An online platform by Oracle is going to collect data and deliver it to coronavirus task force health experts to determine the efficacy of experimental drug treatments promoted by President Donald Trump, according to sources.
Malaria drugs chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine have not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration to tread COVID-19, but their use in trials will be recorded and shared with the White House before potential approval, five senior Trump administration officials told The New York Times.
Trump has faced criticism and even some caution by National Institute of Health's Dr. Anthony Fauci by calling the treatments a potential "game-changer," but the president has moved the U.S. to acquire and administer front-line testing of late.
The online portal will give officials immediate ability to track the symptoms and trials in order to streamline potential governmental actions amid the global coronavirus pandemic.
Oracle co-founder Lawrence J. Ellison is a Trump supporter and the project has been endorsed by Dr. David B. Agus of University of Southern California, senior officials told the Times.
The cooperative effort is designed to deliver real-time science and data so the administration can deliver expedited guidance and potential U.S. healthcare system policy.
Reports of the drug's use by China and France have been promising, per the report.
"I think there's a major misconception in this country that getting good evidence means red tape," Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health's Dr. Joshua M. Sharfstein told the Times. "Getting good evidence is knowing the difference between something that works and something that doesn't."
An Arizona man died and his wife was critical after ingesting chloroquine phosphate, a substance used to clean fish tanks, according to Banner Health.
"Trump kept saying it was basically pretty much a cure," the woman who self-administered it, told the Times.
But Banner Poison and Drug Information Center Dr. Daniel Brooks told the Times, "It's incredibly dangerous and foolish for people to be doing this."
"This is not going to be a magic pill for us to get us through this," he added.
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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