Why Didn't Dr. Birx and Acting Under Secretary Bryan Speak Up Loudly Against Bleach Injections and UV Light Treatments?

Coronavirus Task Force Briefing

Some of the technical and medical personnel in President Donald Trump’s coronavirus task force suffer from George W. Ball Syndrome. George W. Ball was Under Secretary of State under President Lyndon Johnson during the Vietnam War. In public, Ball strongly supported the war; in fact, he gave some of the most persuasive, well-argued speeches showing why the United States fought against the communists in Vietnam. In his heart, however, Ball opposed the war. In meetings with President Johnson and his advisors, Ball wanted the United States to scale back and withdraw from the conflict. He believed, wrongly, that if he loyally represented the administration's viewpoint, Johnson would value his loyalty and listen more attentively to what he said during their private meetings. Years later, and many years too late to stop the spilling of blood, he wrote a book explaining what he truly believed.

With that sad story in mind, let’s take one last look at Trump’s bizarre Coronavirus Task Force briefing of April 23, 2020. In this briefing, President Trump asked – at length – whether it would be a good idea to inject coronavirus patients with disinfectants and to shine powerful lights into their bodies. Acting Under Secretary William Bryan, who gave the technical part of the briefing, had talked about using powerful lights, bleach and isopropyl alcohol to kill viruses on various surfaces. This resulted in the following exchange, which I quote in its entirety:

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. So I asked Bill a question that probably some of you are thinking of, if you’re totally into that world, which I find to be very interesting. So, supposing we hit the body with a tremendous — whether it’s ultraviolet or just very powerful light — and I think you said that that hasn’t been checked, but you’re going to test it. And then I said, supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way, and I think you said you’re going to test that too. It sounds interesting.

ACTING UNDER SECRETARY BRYAN: We’ll get to the right folks who could.

Now, dear reader, you and I alike understand that we cannot kill viruses by shining massive quantities of ultraviolet light into and through the patient’s body. So why didn’t Bryan say so? Why did he instead say, “We’ll get to the right folks who could?” Why did he not instead gently say, “Sorry, Mr. President, it’s neither practical nor safe to shine light or UV radiation of that intensity into a person body?” The obvious answer is that he didn’t want to call the president out, embarrass him, or insult him in front of his audience. But by speaking so meekly, Bryan let the president off the hook, and, instead, allowed the more gullible members of the public, of whom there are many, to believe that the president had given some degree of authority to a dangerous and ineffective treatment.

Later, a reporter initiated an exchange with Dr. Deborah Birx, a medical expert on the panel:

THE PRESIDENT: Here we go. The new — the new headline is: “Trump Asks People to go Outside. That’s Dangerous.” Here we go. Same old group. You ready? I hope people enjoy the sun. And if it has an impact, that’s great. I’m just hearing this — not really for the first time. I mean, there’s been a rumor that — you know, a very nice rumor — that you go outside in the sun, or you have heat and it does have an effect on other viruses.

But now we get it from one of the great laboratories of the world. I have to say, it covers a lot more territory than just this. This is — this is probably an easy thing, relatively speaking, for you.

I would like you to speak to the medical doctors to see if there’s any way that you can apply light and heat to cure. You know — but if you could. And maybe you can, maybe you can’t. Again, I say, maybe you can, maybe you can’t. I’m not a doctor. But I’m like a person that has a good you know what.

Q But, sir, you’re the President.

THE PRESIDENT: Deborah, have you ever heard of that? The heat and the light, relative to certain viruses, yes, but relative to this virus?

DR. BIRX: Not as a treatment. I mean, certainly fever —

THE PRESIDENT: Yeah.

DR. BIRX: — is a good thing. When you have a fever, it helps your body respond. But not as — I’ve not seen heat or (inaudible).

THE PRESIDENT: I think it’s a great thing to look at. I mean, you know. Okay?

Then, as Trump realized that Dr. Birx would not support his idea, he quickly deflected and changed the subject.

Birx made faces as Trump spoke, but her verbal response was timid: “When you have a fever, it helps your body respond. But not as — I’ve not seen heat or . . . ” What I wondered about at the time is this: given how ridiculous and dangerous the President’s suggestions were, why didn’t Dr. Birx forcefully intercede to say, “no, Mr. President, that’s a hazardous idea and people shouldn’t do it,” or, at least, make a tactful statement like, “No, Mr. President, we don’t think that there is a need to investigate that.”

This all sounds like a failure of rhetoric and persuasion. It is, however, really a failure of group communication. Specialists in group psychology and group communication have long known that a group with an authoritarian leader who suppresses open discussion and disagreement tends to produce unwise and even dangerous decisions. That is very much what went wrong in the Vietnam War, when President Johnson systematically expelled any advisors who questioned his judgment. Ball’s sycophantic willingness to support President Johnson’s policies did not, contrary to his hope, give him any influence on Johnson’s policies. It just made him look weak and gave Johnson more opportunities to push him around.

I’m sure that Birx and Bryan hope that they can influence the President behind the scenes as long as they do not offend him in public. It seems they are wrong, since Trump is no longer bringing them to the briefings. Interestingly, I cannot recall hearing them say a word against injecting disinfectants (see my earlier posts, links below).

Effective leaders, which President Trump is not, need to welcome and even seek out diverse opinions so they can make the best decisions. When group members like Bryan and Birx and anyone else encounter inflexible, authoritarian leaders, they gain little by caving in. Instead, they risk their reputations – as George W. Ball lost his – and, once they are co-opted, any remaining influence they have goes to waste. Instead, they should remember that they serve the public, not their leader, and speak out no matter what the consequences might be. A weakness of the human species is that few people have the courage to do so.

Speakers Need Research: Donald Trump Suggested Injecting Disinfectants to Cure the Coronavirus

Teenagers Know to Keep Their Stories Straight, but Donald Trump Does Not: The Sad Case of the Injecting Disinfectants Briefing

Research note:

Social psychologists, communication researchers, and specialists in organizations and business have written many good books and articles about effective leadership and communication. Of all the areas of social science, group leadership has probably produced the most definite and useful findings. Yet, many of those findings – the importance of collaboration, the harmful effects of authoritarian leadership, the need for open discussion, and the benefits of constructive, well-managed, issues-oriented engagement, contradict many people’s cultural ideas and preconceptions.

I’ll suggest a book by psychologists S. Alexander Haslam, Stephen D. Reicher, and Michael J. Platow, The New Psychology of Leadership. Irving Janis’ classic book Groupthink is outdated and some of his theory has been discredited, but his suggestions for running a business or government group deserve every leader’s attention. The Fundamentals of Small Group Communication, by Scott Myers and my friend Carolyn Anderson, covers the basics thoroughly and accurately. It may seem a little off-topic, but Why Nations Go to War by political scientist John G. Stoessinger is quite an eye-opener. Stoessinger analyzes the group decision making processes that world leaders have used before unwisely starting wars. If you think that world leaders know what they’re doing, Stoessinger will cure you of that wrong belief. You will be much wiser, but will probably never sleep quite as well, after you read his book, and he plays a tattoo on George W. Ball.

On a more positive note, my wife, psychologist Elaine Clanton Harpine, believes that group prevention is more important than cure, and you might want to read her book Group-Centered Prevention in Mental Health.

Many large libraries and bookstores will have these books available. 

Many years ago, I wrote a paper about George W. Ball’s two-faced approach to the Vietnam War. I made what I thought was a major theoretical contribution, but I never convinced anyone to publish it. Still, it’s one of my favorites. You are welcome to read it at this link if you wish.

Teenagers Know to Keep Their Stories Straight, but President Trump Does Not: The Sad Case of the Injecting Disinfectants Briefing

Coronavirus Task Force Briefing

The President of the United States should know how to keep his story straight. After all, any self-respecting teenager knows that, if Mom catches you, you had better tell a consistent story:

MOM: Your curfew was at eight o’clock, so why are you walking in the door at ten? 
PAT: Well, Mom, I told you that I was going to Chris’s house to work on our science project. 
MOM: Try again. I called Chris’s mom, and you weren’t there. [Spoken in full Mom Voice.]
PAT: Oh, that’s right, I went for a walk in the park, and the stars were so pretty that I lost track of time. 
MOM: You lost track of time looking at stars outdoors in a thunderstorm? [Mom’s patented Sarcastic Voice.] And yet you walked in the door a few minutes later, perfectly dry? Try again. 
PAT: Mom, I’m hurt that you don’t trust me. [Sobs insincerely.]

Obviously unprepared for the Coronavirus Task Force Briefing last Thursday, President Donald Trump asked a series of questions about the wisdom of injecting disinfectants into coronavirus patients and shining ultraviolet light inside their bodies. Noticing that Trump’s suggestions were dangerous and irresponsible, his critics have been jumping all over him. Never one to admit that he was wrong, President Trump, joined by his conservative enablers, has offered various excuses, none of them consistent with the others, and none of them consistent with what happened.

In the Pat-Mom dialogue above, Pat’s mother taught an important lesson. That lesson is simple: if you tell transparent lies, you’re going to get caught, and you will get caught faster if your lies contradict one another. President Trump needs to learn the same lesson. Also, just like Mom, the voters can figure out the truth faster than you think.

Trump Asked About Injecting Disinfectants
As I discussed in my last post, President Trump asked, among other bizarre things:

“And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a minute. One minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning. Because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs. So it would be interesting to check that. So, that, you’re going to have to use medical doctors with. But it sounds — it sounds interesting to me.”

Bleach and disinfectant manufacturers responded quickly, for example, the manufacturer of Lysol said this: “We must be clear that under no circumstance should our disinfectant products be administered into the human body (through injection, ingestion or any other route).”

Donald Trump Could Learn Something about Good Public Speaking from Public Relations People: Truth and the Coronavirus

Basic public relations technique would require President Trump to immediately retract his statement and warn people not to ingest or inject disinfectants into themselves. The story would have been over in a day. Instead, we heard a bizarre series of implausible, inconsistent stories. Let’s look at them.

Story #1: The White House Said Trump Was Quoted Out of Context
White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said this:

“President Trump has repeatedly said that Americans should consult with medical doctors regarding coronavirus treatment, a point that he emphasized again during yesterdays' briefing statement. Leave it to the media to irresponsibly take President Trump out of context and run with negative headlines.”

Similarly, Charlie Kirk, leader of the conservative group Turning Point USA, tweeted that:

“It’s ridiculous:
“The mainstream media is more upset about an out of context comment about disinfectant than they are about Joe Biden’s sexual assault story
“That tells you everything you need to know about the dishonest press
“They hate Trump more than they love America”

My post yesterday quoted the entire exchange just to make sure that my readers could see Trump’s context. He did not simply make an offhand comment; he talked about disinfectant and light injections at some length. Still, if he wanted to claim he was being quoted out of context, he should have stuck with that story. Instead, his story quickly changed:

Story #2: Trump Said He Was Being Sarcastic
On Friday, the day after his disastrous press briefing, Trump said that he didn’t mean that people should ask for disinfectant injections; he was just being sarcastic to provoke reporters:

“I was asking a question sarcastically to reporters just like you, just to see what would happen. I was asking a sarcastic and a very sarcastic question to the reporters in the room about disinfectant on the inside. But it does kill it and it would kill it on the hands, and it would make things much better.”

Trump’s tone of voice, facial expressions, and phrasings did not strike me as sarcastic at all. When I’m sarcastic (a temptation I try to avoid), I usually put a sneer on my face and in my voice. Furthermore, he addressed the question to Acting Under Secretary William Bryan, not a reporter. The Annenberg School’s website FactCheck.org also sounds doubtful: “There’s no clear indication in his remarks that Trump was joking, either in his initial comment or when he returned to the topic later in the briefing. But we’ll leave it for readers to judge.”

Still, Story #2 is a shift from Story #1. It’s one thing for Trump to say that he was taken out of context. But, if he was quoted inaccurately, how can he then say that he meant what he said, albeit jokingly? It is remotely conceivable that he was being sarcastic, but this is not the same as Story #1. Just like teenage Pat in my story, Trump is not keeping his story straight.

In the YouTube era, anyone with a computer can watch the relevant clip from the White House press briefing and decide for themselves whether Trump sounded sarcastic. Feel free to post a comment saying what you think.

I think that it would be ethically wrong for the President to bait reporters by deliberately giving inaccurate information in a press briefing during a national emergency.

Story #3: Trump Was Musing Out Loud
Dr. Deborah Birx, a member of the Coronavirus Task Force who is a physician with a distinguished research record, spoke on television Sunday – three days after the disastrous press briefing – to explain that Trump was merely engaged in a “dialogue” with the other task force members: “I think I’ve made it clear that this was a musing, as you described.” She also complained that the press was spending too much time on the story.

Now, maybe Trump was “musing” and engaged in “dialogue” with the other task force members. However, a press briefing is not a college dorm session and is not the right time to discuss controversial or dangerous ideas that no one has fully vetted. Any “musing” or “dialogue” needed to happen before they invited the press. Maryland’s Governor Larry Hogan, a Republican, said it best: “I think it is critical that the President of the United States -- when people are really scared and in the middle of this worldwide pandemic – that in these press conferences, that we really get the facts out there.”

In any case, even if Trump was just “musing,” Story #3 contradicts Stories #1 and #2. If he was merely musing, that means that he was quoted in context and the only mistake listeners made was to take him seriously. If he was being sarcastic, he was neither musing nor engaged in dialogue.

Speech research in the new media era

The Truth Is Always Consistent
Like our teenage friend Pat, Trump and his friends didn’t keep their story straight. The facts contradict all three of Trump’s stories. Worse, Trump’s stories contradict one another.

Of course, in the long run, liars never keep their story straight, do they?

My previous blog post argued that President Trump was unprepared for the briefing. That is why speakers need research. This post shows that, instead of admitting that Trump said something foolish and dangerous, Trump supporters and Trump himself have twisted themselves into knots trying to defend him. Unfortunately, they didn’t coordinate their stories.

Before I leave this regrettable press briefing behind, I will have one more point to make: the other task force members failed to correct Trump forcefully. The taxpayers, not the president, pay these people’s salaries, and their first loyalty needs to be to the people of the United States of America, not to him. Keep a lookout for my next post.


P.S.: New York television news reports that “New York City's Poison Control Center for exposure to certain household chemicals more than doubled after President Donald Trump suggested injecting disinfectant might be one way to combat COVID-19, the city said Saturday.” Maybe the President should be careful about speaking carelessly, musing or making sarcastic comments. Maybe he should do his homework before, and not after, he talks to reporters in public.

Image: White House Flickr

Speakers Need Research: Donald Trump Suggested Injecting Disinfectants to Cure the Coronavirus

Coronavirus Task Force, White House photo

Last Thursday, President Donald Trump asked during a Coronavirus Task Force press briefing in the White House whether scientists might look into injecting disinfectants or shining ultraviolet light into coronavirus patients to cure this terrible disease. This stunningly stupid idea created enormous controversy, although probably not as much as it should have, with interesting rhetorical effects:

1. President Trump was obviously unprepared for the briefing, showing once again that speakers need research.

2. Trump and his enablers in the conservative media have subsequently been going overboard trying to reconcile his ridiculous speculation with some kind of rational belief system. But they failed to coordinate their stories. 

3.The other task force members played dumb, showing, once again that people need to speak the truth to power.

This post looks at #1: speakers need research. I plan to write about #2 and #3 over the next few days.

What Trump Said
Let’s start with what Trump said. He made his comments immediately after a report from William Bryan, Acting Under Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, and not in answer to a reporter’s question. Bryan discussed various disinfectant solutions and made the mistake of saying, “you inject summer — the sunlight into that. You inject UV rays into that.”  That should have been harmless enough, except that, by saying “inject,” Bryan apparently gave Trump an idea. Oops.

I’ll quote Trump’s entire section to make sure that the context is clear (since, as we’ll see in a later post, the White House claims that he was taken out of context):

“THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Bill.

“Q Mr. Bryan —

“THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. So I asked Bill a question that probably some of you are thinking of, if you’re totally into that world, which I find to be very interesting. So, supposing we hit the body with a tremendous — whether it’s ultraviolet or just very powerful light — and I think you said that that hasn’t been checked, but you’re going to test it. And then I said, supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way, and I think you said you’re going to test that too. It sounds interesting.

“ACTING UNDER SECRETARY BRYAN: We’ll get to the right folks who could.

THE PRESIDENT: Right. And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a minute. One minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning. Because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs. So it would be interesting to check that. So, that, you’re going to have to use medical doctors with. But it sounds — it sounds interesting to me.

“So we’ll see. But the whole concept of the light, the way it kills it in one minute, that’s — that’s pretty powerful.”

This was not an offhand comment; Trump suggested his bizarre medical solutions at length.

Later in the briefing, a reporter (finally) asked Bryan about Trump’s statement. Trump then backtracked:

“Q But I — just, can I ask about — the President mentioned the idea of cleaners, like bleach and isopropyl alcohol you mentioned. There’s no scenario that that could be injected into a person, is there? I mean —

“ACTING UNDER SECRETARY BRYAN: No, I’m here to talk about the findings that we had in the study. We won’t do that within that lab and our lab. So —

“THE PRESIDENT: It wouldn’t be through injection. We’re talking about through almost a cleaning, sterilization of an area. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn’t work. But it certainly has a big effect if it’s on a stationary object.”

Speakers Need Research: The Continuing Case of Donald Trump?

Speakers Need Research, and President Trump Gathered a Little Bit of Research About the Coronavirus

Trump Got His Facts Wrong
Pretty much any mother in America could warn you that it’s a bad idea to take disinfectant internally. Responsible people quickly jumped Trump’s ridiculous ideas. CNN’s Chief Medical Correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, said that injecting disinfectants had “absolutely no merit.” The Clorox Company, which manufactures bleach, quickly issued a warning on its website carefully distinguishing between consuming disinfectants as opposed to using them to clean surfaces:

“Bleach and other disinfectants are not suitable for consumption or injection under any circumstances. People should always read the label for proper usage instructions. Disinfecting surfaces with bleach and other disinfecting products is one of the ways to help stop the spread of COVID-19, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.”

The manufacturer of Lysol promptly issued a statement warning against taking their product internally:

“Due to recent speculation and social media activity, RB (the makers of Lysol and Dettol) has been asked whether internal administration of disinfectants may be appropriate for investigation or use as a treatment for coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2). As a global leader in health and hygiene products, we must be clear that under no circumstance should our disinfectant products be administered into the human body (through injection, ingestion or any other route). As with all products, our disinfectant and hygiene products should only be used as intended and in line with usage guidelines. Please read the label and safety information.”

The ultimate humiliation, at least to Republicans, might be an article from Al Jazeera, the Arab news agency, quoting a number of medical authorities to explain how dangerous Trump’s suggestion was.

Trump Needed Research
Now, let’s talk about why we need research. On the one hand, President Trump can pick up a phone and in a few minutes talk to people either in or out of government who know more about just about any subject than anyone else in the world. He could, on the other hand, look up information about disinfectants on his infamous cell phone. If he had done so, Trump might have encountered this passage in which, two days before his disastrous press conference, WebMD warned that the coronavirus pandemic had resulted in increasing cases of poisoning when people, especially children, consumed disinfectants:

“‘Exposures to cleaners and disinfectants reported to NPDS [the National Poison Data System] increased substantially in early March 2020,’ noted a team led by Dr. Arthur Chang, a researcher at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.”

An argument walking around in the dark corners of conservative talk says that only an idiot would have taken Trump seriously. This is so. Nevertheless, what does that stay about the uninformed president who asked an idiotic question founded on appalling ignorance? I hope to talk about that in an upcoming post.

The President of the United States has great prestige simply because of his office. Incredibly, despite his long record of getting things wrong (PolitiFact.com has rated hundreds of Trump statements, finding 21% to be Mostly False, 34% to be False, and 14% to be Pants on Fire) millions of Americans hang on President Trump’s every word. He has a responsibility to get things right.

The idea of a press briefing is to convey factual information to the public during an international crisis. The people who present such briefings have a basic obligation to get things right. For the president to spew dangerous nonsense, recognizing that millions of Americans are foolish enough to believe the things he says, overthrows the briefing’s purpose. Fortunately, there are no signs that Trump’s supporters are mainlining bleach. At least, not yet.

Although it is surprising that he didn’t understand that people should not inject disinfectants, Trump could easily have checked the facts before he opened his mouth. It’s okay if the president doesn’t know everything off the top of his head. It’s not okay if he fails to gather simple, easily available information before he briefs the American public about a national emergency.

Mike Lee Tries to Make Fun of the Green New Deal but Only Makes Fun of Himself (P.S.: Speakers Need Research)

I first became interested in communication and rhetoric because of my participation in my high school and college debate teams. In academic settings, the debaters with the best research win the debates. Unfortunately, however, we need to remind politicians to check their facts before they speak.

Stay tuned for future posts about this bizarre press briefing, when I will write about Trump's advisors and the desperate responses on conservative media.

Update: Increased calls about disinfectant consumption after Trump's briefing?

AOC Turned the Tables on Republicans in Less Than a Minute During the Coronavirus Relief Bill Debate

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

During today’s debate in the House of Representatives about a coronavirus relief package, Democratic firebrand Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez gave a 30-second speech attacking the Republican position. Sometimes good things happen under time restraints. Well, she actually spoke for almost 50 seconds, but who’s counting? Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had accused Democrats of lacking urgency in passing the bill. Ocasio-Cortez turned McConnell’s attack on its head.

Ocasio-Cortez began by establishing her ethos: “On behalf of my constituents in the Bronx and Queens, New York’s 14^th Congressional District, the most impacted district in America.” Her thesis brought home the  coronavirus pandemic's human cost: “calling people, losing their families every day." She then quickly (what choice did she have? In only 30 seconds?) absolutely denied that the Republicans felt any urgency: “It is a joke when Republicans say that they have urgency around this bill. The only folks that they have urgency around are folks like Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse and Shake Shack.” That referred to the seeming glitch that allowed large chain restaurants to get a disproportionate share of the last "small business" bailout. “Those,” she insisted, “are the people getting assistance in this bill.”

Ocasio-Cortez insisted that, “you are not trying fix this bill for moms and pops.” Focusing instead on what she saw as a key issue, which was to fund hospitals and public health, she concluded: “And yet to fight to fund hospitals, fighting to fund testing, that is what we’re fighting for in this bill.” She stated that the Republican position was “unconscionable.” She said that if they wanted to treat the pandemic as urgent, “they should legislate like rent was due on May 1.” That powerful metaphor struck hard because rent relief is one of the Democrats’ priorities during the pandemic shutdown.

Ocasio-Cortez’ delivery might have been over-the-top for a congressional speech: she spoke rapidly and became louder and faster as her brief talk went on, waving her arms wildly. Still, I can’t blame her. Trying to rise above piles of controversy, bizarre conspiracy theories, and federal government lethargy, she instinctively recognized that no one would hear an ordinary speech. Her style must have worked: her brief appearance in Congress today became a featured clip on C-SPAN and it’s all over social media. Her short talk made the news. Ocasio-Cortez found a way to rise above the din. Her 30-second (50-second?) talk is probably the only thing people will remember from today’s congressional debate.

Lessons to learn? Every good debater knows how effective it is to turn the tables on your opponent, that is, to turn your opponents’ own argument against them. Republican leaders had insisted that the bill was urgent. But how urgent could it be to them, Ocasio-Cortez asked, if they were helping big business without adequately funding hospitals and public health testing? We see that energetic speakers get noticed. We see how a speaker can establish her standing with a couple of razor-sharp sentences right at the outset. We see that a short, well-prepared but extemporaneous speech can accomplish more than a long, tedious, rambling exposition. The biggest lesson that Ocasio-Cortez taught us is how important it is for a speaker to hit straight to an issue’s heart.

Typically making no effort to deal with Ocasio-Cortez’ arguments, conservative response on social media seems to rely on personal attacks like “@AOC is a puppet. No brains, all party” and “Where did she go to school ? I want to make sure, I don’t send my kids there !!!! They vote, I’m sure more people want to go back than not ! @aoc wins today’s Duntz Cap !!!” I assume that the writer meant “Dunce Cap.”  When you reduce your opponents to illiterate ad hominem arguments, you know that you’re making progress. 

Urgency indeed...

P.S. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez graduated with honors from my brother’s alma mater, Boston University, with a double major in economics and international relations. And, it is, in fact a prestigious, rigorous, church-related university. It reflects poorly on our nation that successful women need to face so much abuse in the political arena.

Query: Conservatives love to call Ocasio-Cortez, who obviously has one of the sharpest intellects in Congress, an idiot or a lunatic. And yet the Republican President of the United States just suggested  that we might cure the coronavirus by shining ultraviolet light inside people and injecting patients with chemical disinfectants. So who is the idiot or lunatic here?

Trump Uses Medical Quackery to Divert Attention from the Real Issues

Coronavirus Task Force, whitehouse.gov

In 1868, Pennsylvania’s Samuel L. Carter began to market a product called Carter’s Little Liver Pills. At various times, he claimed that his pills were good for increasing the flow of bile, curing headaches, treating “torpid liver,” and relieving “furred tongue,” among other real and imaginary ailments.  An apocryphal story claims that someone once asked Carter what his pills were good for, and he responded cynically by saying, “$100,000 a year” or some such claim. The pills are still on the market, although the FDA insisted that the word “liver” needed to be removed. 

Okay, well, in 1868, modern scientific medicine lingered in its infancy. But what excuse do we have today?

President Donald Trump, who surely passed a science course along the way to his bachelor’s degree from an Ivy League university, has been promoting a quick, unproven cure for the coronavirus, the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine. He may even believe in it. Rhetorically, however, hydroxychloroquine helps Trump create yet another diversion from – and maybe a good excuse about – his anemic response to the coronavirus pandemic. 

So, here is what Trump said during his opening speech at one of the many Coronavirus Task Force briefings that he held in March 2020:

“Now, a drug called chloroquine — and some people would add to it ‘hydroxy.’  Hydroxychloroquine. So chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine. Now, this is a common malaria drug. It is also a drug used for strong arthritis. If somebody has pretty serious arthritis, also uses this in a somewhat different form. But it is known as a malaria drug, and it’s been around for a long time and it’s very powerful. But the nice part is, it’s been around for a long time, so we know that if it — if things don’t go as planned, it’s not going to kill anybody.”

His odd comment that “some people would add to it ‘hydroxy’” convinces me that he knew very little about the drug’s pharmacology or chemistry.  (Hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine are chemically related but they’re not the same.) He was, I promise you, not finished. He also said:

“So, Regeneron, again, and — is some — is a company that’s done fantastically well, as I understand, with Ebola and some other things.  Great company.  And they’re looking at some very promising events also.  So you have remdesivir and you have chloroquine and hydro- — hydroxychloroquine.  So those are two that are out now, essentially approved for prescribed use.”

Now, first, President Trump was advocating an unproven cure for coronavirus. Second, Trump assured the American public that the drug was safe: “if things don’t go as planned, it’s not going to kill anybody.”

Both claims are dubious. Andrew Noymer, who is professor of public health at the University of California, Irvine, said that a study that Trump cited was "meaningless" because it lacked scientific controls. The CIA has quietly advised its personnel against using hydroxychloroquine for coronavirus: “At this point, the drug is not recommended to be used by patients except by medical professionals prescribing it as part of ongoing investigational studies. There are potentially significant side effects, including sudden cardiac death, associated with hydroxychloroquine and its individual use in patients need to be carefully selected and monitored by a health care professional.”

Public reactions have been predictable. Mr. Trump’s supporters are thrilled. Attorney General William Barr complained that the press was engaged in a “jihad” against hydroxychloroquine. Fox News’ Sean Hannity predictably touted hydroxychloroquine on his television show. My social media pages overflow with presumably responsible people praising hydroxychloroquine as a coronavirus cure and complaining bitterly that the mainstream press is unfair to the drug because they hate President Trump. The National Review, which is the closest that we have to a responsible conservative news outlet, complained earlier this month about the “Left’s Ugly Reaction to Hydroxychloroquine.”  This may be part and parcel of what Nobel Prize economist Paul Krugman notes is a long-standing relationship between America’s right wing and medical quackery. (For example, Alex Jones has hawked a nanosilver toothpaste to cure coronavirus while one of evangelist Jim Bakker's guests promoted a silver solution.)

Okay. I am a (retired) academic person, and so, when something like this happens, I want to ask – why? Why would the president of the United States devote so much energy to something so apparently silly? The answer? I think that Trump is advocating hydroxychloroquine, not just as a desperate attempt to give his supporters hope, but also to mitigate the criticisms against him. The hydroxychloroquine dustup diverts attention from Trump’s coronavirus failures.

Coronavirus-19, CDC image

Trump’s critics say that he was slow in responding to the coronavirus, that his administration has mishandled coronavirus testing and the provision of medical supplies, and that he has routinely made false promises that he was never able to keep. All that makes Trump look weak. It makes them look ineffective. He could get away with all of it, however, if hydroxychloroquine makes the coronavirus disappear like magic. And that is pretty much what Trump said later in the same press conference:

“THE PRESIDENT:  And I have to say, if chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine works — or any of the other things that they’re looking at that are not quite as far out — but if they work, your numbers are going to come down very rapidly.  So we’ll see what happens.  But there’s a real chance that they might — they might work.”

So, first, even if programs like testing, social isolation, ventilators, and economic stimulus programs failed to control the coronavirus pandemic, Trump will still look okay if an easy, inexpensive cure pops up and coronavirus fizzles away like magic: if “your numbers are going to come down very rapidly,” as he said. A quick, easy coronavirus cure would give him a Get Out of Jail Free card right out of a Monopoly game.

Second, while the Trump administration has had problems providing adequate testing and medical supplies to our hospitals, it’s much simpler to manufacture and obtain large quantities of hydroxychloroquine. And so, in a later Coronavirus Task Force briefing just a few days ago, Trump listed all of the things that he was doing, or pretended he was doing, to alleviate the coronavirus threat:

“On the medical front, the FDA — FDA has issued 47 emergency use authorizations for advancements and testing new ventilator designs, innovations, and personal protective equipment, and experimental medicines.  And Dr. Hahn is going to be talking about that.  We’ve cut through the red tape to give doctors and patients unprecedented freedom to make their own healthcare decisions, granting access to potential therapies and drugs. Since Monday, we’ve deployed two major shipments of hydroxychloroquine from our National Stockpile.  And it’s going to various cities.” [italics added]

Most of that was quite vague. New ventilator designs? When will they be available? What experimental medicines? When will personal protective equipment become available? How much benefit will we get from cutting “through the red tape?” (On a side note, Republicans have for decades complained that government red tape is our country’s main problem, so anything that cuts red tape surely appeals to Trump’s core voters.)

The one specific thing that Trump said in that passage is that the government had obtained “two major shipments of hydroxychloroquine” and was sending them “to various cities.” So, hydroxychloroquine gave Trump a simple, specific accomplishment that he could list to make himself look less inept. Maybe he was slow to confront the coronavirus. Maybe the government failed to establish a testing program. Maybe there are not enough ventilators. He can ignore all of that if a common, ordinary drug will solve the problem lickety-split.

Was Trump finished with hydroxychloroquine in March? No way! As recently as Monday, April 13, Trump said at yet another press conference:

“Furthermore, over the last seven days, my administration has deployed roughly 28 million doses of hydroxychloroquine from our National Stockpile.  We have millions of doses that we bought and many people are using it all over the country.  And just recently, a friend of mine told me he got better because of the use of that — that drug.  So, who knows?  And you combine it with Z-Pak, you combine it with Zinc — depending on your doctor’s recommendation.  And it’s having some very good results, I’ll tell you.”

So, here we have the president of the United States hawking the modern-day equivalent of Carter’s Little Liver Pills. And, while he was unable to provide real help for coronavirus patients, he was able to boast about distributing 28 million doses of an unproven medication. An April 14, 2020 White House fact sheet reiterated the same point: “28 million tablets of Hydroxychloroquine have been shipped across the country from the Strategic National Stockpile.”

So far, scientifically, Trump’s foray into pharmacology has not gone well. The scientific journal that published the first positive study about hydroxychloroquine has since cautioned that the study does not meet its usual standards. The publisher issued a statement that they believe "the article does not meet the Society’s expected standard, especially relating to the lack of better explanations of the inclusion criteria and the triage of patients to ensure patient safety”.

A clinical trial of the drug in Brazil was discontinued because of dangerous side effects. (It turns out, contrary to Trump’s promise, that this drug can be dangerous.) A study that started with 150 patients in China was discontinued because hydroxychloroquine failed to show enough benefits to justify continuing the experiment. The CDC quietly dropped its dosage instructions for the drug, now merely saying: “There are no drugs or other therapeutics approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to prevent or treat COVID-19.” 

All the same, if Trump's supporters want to believe that hydroxychloroquine is a miracle cure that fails only because Deep State stands in the way, they have all the excuse they need to defend Trump's indefensible public-health actions.

Mostly, however, it looks as if Trump is promoting hydroxychloroquine as a diversion.While the public gets riled up about hydroxychloroquine, we might overlook worse things that he's doing. In the unlikely event that it worked, hydroxychloroquine would get Trump out of trouble. But it didn’t. This is not the first time that Trump has tried, with the skill of a stage magician, to divert attention away from his own failures. It will not be the last. Magicians often fool people into thinking they're seeing something real. So does Trump.


Elsewhere on my blog:  

Trump Uses Creative Confusion As a Persuasive Tactic 

Trump Creates a Magical Illusion That He Is Giving Proof


P.S. Trump and his supporters have other diversions up their sleeves and behind their magical hidden panels. I hope to write something about them in the future.