Emails from 2020 show how Mehmet Oz promoted an anti-malaria drug to the White House in the early stages of the epidemic.
The report from the Select House Committee on the coronaviruses crisis revealed the emails. They contain messages from Oz to senior White House advisers, including former President Donald Trump's son-in-law and the administration's response to the coronaviruses.
During a time when the US was still finding its footing in its fight against the virus, Oz sent separate emails to Birx and Kushner urging them to push Hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for COVID-19.
Oz requested that the US start patient trials for the drug as early as possible and that US doctors be allowed to start administering it if trials weren't possible.
He wrote that they couldn't hide behind study protocols if they weren't allowed to go.
He wants to push brave Americans to join trials on his show tomorrow, but cannot without a game plan for accessing drugs. Oz said he would personally recruit patients and pay for a trial but was having trouble finding the anti-malaria pills.
In a test that wasn't randomized or peer-reviewed, the drug was effective in clearing 24 patients of COVID, according to testimony from a French microbiologist.
The same drug was championed by Trump at the same time as a treatment for the coronaviruses, even though there was no proof that it worked.
Hydroxychloroquine was one of the drugs that researchers were racing to test during the Pandemic, but multiple studies later found it doesn't work as a COVID-19 treatment. The drug should not be used to prevent Covid infections according to the World Health Organization.
On the same day that Oz sent an email to Birx, he also sent an email to Kushner to promote the use of hydroxychloroquine.
The White House wanted to conduct randomized trials for the drug before declaring it a treatment.
The White House could immediately authorize physicians to use a drug mixture involving hydroxychloroquine and another drug, azithromycin, to treat Covid patients.
130 million hydroxychloroquine pills are coming into the market which can treat up to 10 million people and offer an accurate time-table for additional supply to slow down the coronaviruses.
Oz said that studies for the drug would take a month to complete and would be a slow process.
He wanted to see trials for hydroxychloroquine made a priority.
It has been almost a week since we learned of the French data and over a month since the Chinese data. Doctors and nurses are struggling to find pills for off-label use, but at least we have a possible solution at our fingertips.
What do you think should be done to speed it up?
After Oz wrote to the two advisers, he sent them another message saying that the early studies on hydroxychloroquine showed that it was safe and results were better than expected.
The email thread shows that the email was forwarded to the commissioner of the FDA. Her email said that they should talk.
A report from the House Committee accuses senior officials in the Trump administration of pressuring the FDA to approve treatments for emergency use against COVID-19.
According to the report, Hydroxychloroquine was one of the main drugs that Trump advisers wanted to get back in use.
The committee investigating the coronaviruses crisis heard testimony in June that people were communicating with the Trump dangerous ideas about hydroxychloroquine.
Oz did not reply immediately.
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