A week after appearing to project a more serious tone about the coronavirus, rump is back to pushing unproven claims that an anti-malaria drug is an effective treatment and challenging the credibility of the nation’s leading infectious disease expert.

Numerous studies, meanwhile, have shown that the drug, hydroxychloroquine, is not an effective treatment for covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.

And the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently withdrew an order that allowed the drug’s use as a emergency treatment for covid-19.

“I go along with the FDA,” said Fauci, the longtime director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

“The overwhelming prevailing clinical trials that have looked at the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine have indicated that it is not effective in coronavirus disease.”