Attorney Scott Pilutik wrestles with the news of the day, from a lawyerly perspective…
I don’t think a conspiracy is necessary to explain why Trump is pushing Hydroxychloroquine so hard, though he’s certainly not above manipulating the stock market, and there should be some investigation undertaken to determine whether and at what times he owned Novartis stock.
Because if he’s long on Novartis stock and Hydroxychloroquine doesn’t work, he’s not going to make money unless he’s got advanced warning of Hydroxychloroquine’s non-efficacy, and there’s risk of a huge dump being found out. He’s attempted to manipulate the stock market prior to becoming president and he’s clearly done it while president, sending the stocks of various companies rollercoasting with a tweet.
But the primary goal here is a second term, and the timelines he’s hearing from Fauci and others are a danger to achieving that. A reliable vaccine will not be ready until well after November of this year, period. Hydroxychloroquine is the Hail Mary that obviates the vaccine route, in his mind, and saves his reelection chances.
In a matter of a few months the US went from being the country deemed best prepared to deal with a pandemic to the country that’s bungled it the worst (thus far), and that’s squarely on Trump. He knows this. That’s why he’s pushing Hydroxychloroquine so hard — because he’s desperate for a magic bullet answer, having disastrously squandered American prestige and being boxed in for options.
Realistically, Hydroxychloroquine is a last resort and not an alternative to a vaccine — it’s not a prophylactic, it needs to be carefully administered. It also has risks and some harsh side effects according to people who take it for Lupus and other conditions it treats. Even the anecdotal studies that tout its success suggest positive effects don’t show for days.
It’s also already being prescribed by doctors, for weeks, since there’s no restriction on their doing so, and patients are demanding it. Although these aren’t clinical trials, if doctors were seeing significant success with it, at least by the magical standards Trump needs it to meet, you’d think there’d be some evidence by now, perhaps in tapering mortality rates.
This is also important: he’s risking the lives of lupus patients who rely on the drug and will now have to fight to get it.
