"Hydroxychloroquine."
"That one word," writes Eugene Robinson, "illustrates Trump’s arbitrary, anecdote-based method of making decisions; his reliance on cronies who have no relevant expertise; his rejection of science, or perhaps his failure to understand how science even works; his defiant stubbornness in clinging to what he 'knows,' even when he doesn’t actually know it; his obsessiveness even in the face of contrary evidence; and his imperviousness to fact-based arguments he does not want to hear."
All true, though in the instance of Trump's miracle drug, we should add that there may be a cash-based method of decision-making as well.
"If hydroxychloroquine becomes an accepted treatment," reports the Times, "several pharmaceutical companies stand to profit, including shareholders and senior executives with connections to the president. Mr. Trump himself has a small personal financial interest in Sanofi, the French drugmaker that makes Plaquenil, the brand-name version of hydroxychloroquine."
There's an incestuous triangle of pharmaceutical interests, personal connections and Gordon Gekko greed that rests comfortably in this president's king-sized bed of political corruption. Fisher Asset Management is heavily invested in Sanofi; the mutual fund is run by billionaire Ken Fisher, who, along with his wife, have contributed a quarter-million dollars to Trump's reelection campaign. Scattered throughout his family trusts, Trump himself has cash in another mutual fund whose largest investment is in Sanofi.
The co-founder of Amneal Pharmaceuticals, which is readying a generic version of Plaquenil, has played golf with the president at his private course in Bedminster, New Jersey. And board member Robert Mignone of Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, another marketer of hydroxychloroquine, contacted Jared Kushner's office through one Nitin Saigal, a former Mignone employee and Kushner friend. Mignone then asked that US-import restrictions on India be eased so that Teva could sell that country's HCQ pills here at home. The easing was done.
With almost any other president, questions of politico-financial irregularities concerning a possibly crisis-treating drug would improbably be asked. But given this president's history of corruption, cronyism, nepotism, lawlessness, scandal and kleptocratic grifting, such questions falleth like the torrential rain.