‘What he is doing is outrageous’: Doctors slam Sen. Ron Johnson over hearing on COVID-19 treatments – Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Doctors are criticizinga hearing held this week by U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisconsin, about controversial treatments forCOVID-19, including hydroxychloroquine a drug that studies have found tobe ineffective and in some cases dangerous when treating the disease.

During the hearing, Johnson pushed a baseless theory that the medical community was working to deny patientsdrugs such as hydroxychloroquine because they were cheaper than other treatments.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration revoked the emergency use authorization for hydroxychloroquine in June because of its lack of effectiveness and cited its potential for serious cardiac adverse events and other potential serious side effects.

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Michael Carome,a former FDA advisory committee member, slammed Johnson over the hearing.

"Facts dont matter,"Caromesaid of the hearing's approach. "Evidence doesnt matter. It is just outrageous that they continue to cling to this notion that hydroxychloroquine can be effective."

Johnson, chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, also raised questions during the Thursday hearing about the response of federal agenciesto the coronavirus pandemic.

"I believe international, federal and state medical agencies and institutions have let us down," Johnson said. "I fear too many have been close-minded bureaucrats, potentially driven by conflicting interests and agendas."

The three witnesses Johnsoninvited to the hearing, which was titled, "Early Outpatient Treatment: An Essential Part of a COVID-19 Solution," have promoted the use of hydroxychloroquine and other controversial treatments for the virus.

The fourth witness, Ashish Jha, was invited by a Democratic senator.

Jha,a physician, health policy researcher and a deanof the Brown University School of Public Health,later tweeted, "Today was a very, very odd day."

He added that"the hearing was a testament to how politicized science has become."

"I shared evidence of studies that have failed to find benefit of HCQ," Jhatweeted. "Threeother witnesses shared personal experiences. And suggested my testimony was reckless because it would deny people access to lifesaving HCQ."

He added,"I found myself defending evidence, doctors, and scientists. There are key issues we need Congress to be airing right now. Hydroxychloroquine isn't one of them."

Rigorous, well-controlled studies have consistently shown that hydroxychloroquine is not effective in treating COVID-19. Some research suggests it actually may be dangerous when used to treat COVID-19 patients.

Since the start of the pandemic, the FDA has received more than 2,700 reports of serious adverse events involving COVID-19 patients being treated with hydroxychloroquine. In 462 of these cases, the patient ultimately died. The vast majority of the reports are from Spain, the U.S. and France.

Despite a lack of proof, President Donald Trump promoted the drug early on in the pandemic.He has alsoclaimed without evidence that hydroxychloroquines benefit was being suppressed to hurt him politically and that doctors are inflating the coronavirus death count for monetary gain.

Jerry Avorn, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, said hydroxychloroquine isn't being recommended for good reason; it is ineffective and potentially dangerous.

"The idea that scientists are discouraging the use of (hydroxychloroquine) because its cheap is about as crazy as the Presidents contention that the number of COVID-19 cases is being inflated because doctors make more money by doing so," Avorn said.

"We need to base policy on reality rather than on crazy conspiracy theories, whether its about the pandemic or elections," he said.

It was the first hearing Johnson's committee has held on the pandemic.

"What he is doing is outrageous," Carome said.

Carome, a physician and director of the health research group of Public Citizen, a patient advocacy and watchdog organization, said it was offensive to claim that the doctors are not using hydroxychloroquine because it is inexpensive.

He noted that doctors are using the inexpensive steroiddexamethasone, which is proved to reduce deaths in COVID-19 patients.

In March,Johnson accused the media of focusing too much on deaths linked to COVID-19, saying, "I'm sure the deaths are horrific, but the flip side of this is the vast majority of people who get coronavirus do survive."

Johnson, who tested positive for COVID-19 in October, argued last month that Wisconsin had "flattened the curve" during the pandemic, saying "generally deaths are still pretty flat because... we've gotten better at treating it."

Doctors have made strides in treating COVID-19 patients, but new cases, hospitalizations and deaths have spiked in Wisconsin as the state has faced one of the worst outbreaks in the country in recent months.

Another 78 Wisconsinites died Friday, bringing the state's COVID death toll to 2,954 lives lost.

Robert Freedland, a Wisconsin ophthalmologist and member of theCommittee to Protect Medicare, said he was extremely concernedby Johnson's hearing.

Freedland said Johnson and others should be promoting mask wearing and physical distancing rather than disinformation, and he criticized Johnson's past comments about the curve being flattened, saying, "I don't think he took the same geometry course I did."

A spokesman for Johnson did not respond to a request for an interview Friday.

The witnesses invited by Johnson to testify at Thursday's hearing were Peter McCullough, a cardiologist and Vice Chief of Medicine at Baylor University Medical Center; Harvey Risch, professor of epidemiology at Yale University; and George Fareed, a physician at Pioneers Medical Center.

During the hearing, they stressed what they called the need for early treatment of COVID-19, includinghydroxychloroquine.

Risch, for example, said "government research institutions have invested billions of dollars in expensive patent medication and vaccine development but almost nothing in early outpatient treatment."

Fareed said:"I have not seen a single negative cardiac event and few other side effects, despite what we hear in the media."

The comments of the three doctors were praised as "heroic testimony" by the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, a conservative medical group.

The group which is opposed to the Affordable Care Act and othergovernment involvement in health care,includingmandatory vaccination programs hassued the FDA, arguing in onecourt filing that "theDeep State has improperly interfered with access to HCQ for COVID-19."

Use of hydroxychloroquine peaked in late March, when the drug was granted emergency use authorization, with an estimated 73% ofhospitalized COVID-19 patients being treated with the drug, according to a study published this month on Epic Health Research Network.

The use of the drug then began to fall sharply as questions arose about its effectiveness and safety.

By June 15, when the emergency use authorization was revoked, an estimated 6% of patients were being treated with the drug, according to the study. Its use has since steadily declined and it now is rarely used.

The study was based on information from 457 hospitals in 27 U.S. states that use Epics system for electronic health records.

G. Caleb Alexander, a drug safety expert and professor atJohns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said it was "case-closed when it comes to whether or not hydroxychloroquine helps people hospitalized with COVID-19. It doesn't."

"This has nothing to do with profit motives or economic markets it has to do with science and public health, which is especially vital when there are tens of thousands of lives on the line."

Daphne Chen of the Journal Sentinel contributed to this report.

Contact Mary Spicuzzaat (414) 224-2324 ormary.spicuzza@jrn.com. Followheron Twitter at @MSpicuzzaMJS.

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'What he is doing is outrageous': Doctors slam Sen. Ron Johnson over hearing on COVID-19 treatments - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel