Mayo Clinic COVID-19 Research Task Force chair Dr. Andrew Badley told Fox Business on Tuesday that he supports the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s decision to revoke the emergency use authorization for malaria drug hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for the coronavirus.
"The process by which hydroxychloroquine was evaluated was appropriate and thorough, he said, adding that “there’s been a large number of studies now… [and] it appears to have no effect in controlled clinical trials.”
The FDA said there was no evidence that hydroxychloroquine may be effective in treating Covid-19.
When asked about the side effects for those who are taking hydroxychloroquine, Badley said they “can be serious and/or life-threatening … but they tend to manifest relatively early, and so if you have not had that already, you are unlikely to."
Badley also stressed he is very much in favor or wearing a mask, as it is effective in reducing transmissions.
The risk of wearing a mask is almost negligible, he said, “but its potential benefits are huge, so the risk/benefit ratio for mask wearing is very big.”
Concerning a vaccine, Badley said “There’s at least a hundred different vaccine platforms that are out there and are being evaluated. Many of them are in Phase 1, which are designed to show safety and tolerability. They will move to efficacy testing early fall and those studies will take a period of many months to show that it can or cannot reduce infection.”
Brian Freeman ✉
Brian Freeman, a Newsmax writer based in Israel, has more than three decades writing and editing about culture and politics for newspapers, online and television.
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