Trump and Navar­ro press again for hy­drox­y­chloro­quine. Can the FDA stay in­de­pen­dent?

Tues­day morn­ing, econ­o­mist and Trump ad­vi­sor Pe­ter Navar­ro walked on­to the White House dri­ve­way and prompt­ly brought a po­lit­i­cal cloud back on­to the FDA.

Speak­ing to a White House pool re­porter, Navar­ro said that four De­troit doc­tors were, based on a sin­gle dis­put­ed study, fil­ing for the FDA to again is­sue an emer­gency au­tho­riza­tion for hy­drox­y­chloro­quine, the an­ti-malar­i­al pill that Pres­i­dent Trump hyped for months as a Covid-19 treat­ment over the ob­jec­tions of his own sci­en­tists. Then, while avoid­ing di­rect­ly call­ing for the FDA to OK the drug, blast­ed the agency. He said its de­ci­sion to pull an ear­li­er au­tho­riza­tion “was based on bad sci­ence” and “had a tremen­dous­ly neg­a­tive ef­fect” on doc­tors and pa­tients.

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