The poll, which was conducted after Trump’s revelation last week, found that almost three-quarters of voters were aware of that news.
“President Trump’s disclosure of taking hydroxychloroquine made a splash, with news reaching a sizable majority of voters. Still, the renewed buzz around the antimalarial drug didn’t result in increased support for its use as a treatment for coronavirus,” said Tyler Sinclair, vice president of Morning Consult.
The president initially emerged as a champion of hydroxychloroquine early on in the pandemic, boosted by allies in conservative media. Then, last week, Trump said he’d made the decision to take the drug himself as a prophylactic — because, he claimed, “what do you have to lose?”
That dynamic could have contributed to the intense partisan split in the new survey.
Just 11 percent of Democrats and 2-in-10 independents said they supported the treatment. By contrast, 42 percent of Republicans said they support use of hydroxychloroquine, with about half saying they “strongly support” use of the drug for coronavirus patients.
The survey was also partially conducted after one of the largest observational studies of the drug to date found no evidence hydroxychloroquine treats coronavirus and was linked to increased rates of mortality and cardiac issues among hospitalized Covid-19 patients.
The findings mirror initial data from other observational studies, which have shown the drug has limited or no proven benefits for coronavirus patients, and may even be harmful when used in certain combinations. And on Monday, the World Health Organization hit pause on its use of the drug as part of a global study of potential coronavirus treatments while it reviews safety data.
Though the Food and Drug Administration authorized emergency use of hydroxychloroquine against the coronavirus in March (the drug has been approved for decades to treat malaria, lupus and rheumatoid arthritis) despite sparse evidence that it could work, it later warned against using the therapy outside clinical trials, citing potential “life threatening” heart problems.
Source: politico.com
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