Sen. Ron Johnson Ronald (Ron) Harold JohnsonThe Hill's Morning Report - Sponsored by The Air Line Pilots Association - White House moves closer to Pelosi on virus relief bill Second GOP senator to quarantine after exposure to coronavirus GOP-led panel to hear from former official who said Burisma was not a factor in US policy MORE (R-Wis.) is sending President Trump Donald John TrumpObama calls on Senate not to fill Ginsburg's vacancy until after election Planned Parenthood: 'The fate of our rights' depends on Ginsburg replacement Progressive group to spend M in ad campaign on Supreme Court vacancy MORE a letter from hundreds of physicians urging him to ease restrictions on malaria medication that has grabbed headlines, despite scant evidence, as a potential treatment for the coronavirus.

Johnson said he decided to start gathering signatures for his letter over concerns that absent guidance from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), doctors and hospitals "were reluctant to try" hydroxychloroquine.

"Patients deserve the Right to Try hydroxychloroquine. ... It's time to end the logjam of 30 million tablets of Hydroxychloroquine," Johnson said in a pair of tweets on Friday.

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Johnson, according to his office, began circulating the letter about 10 p.m. Thursday. As of noon Friday, 776 practicing physicians had agreed to sign it. He's also launched a form on his website to gather more signatures, arguing that there's an "urgent opportunity to inform President Trump about the need to free physicians to use available medications such as Hydroxychloroquine."

"Physicians taking care of patients in our communities across the country must be free to use the medicines at hand free of politicians and bureaucrats’ second-guessing and threats. It is unprecedented — and lethal — for state governors and medical boards to forbid physicians’ freedom to prescribe long-approved and safely used medications," the letter reads.

The letter asks for Trump to issue a presidential directive to lift an FDA restriction that says hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine taken from the Strategic National Stockpile can only be approved "for certain hospitalized patients," and to direct the FDA to include the drugs as an option for outpatient medication.

Johnson and the physicians also want Trump to issue an executive order to ban governors from limiting hydroxychloroquine to hospitalized patients and to block medical and pharmacy boards from threatening disciplinary action against doctors and pharmacists who use the two drugs for patients infected with or exposed to the coronavirus.

Hydroxychloroquine is used to treat malaria, lupus and rheumatoid conditions such as arthritis. Its effectiveness at treating COVID-19 has not been proven, though the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced on Thursday that it had begun enrolling participants in a clinical trial to test the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine in treating COVID-19.

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Trump has publicly touted the drug as a potential treatment for the coronavirus, despite a more measured reception from top health officials within the administration.

"What do you have to lose?" Trump said on Sunday. "I’m not looking at it one way or another. But we want to get out of this. If it does work, it would be a shame if we didn’t do it early."

Anthony Fauci Anthony FauciOvernight Health Care: CDC reverses controversial testing guidance | Billions more could be needed for vaccine distribution | Study examines danger of in-flight COVID-19 transmission Trump claims enough COVID-19 vaccines will be ready for every American by April Gates says travel ban made COVID-19 worse in US MORE, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, warned last week that there currently isn't any "strong" evidence that hydroxychloroquine has proven effective.

“We don’t operate on how you feel, we operate on what evidence and data is,” Fauci said.