Even without watching the live mid-day briefings (which we do watch), I’m amazed at how much disinformation makes it to the edited evening newscast. Trump’s got a good feeling about some drug that didn’t have production scaled up for a bunch of “wtf, it cannot get worse” off-label use. Or, hell, his seeming claim to have legalized off-label use because it’s the only way we’re going to address the current health crisis.
Before this outbreak, it infuriated me to tune into the evening news and hear “Trump said X” when X was verifiably untrue. Sure, ‘Trump said the untrue thing’ was accurate … but without clarifying the veracity of Trump’s statement … saying “Trump said X” comes across as “X” to a whole lot of people. Hasn’t changed just because it’s more dangerous to say “Trump says chloroquine / hydroxychloroquine is a game-changer and is totally safe”. If nothing else, were I writing copy, I’d delve a little into the difference between the two drugs. Hydroxy- is a less toxic derivative … which doesn’t at all sound like “totally safe, slam some and see if it works” to me.