Hydroxychloroquine, the anti-malarial drug, is back in the news. Months ago, Donald Trump offered it as the best available treatment for Covid-19. After the US President said this (based on evidence), his critics laughed at him. A popular science journal published a misleading piece of research claiming that the drug is more dangerous than useful.

Latest evidence, based on a large US study, has ultimately proved Trump right. It has shown that HCQ reduces mortality among Coronavirus patients by more than 50%. The drug, therefore, is far from being a dangerous one.

Backing the study, James Todaro of the Columbus University suggests that HCQ was sought to be discredited by many scientists and sections of media because their aim was to run down the cheaper alternative and favour a costly drug. He writes, "A tale of two drugs... Remdesivir & HCQ both show promise for COVID-19. HCQ is discredited w/ fraudulent data, FDA warnings & overdoses. Remdesivir is praised w/ tightly guarded data by the NIH and a task force of Gilead investors/employees. HCQ: Under $10. Remdesivir: Over $3000."

Dr David Samadi seems to agree. He tweets, "I want to ensure that everyone understands the gravity of the situation here. Hydroxychloroquine worked this whole time. The media said it would literally kill you if you took it simply because POTUS (Trump) promoted it as a cure. Thousands of people likely DIED because of this."

Bruno Macaes ponders, "So first the studies revealing the dangers of HCQ are exposed as fraudulent. Then the best study so far shows HCQ dramatically improves survivability in hospitalized patients. Will anyone apologize? Will the media in particular apologize? Bad ideas have consequences."

Jordan Schachtel observes, "Worth noting that HCQ is somewhere between 100-1000 times cheaper than Gilead's Remdesivir, which Dr Anthony Fauci called the "standard of care," while dismissing HCQ. HCQ now has several studies outperforming Big Pharma drug that is 100-1000 times costlier and not readily available."