Nevada Governor Prematurely Bans Use of Anti-Malaria Drugs as Coronavirus Treatment

Rather than wait for the medical community to see if there’s any legitimacy to using anti-malaria drugs (chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine) to fight the coronavirus, Nevada’s Democrat governor (who is not a member of the medical community) has decided to prematurely ban the use of the drugs before the verdict is out.

Why? To spite President Donald Trump, who has floated them as *potential* treatments that are being looked into. New York is now experimenting with hydroxychloroquine as a potential treatment, and India’s Council of Medical Research issued an advisory on Sunday calling for the use of the drug “under exceptional circumstances.”

Dr. Fauci himself was asked in a recent interview “If you’re a doctor listening to me right now and a patient with coronavirus feels like they want to try [chloroquine], and you’re their doctor, you’re not Anthony Fauci the guy running the coronavirus task force, would you say ‘alright, we’ll give it a whirl’?” Fauci replied “Yeah, of course, particularly if people have no other option. These drugs are approved drugs for other reasons. They’re anti-malaria drugs, and they’re drugs against certain autoimmune diseases like lupus. Physicians throughout the country can prescribe that in an off-label way. Which means they can write it for something it was not approved for.”

So these drugs could be promising – but Nevada’s governor apparently would rather not find out.

According to the New York Post:

Nevada’s governor on Tuesday banned the use of anti-malaria drugs chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine to treat coronavirus patients.

Gov. Sisolak’s executive order came after President Trump touted the medication as holding promise for combating the illness.

Sisolak said there was no consensus among experts or Nevada doctors that the drugs can treat people with COVID-19.

His order also limits a prescription of the medicines — which are also used to treat illnesses like lupus and arthritis — to a 30-day supply to ensure it’s available for “legitimate medical purposes” and so people don’t stockpile the drug.

Will chloroquine end up being the treatment President Trump hopes it is? We don’t know, and obviously have to wait for the medical community to make the determination that it’s not only an effective treatment, but one where the benefits outweigh any costs.

But what we do know is that if the drug does work as a viable treatment, anybody in Nevada that needs it will be out of luck. Trump Derangement Syndrome may actually cost lives.