betsy Woodruff Swan (@woodruffbets) April 14, 2020

From wisn news — FEMA says HCQ tablets were shipped to Milwaukee to help in coronavirus treatment. But no one can say where the HCQ tablets are.

x FEMA says hydroxychloroquine tablets shipped to Milwaukee to help in Coronavirus treatment https://t.co/zYI6Kol4nq Ã¢ÂÂ WISN 12 NEWS (@WISN12News) April 24, 2020

Around end of March, HHS accepted 30 million doses of hydroxychloroquine sulfate donated by Sandoz, the Novartis generics and biosimilars division, and one million doses of Resochin (medical grade chloroquine phosphate) donated by Bayer Pharmaceuticals, www.hhs.gov/...

x FDA issues emergency use authorization for donated hydroxychloroquine sulfate, chloroquine phosphate



HHS accepts donations of medicine to Strategic National Stockpile as possible treatments for #COVID19 patientshttps://t.co/u7pXRLTeHo Ã¢ÂÂ Andy Biotech (@AndyBiotech) March 30, 2020

Epilogue

This is an out-of-control administration run by a corrupt cabal of people with no expertise or even the tiniest bit of common sense, gaslighting the nation for their own lust for power and their petty grievances against most of humanity. It’s alarming that more officials in HHS and the White House did not push back on this harebrained scheme.

In any case, let’s do all we can to prevent COVID-19 from spreading and let’s keep our focus on the November elections by making sure that the electorate hears about this and about all the other dereliction-of-duty schemes of this administration. Let’s keep reminding people that 10’s of thousands of lives have been lost to the dangerous and callous schemes of this administration. And there is no plan yet from this administration to stop the virus and to open up the economy. We need to inject some disinfectant into this White House and put people with competence and with the sense of public service back into our government.

P.S. Someone should keep an eye on HHS emails about miniature UV lights, disinfectants and syringes.