A drug infamously touted by Donald Trump has been linked to nearly 17,000 Covid deaths in a new scientific study.
Researchers say that the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine was prescribed to patients during the first wave of Covid-19 “despite the absence of evidence documenting its clinical benefits.”
The French study estimated that 16,990 patients in the US, France, Belgium, Italy, Spain and Turkey may have died as a result of the drug.
The study has been published in the February issue of Biomedicine & Pharmacotherapy.
Researchers say the data used comes from a study published in the Nature scientific journal, which reported that there was an 11 per cent increase in mortality rate linked to the drug’s prescription.
There’s a big difference between the kind of causality where you cause someone to leave their house 5 minutes later than they would have, ultimately resulting in a fatal car crash that wouldn’t have happened otherwise, and people dying because they did something you encouraged them to do
Yes, in hindsight, I don’t think “responsible” was the right word.