Mayo warns drug touted by Trump as COVID-19 cure will "claim lives"

Concerned that the sudden interest in their use for coronavirus could cause fatal heart arrhythmias in a small percentage of what could become millions of users, Mayo Clinic on Wednesday, March 25, issued urgent guidance advising cardiac screening of all who take hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine, malaria drugs touted by President Donald Trump and others as effective for the treatment and prevention of COVID-19.

"We thought it was critical to make people aware how to navigate through and around the sudden cardiac drug risk that does exist with these medications," said Mayo Clinic professor of cardiovascular medicine Dr. Michael Ackerman, "and that's why Mayo Clinic urgently assembled this special article."

https://www.postbulletin.com/life/health/mayo-warns-drug-touted-by-trump-as-covid--cure/article_78e0d526-6efa-11ea-a503-e3b5c2c69d56.html