We have to hope that the malaria drugs chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine really are miracle cures for COVID-19, in spite of the questionable and anecdotal evidence to that effect thus far. Because if they aren’t, the federal government diverted crucial time and resources from other potential efforts because President Donald Trump saw Fox News constantly touting the drugs as potential game changers in the fight against the novel coronavirus.

Trump effectively turned this weekend’s coronavirus press briefings into infomercials for the merits of hydroxychloroquine. He repeatedly recommended the drug as a COVID-19 treatment, telling reporters that he saw “very strong, powerful signs” of its potential and even saying he might take it himself, even though he has repeatedly tested negative for the virus.

Over the past few weeks, the president has defied his public health advisers by serving as a pitchman for the anti-malarial drugs, talking up their use as COVID-19 cures in briefings, interviews, and on Twitter. By contrast, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said during a Sunday morning interview that there is no definitive evidence pointing to the medicine’s use in treating the virus. When a reporter tried to ask Fauci about the drug during that evening’s press briefing, Trump prevented him from answering.

Fauci is correct. The Federal Drug Administration authorized the off-label use of hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine as a COVID-19 treatment after Trump started talking them up last month, and some academic medical centers have adopted the drugs’ use. But evidence that they actually work is anecdotal, with small studies from France and China producing contradictory results and no full-scale clinical trials completed to date, and the drugs have a host of known but nonetheless potentially dangerous side effects. Moreover, according to Dr. Scott Gottlieb, a former commissioner of the FDA, hydroxychloroquine has been widely used to treat the virus in the U.S. and around the world since the pandemic’s outset, suggesting that any impact it might have is “subtle.” At the same time, some patients who rely on hydroxychloroquine to treat other diseases, like lupus, have been unable to fill their prescriptions.

The president, as he noted on Sunday, is not a doctor. He learned about the purported promise of the anti-malarial drugs in fighting COVID-19 from his television. Trump appears to be obsessed with the medicines because he values the reckless speculation of his favorite cable news network over the advice of Fauci and other public health experts. And no matter what the result may be on any individual case, it is dangerous for the federal policymaking process to turn on what the president hears from Fox.

Fox has been fixated on chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine since shortly after the network’s much-discussed “pivot” on the virus last month. Much of the network’s coverage in the early weeks of the pandemic centered on downplaying the virus’s risks, which convinced Fox viewers the virus was nothing to fear. Those viewers including Trump, who scoffed at the virus in his public statements and dragged his feet on a federal response. It took an intervention from Fox host Tucker Carlson, through his television show, and in person, to get Trump to take the virus somewhat more seriously -- which in turn led to a change in tone elsewhere at the network.

But almost as soon as they changed their tone to acknowledge that coronavirus was a real problem, not a “hoax” by Democrats and the media, Fox personalities began floating quick fixes to solve it.

That included heavy promotion of purported COVID-19 treatments, with coverage of hydroxychloroquine’s supposed benefits dating back as early as March 12.