Trump spars with Fauci, reporter on unproven drug

(20 Mar 2020) In an extraordinary exchange, President Donald Trump and the government’s top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, publicly contradicted each other Friday on whether a malaria drug would work to treat people with coronavirus disease. The scene played out on national television during the daily White House briefing on the outbreak. A reporter asked both men if a malaria drug called hydroxychloroquine could be used to prevent COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, as Trump had suggested a day earlier when Fauci wasn’t with him at that briefing. Although there has been much back and forth about that drug in recent days, there is no medicine specifically approved for treating COVID-19.   Fauci took the question and got right to the point. “No,“ he said. “The answer ... is no.“ “The information that you’re referring to specifically is anecdotal,“ Fauci added firmly. “It was not done in a controlled clinical trial, so you really can’t make any definitive statement about it.“ He wen