The people who trashed HCQ for political reasons should be prosecuted. Let's review. Trump was speaking at one of the daily COVID press briefings and he mentioned that HCQ showed promise. Fauci, I will not call him doctor, steps in and contradicts Trump saying there were no clinical studies to prove that statement is true. That was true. There were not clinical studies, but there were studies and a number of doctors around the world treating patients with some success. It was, in fact, promising. Clinical studies were initiated shortly after but then there was a report in The Lancet, a respected medical journal, that HCQ cause heart problems. That report caused Fauci to cancel the clinical studies, and several countries to ban HCQ for the treatment of COVID, including the US. Anyone who read the Lancet study knew immediately there was something wrong with the conclusions in the study. HCQ had been prescribed to patients for 50 years with no indication of frequent heart issues or any other side effects. Literally billions of people had taken HCQ previously. Something was obviously wrong with the Lancet study. And within a few weeks, sure enough, The Lancet had to retract the article because the authors made up the data they used to draw their conclusions. But by then, HCQ was banned and further studies canceled.
There is no doubt in my mind, had Trump not mentioned HCQ it would not have been banned and further studies would have continued. At that same press conference, Fauci pumped Remdesivir, which had only an 11% efficacy and some horrible side effects.
It turns out now that HCQ was in fact effective in preventing COVID if given with Zinc early on in the infection cycle. How many lives could have been saved? And the people against HCQ were motivated only by politics.