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A conservative “dark money” group that received funding from the pharmaceutical industry’s largest trade organization pushed President Donald Trump to use unproven antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19 and make it more widely available.

Last month, the conservative nonprofit group Job Creators Network collaborated with health care nonprofit Physicians for Reform to launch an online petition, a series of Facebook ads and a mass text message campaign urging Trump to make hydroxychloroquine available to treat patients battling COVID-19, Sludge reported. These groups do not disclose their sources of funding.

“There is clear and ever-mounting evidence that the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine can significantly help patients who contract coronavirus,” the petition read.

One of Trump’s most influential supporters, Home Depot co-founder Bernard Marcus, founded the Job Creators Network in 2011. Marcus gave $7 million to outside groups supporting Trump’s 2016 presidential run. He also gave $100,000 to the pro-Trump super PAC America First Action in 2018 to further support Trump’s second presidential bid and plans to spend even more to support Trump’s reelection.

Physicians for Reform often works with conservative advocacy group Freedomworks to influence the deregulation of health care policies.

Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America gave millions in grants to conservative groups in 2018 that pushed industry-friendly policies to Trump, according to tax returns analyzed by OpenSecrets. The industry’s top lobbying group gave FreedomWorks $100,000 in 2018. It also gave $500,000 to the Job Creators Network in 2017.

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PhRMA represents the most powerful drug companies in the country such as Bayer, Novartis and Teva. These companies, along with Mylan, have pledged to donate 200 million hydroxychloroquine tablets for clinical testing, according to Job Creators Network’s petition. These pharmaceuticals stand to profit the most if the drug is officially used to treat COVID-19.

Sandoz, a division of Novartis, donated 30 million doses of hydroxychloroquine sulfate to the Department of Health and Human Services. Bayer also donated one million doses of medical grade chloroquine phosphate to the Strategic National Stockpile last month.

PhRMA spent a record $29.3 million on lobbying in 2019. It hired 183 lobbyists to influence policy on its behalf. More than 70 percent of its lobbyists formerly held a position in government.

Infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci argued that hydroxychloroquine is unproven to combat COVID-19 and claims that the drug is successful are based on anecdotal evidence, Axios reported. Despite limited evidence on the drugs’ effectiveness in COVID-19 treatment, Trump has repeatedly promoted the use of the drug in the White House’s coronavirus briefings. Some doctors prescribing hydroxychloroquine in combination with other medications are seeing positive results in patients’ health.

There is a shortage of hydroxychloroquine, which is currently approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat malaria, arthritis and lupus, a chronic autoimmune disease. The shortage is driven in part by doctors hoarding it and prescribing it to themselves, families and friends, ProPublica reported. Now, lupus patients are struggling to fill their prescriptions.

After Trump endorsed the drug for COVID-19 therapy, a couple in Arizona ingested chloroquine phosphate, which is not the medical form of chloroquine and is used as a parasite treatment for fish. The woman was hospitalized in critical care while her husband died, according to NBC News.



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