Mayo Clinic cardiologist: Anti-malaria drug isn’t a ‘Republican or a Democrat medication’

A Mayo Clinic cardiologist said the conversation around an anti-malaria drug President Trump has promoted to treat patients infected with the novel coronavirus has shifted too far into politics. 

“This particular medicine is probably the only medication I know of that has become a Republican or a Democrat medication. That’s just crazy,” Michael Ackerman said in an interview with NBC News published Wednesday. 

Ackerman, a genetic cardiologist and director of the Mayo Clinic’s Windland Smith Rice Genetic Heart Rhythm Clinic, observed the debate playing out over the use of hydroxychloroquine, the anti-malaria drug being used in some cases to treat COVID-19 patients, and issued guidance for physicians on the drug in late March. 

Trump has downplayed the side effects of the drug, but Ackerman said he was more disturbed by remarks he was hearing from fellow physicians in interviews than what politicians were saying. 

“What disturbed me the most was when I was seeing not political officials say these medications are safe but seeing on the news cardiologists and infectious disease specialists say” hydroxychloroquine “is completely safe without even mentioning this rare side effect,” Ackerman told NBC. 

“That’s inexcusable,” he added.

Ackerman warned that although hydroxychloroquine is likely safe for nearly 90 percent of the population, it can pose potentially lethal risks to a small number of patients susceptible to heart conditions. 

“Yes, these medications overall are really, really safe, so in that sense the president is right. But really safe in a population sense doesn’t mean that drug is going to be safe enough for the particular patient I’m about to treat,” the doctor told NBC.