Pascrell Supports Withdrawn FDA Emergency Use Authorization of Unproven COVID Drugs

PATERSON, NJ – U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell, Jr. today praised a decision by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) withdrawing its emergency use authorization of the two controversial and unproven treatments hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine for use against COVID-19 infections.

“This is the right decision and well overdue,” said Rep. Pascrell, a vocal critic of broader politicization of medical approvals by the Trump government. “The FDA should not ever be greenlighting unproven or possibly dangerous treatments due to political pressure. We should be guided by science and data in making life-and-death medicine approvals. I have twice called for federal investigations into the Trump administration’s political meddling in drug approvals and continue to seek them. Trump’s promotion of these unproven and possibly dangerous drugs may have killed people and given them false hope for a miracle cure. There are no miracle cures. There is only science.”

On April 8, Rep. Pascrell and U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) wrote to the commissioner of the FDA regarding the FDA’s emergency use authorization of hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine as well as the approval for a clinical trial of a stem cell therapy for the treatment of COVID-19.

On April 27, Pascrell and Menendez wrote to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General calling for an investigation of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to determine if the FDA’s decision-making process has been compromised by political pressure to promote unproven therapies to treat COVID-19. Their letter came days after days after Dr. Rick Bright, a leading expert on vaccines and the Director of the U.S. Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, was abruptly dismissed after allegations he actively resisted pressure from the Trump administration.

Recently, in the first large controlled clinical trial of hydroxychloroquine done by researchers from the University of Minnesota and Canada, the drug did not prevent Covid-19 in a rigorous study of 821 people who had been exposed to patients infected with the virus.

###