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:
Predictably, the NYT’s Ken Vogel also worked hard to sensationalize the report:
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:
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:
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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