NY Times Deceptively Reports That Trump Has ‘Financial Interest’ in Hydroxychloroquine
The Times’ report is another example of how the MSM seems to be rooting against the use of hydroxychloroquine as a Wuhan Coronavirus treatment because Orange Man Bad.
For a couple of weeks now, President Trump has been touting the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine as a possible treatment for the Wuhan Coronavirus during White House press briefings.
It’s a drug that has shown promise in places like France, which conducted two studies and concluded that the drug, in combination with other treatments, dramatically improved the conditions of almost all patients in the studies.
It’s seen some success here in America, too, so much so that NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo has requested the Trump administration increase New York’s supply of hydroxychloroquine to treat Wuhan Coronavirus patients in his state, which has become the epicenter for the virus in the United States.
But in spite of various reports about success stories involving the use of hydroxychloroquine, including from a Michigan Democratic state representative who credits the drug and Trump’s touting of it for saving her life, the national media have been hell-bent on downplaying the possibility of its use as a successful treatment to combat the virus.
The latest example of this comes via a supposed bombshell article from the New York Times, which reports that Trump has a “financial interest” in the brand-name version of hydroxychloroquine.
In the editorial piece that masqueraded as objective reporting, the paper described Trump as a “salesman turned president” who was “determined to talk about the anti-malaria medicine that he has aggressively promoted lately as a treatment for the coronavirus”:
President Trump made a rare appearance in the Situation Room on Sunday as his pandemic task force was meeting, determined to talk about the anti-malaria medicine that he has aggressively promoted lately as a treatment for the coronavirus.
[…]
Day after day, the salesman turned president has encouraged coronavirus patients to try hydroxychloroquine with all of the enthusiasm of a real estate developer. The passing reference he makes to the possible dangers is usually overwhelmed by the full-throated endorsement. “What do you have to lose?” he asked five times on Sunday.
There’s a reason Trump is so heavily promoting the drug, the paper insinuates without outright saying. Not because he wants to the American people to have hope that they and their loved ones may be able to be helped by this drug, but because he and some of his alleged business associates allegedly stand to profit off of it (bolded emphasis added):
If hydroxychloroquine becomes an accepted treatment, several pharmaceutical companies stand to profit, including shareholders and senior executives with connections to the president. Mr. Trump himself has a small personal financial interest in Sanofi, the French drugmaker that makes Plaquenil, the brand-name version of hydroxychloroquine.
[…]
Some associates of Mr. Trump’s have financial interests in the issue. Sanofi’s largest shareholders include Fisher Asset Management, the investment company run by Ken Fisher, a major donor to Republicans, including Mr. Trump. A spokesman for Mr. Fisher declined to comment.
Not surprisingly, Morning Joe co-hosts Joe Scarbourough and Mika Brzezinski, who alleged Monday there must be a “financial tie” behind Trump’s push, rushed to condemn the report during a segment they did Tuesday morning with Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson, who was also outraged by the news:
Joe Scarborough (@JoeNBC) and @Eugene_Robinson suggest Trump’s promoting hydroxychloroquine to either make money, or to help his friends make money. pic.twitter.com/aKgqlJ5UFL
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) April 7, 2020
Predictably, the NYT’s Ken Vogel also worked hard to sensationalize the report:
NEW: If hydroxychloroquine becomes an accepted coronavirus treatment, several companies stand to profit, some with shareholders & execs connected to TRUMP.
Trump himself has a small interest in @Sanofi, which makes a brand-name hydroxychloroquine version. https://t.co/yMXoqixx95
— Kenneth P. Vogel (@kenvogel) April 7, 2020
The problem with the national media/left-wing outrage machine’s fauxfended reactions to the Peter Baker/Maggie Haberman scoop is that their reporting conveniently left a few things out:
What Scarborough didn’t mention is that Trump’s stake in Sanofi is valued at something between $99-1,500, and that Plaquenil has constituted a negligible share of Sanofi’s profits.
The report is so overblown that even noted Trump critic George Conway is downplaying it:
Yep. And can’t imagine Sanofi could make that much on a drug that’s not patented. https://t.co/6EYEnQdveC
— George Conway (@gtconway3d) April 7, 2020
Professor Jacobson also took a bulldozer to the Times’ hit piece, noting it “is complete derangement to claim this constitutes a financial interest” and linking to the 2019 Dodge & Cox Stock Fund annual report to show how small a holding Sanofi actually is:
He owns a mutual fund which in turn owns dozens or hundreds of stocks and that is one of them. Along with thousands of other shareholders in the mutual fund. This is why no one trusts the media. It is complete derangement to claim this constitutes a financial interest. https://t.co/ag8J28yyof
— Legal Insurrection (@LegInsurrection) April 7, 2020
Such a garbage take by @nytimes. Here’s page from Dodge & Cox Stock Fund most recent annual report, have to dig deep to find Sanofi holding highlighted by NYT, and it’s a small percentage of total fund. pic.twitter.com/fzTQZxxi4W
— Legal Insurrection (@LegInsurrection) April 7, 2020
Regarding the Ken Fisher angle, Fisher Investments has released a statement demanding the paper correct what they say is the Times’ “false report regarding the firm and its founder, Ken Fisher”:
Sanofi is neither a material holding of Fisher Investments nor of Ken Fisher personally. The company represents less than 0.8% of Fisher Investments’ portfolio, and the firm’s ownership is less than 0.7% of Sanofi. Neither the firm nor Ken Fisher have ever promoted the drug described in the New York Times article in any way or discussed it with anyone.
Furthermore, Ken Fisher is not an “associate” of President Trump, as falsely reported by the New York Times, nor is Fisher Investments a mutual fund company. Ken Fisher has donated to both Democrats and Republicans in the past.
The only conclusion to draw from this is that the paper’s report is another example on a long list of them on how the MSM actually seems to be rooting against the use of hydroxychloroquine as a promising treatment for suffering Wuhan Coronavirus patients because Orange Man Bad, so much so that they’re willing to deceive their readers as to the nature of Trump’s supposed “financial interest” in it.
The words “despicable” and “utterly shameful” come to mind here.
— Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via Twitter. —
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Comments
These Socialists only instigate and investigate. They are willing to sacrifice millions just to hurt Trump. True depravity.
Seriously, we have to start SHUTTING THEM DOWN AND OUT literally.
Mass class action, and then individual lawsuits are a start, but what else is possible?
shutting anyone down is not the way to go.
THE way to go is economically and ‘social distancing’. In other words, BOYCOTT anyone involved with them:
1-hollywood products, ESPECIALLY Netflix
2-democrat media products
3-democrat educational institution
4-advertisers who advertise in and support democrat media outlets
5-anyone supporting democrat candidates (Lyft, for example; grubhub; wall street products; etc.
6- STARVE the GOP: only give to individual candidates or their PACs (give to anyone in Trump’s family, Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton, Jim Jordan, etc.)
7- SHUN democrat media whores: STOP talking about them!!!!!
1-PATRONIZE nondemocrat media outlets, and alternatives to hollywood (old movies on DVD);
2-read old books you can buy on ebay before history is rewritten
3-GIVE MONEY TO PEOPLE DOING YOUR POLITICAL HEAVY LIFTING, LIKE THIS BLOG AND OTHERS.
That will SHUT THEM down.
They are all TV (OTA and Cable)as well as
Print (both newspapers and magazines)
seeing their ADVERTISING PAYMENTS Dry Up Completely right now!
I’m all in w that.
Why ‘depravity’, anymore than the rooting for Tony Suprano?
This is gangsterism, designed to create fascist loot the government.
Where the hell else would omar, cortez, tlaib, pelosi, obama or half of the MORONS currently in congress get jobs in the private sector??
Depravity is in the eye of the beholder, isn’t it? Remember: the swamp/left/islamic axis is in control of our educational system.
Damn, where is beohner when you need him?… /sarc
Hear Hear.
THERE IS NO MONEY TO BE MADE, YOU SKULLS FULL OF MUSH.
Even if Trump had a million dollars invested in Sanofi, and Plaquinil were one of its main products, I can’t see how this would have been a problem unless he had promoted that brand in particular. This is like saying that if he has shares in a car company, any car company, or even in a company that makes car components, he shouldn’t say anything promoting driving!
“The words “despicable” and “utterly shameful” come to mind here.”
I’ve got some more words for you: suit for slander and defamation.
The NYT could use some reality therapy
“The NYT could use some reality therapy…”
Remember: the ny times has been supporting the most virulent, genocidal communists since the 30s. Since the THIRTIES!
Stalin’s Apologist: Walter Duranty: The New York Times’s Man in Moscow:
https://www.amazon.com/Stalins-Apologist-Walter-Duranty-Timess/dp/0195057007
It’s the other way around: WE need A LOT of reality therapy to understand the sinister goals of the likes of the ny times.
Anyone who has an international fund has likewise, including the NYT pension plan.
So what? A rich American businessman has fingers in several lucrative pies by way of investments large or small. I am more positively impressed that Trump apparently thinks he earns enough on his investments, savings, and other business income that he doesn’t need his official salary.
All his investments are in Blind Trusts…..
Half the country is has a blind trust with the democrat media.
Don’t use the medications, lefties. Don’t let Trump profit off of you.
The D in Democrat Party stands for DEATH.
And Douche bags …
Once more the MSM presents an opportunity to be curb stomped by the facts.
Assuming for arguments sake that the various makers of hydroxy chloroquine are evil profiteers then;
1. That would be all the various companies not this single maker. Since this drug is past patent by a long, long time there will be multiple makers.
2. We must not forget that PDJT also recommend Z-pack, an antibiotic, be taken in concert. Likewise, this drug is made by multiple companies. So they are equally complicit.
3. Many, if not most, of the companies are publicly traded, so likely the institutional investor ownership share is huge. So every pension fund and ETF and mutual fund needs to be scrutinised. The individual investors of those funds, just as PDJT, clearly must be named and shamed as well.
Obviously, none of that will happen, because the MSM knows that they themselves will be exposed as somehow having a direct or indirect ownership stake.
The opportunity here is for a conservative outfit to perform the research that the MSM won’t and track back the ownership from mutual funds/ETF etc to their individual holders; the members of the MSM, d party officials, union officials etc. Then hound them at every public event until they cry uncle.
Now some of these folks will say they didn’t know they owned it, it’s a $20 Billion mutual fund for goodness sake. Ok fair enough, now demand that they sell it and donate the funds to charity hospitals. No more mercy, no more let it go, no more collegial atmosphere or gentleman’s agreements; the new rules are if you raise an outrageously stupid issue then expect that it will be shoved where the sun don’t shine against you. Violently, repeatedly and in an enduring manner until we grow bored. All metaphorical of course, not literally.
And yet all the crud with Joe Biden’s son and brother using their family political connections to make millions of dollars is of zero interest. And what about those book deals for Hillary Clinton – she was paid millions for books that ended up on the clearance table.
The best thing you can say about the NYT in connection with these allegations is that they are lying to their readers. If that’s not what’s happening, they are so abysmally incompetent that they are not fit to tote guts to a bear. Even if they are lying, by the way, they are lying incompetently. These reporters and editors are truly stupid, pointless, sub-optimal human beings.
These Dhimmi-crat zealots are utterly vile, and, insane. Totally crazy with Trump-hatred. And, happy to see the country burn in flames, with the economy eviscerated and people’s lives destroyed, so long as Trump isn’t re-elected.
That’s manifest fanaticism, exemplified.
Also, good point on the Dodge & Cox holdings sheet (from the Annual Report, I imagine), Professor.
This is an “actively-managed” fund — the fund’s managers are making decisions about the fund’s investments, not Trump. It’s totally different from one’s making a direct investment in Sanofi.
As usual, the Dhimmi-crat fanatics are attempting to create a scandal, where there isn’t one.
I mean, good point, Ms. Matthews! 🙂
I am going look up Dodge & Cox for my own investments. Good enough for Trump is good enough for me.
“Yep. And can’t imagine Sanofi could make that much on a drug that’s not patented.”
New use can be patented, it costs a great deal of money to get the drug approved for routines use, so a patent is warranted, and profits are earned.
No way a drug that’s already out of patent can be re-patented for another use; the medicine is full of chemicals that are used for an indication that’s totally different from its original, like Aspirin as blood anti-aggregant, anticonvulsants as mood stabilizers and many, many others. The testing for an off-label use is NOT performed in the farm’s labs, but in (generally public or univeritary) hospitals, and does not cost a dime to the producer.
The media makes it so easy to not trust or like them
Another propaganda lie from Pravda on the Hudson, one of the anchors of the Marxist State Media. The other anchor is Izvestia on the Potomac.
Victoe Favis Hanson with a great article yesterday, just part of it
Another irony: While the current media is the logical culmination of the liberal biases of the more polite leftwing domination of network and print media of the late twentieth century, it is now also far more vulnerable to exposure and ridicule. After all, it was progressive Silicon Valley’s creation of the Internet website and social media that have allowed truth to emerge past even media filters, truth that has largely exposed the media as incompetent, meanspirited, and increasingly irrelevant.
http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2020/04/victor-davis-hanson-coronavirus-backlash.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DougRossJournal+%28Doug+Ross+%40+Journal%29
The claim that Trump owns any of Sanofi is false. Ownership means having some legal rights over the alleged property. Trump has none. He owns a small amount of a large mutual fund, which could buy or sell any one of the many stocks it holds, including Sanofi, on no notice to or involvement by Trump.
On the hill dot com those lunatics are pushing the msm talking points of the medicine probably going to kill grandma.
I like to rile them up a bit. Wondering if I can become the one who gets blocked by 100% of the lunatics.
Dr. Oz was just on and has somehow gotten the leading US Lupus doctor’s patient data run (or something like this) to see if any of the 14,000 taking Hydroxychloroquine or Chloroquine (the standard of care) have gotten Covid-19. The answer is none. So now they are apparently trying through CMS to tabulate a large population with Lupus to see if this pattern continues. (About 1.5M in USA with it.) This could show effectiveness as a prophylactic – Dr. Oz’s stated interest. That Lupus doctor also says the risks of taking HCQ for the time period indicated for Covid are nil.
The cleverness of this boggles the mind. The statistical proof of the value of this as a prophylactic might be sitting right in front of our noses. Lupus is a chronic, lifelong disease. CMS could just search all patients with a Lupus diagnosis – perhaps hundreds of thousands in their records – for also a Covid one. For example, at 0.125% of the US population infected now, 400k Lupus patients would be 500 expected Covid patients. If the number with Covid is zero or trivial, anyone working with Covid patients should be on a prescription for the time being.
Now THIS should be a headline, not the typical lies of the Fascist Gazette called the NY Times:
“NY Times tells the truth!”
That’s “Man Bites Dog” stuff. Never gonna happen.
The treatment is so cheap that there is only tiny profits in the drug. Now if it was viagra billions could be made.
Wouldn’t it be nice if we took back the HOuse in Nov and then passed a law that any publication that knowingly publishes fake news can be fined and or the writer imprisoned. We have reached a point that the msm will print/air anything they want without any sort of research or investigation as to its veracity. This should be a criminal offense and we know the Dems will NEVER bring up let alone pass such a law. We must take back the House!
Fantasise all you want. They’re constitutionally unassailable. Lawsuits are the way to get these lyin’ creeps.
President Trump would make more money just by keeping a month of his salary that he gives away.
All references to that rag should be the Scumberger Times, Similarly for its near cousin the Washington Compost.
Gee, I wonder if any of the NYT staff have any connections with companies which manufacture face masks and ventilators?
Gee, I wonder if the NYT pension funds are invested in any of the companies who make masks & ventilators?
I couldn’t find the NYT funds, but the pension for the State of New York has $340-million invested in Abbot Labs. $655-million in Pfitzer, $659-million in Proctor & Gamble. I wonder if that’s why Gov. Cuomo is so adamant about masks and more masks? The NYT ought to look into that….
https://www.osc.state.ny.us/retire/word_and_pdf_documents/publications/cafr/asset_listings_19.pdf
The BOLSHEVIK diaspora must be destroyed.
The stateless want to destroy all nations.
Former securities analyst and portfolio manager here. Saw the NYT article yesterday, and because it was in my wheelhouse I jumped in. The first thing to say is the most obvious: the ownership of any of these stocks wasn’t direct but through mutual funds. That alone makes everything else irrelevant, although just for the hell of it I say a few things.
There are three major manufacturers of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine that I know of: Bayer, the company that originally synthesized the drugs in the 1930s and ’40s; Teva; and Novartis. Each of them DONATED the drug, with Novartis being the largest donor according to my reading.
HCQ goes for 80 cents/dose, while chloroquine goes for 15 to 20 cents. Those are retail prices, not the manufacturer’s wholesale prices. Novartis’s donation of 25 million doses is worth $20 million at retail; the revenue hit from the donation was $0.0086 per share. Given that the drugs have long since been off patent and the companies sell wholesale, you’d have to divide that by at least 15 to get the profit implications: $0.00057 per share.
Remember, that’s a NEGATIVE number. Immaterial, yet negative. Let’s imagine that HCQ + Zithro works (which I think it does) and that its success inspires doctors to write 20-dose prescriptions for 100 million Americans. Not that this will happen, but just as a thought experiment.
Factor in wholesale vs. retail and the lack of patent protection, and the profit contribution would be $100 million split at least three ways. At best, and vastly overestimated, it’d be worth $0.014 per share to Novartis, which earned $5.06 per share in 2019.
The NYT, by virtue of being where they are, has a business staff that knows all of this. They are laughable, stupid, and increasingly desperate to have run that story.
They seem to think because they never heard of it that it must be a new drug not an off patent generic and whose treatment cost is less than you pay for a tank of gas.
There is so little profit in producing this drug it seems more like they are doing it as a public service and might write it off on their taxes.
The reporters from the Times probably have mutual funds that have invested in drug companies that make competing products. Therefore these reporters have a vested interest in those products and should state this in their articles.
The reporters from the Times probably have mutual funds that have invested in drug companies that make competing products. Therefore these reporters have a vested interest in those products and should state this in their articles.