Steven J Hatfill, who advocated the use of hydroxychloroquine to treat Covid-19 despite little evidence of its effectiveness, has now been appointed to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) pandemic prevention department, as reported by The Guardian.
Hatfill is a virologist who was part of Donald Trump’s first administration. During this period, he advocated the use of hydroxychloroquine to treat the virus in the early months of the pandemic, before vaccines were available. Now, Trump has tapped Hatfill as a special adviser in the office of the director of the administration for strategic preparedness and response, which prepares the country to respond to pandemics, chemical and biological attacks.
During Trump’s first visit to the White House, hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin and chloroquine were officially adopted as treatments for Covid-19, even without evidence of their effectiveness and possible serious side effects, having ordered millions of doses of the drug from Brazil for patients in the US.
Steven Hatfill justifies his support for hydroxychloroquine, which continues to be used to treat diseases such as lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. “There’s no ambiguity about it. It’s a safe drug,” said Hatfill, who assured that he would work with scientists at his agency to achieve “complete awareness of the scientific literature, not just for influenza, bird flu or Covid but other global diseases that could represent a threat to the US.”
Robert Steinbrook, director of the health research group at the progressive nonprofit Public Citizen, criticized the Trump administration’s choice, saying it was “It is unfortunate that the Department of Health and Human Services has hired a senior adviser whose views about some Covid-19 drugs are not grounded in the evidence.”
Tom Inglesby, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and a former Biden appointee, took a more optimistic view, saying, “My hope is that Dr Hatfill will pursue the things that are of greatest value in preparing for another pandemic, such as new medicines and vaccines.”
Criticism of Hatill goes beyond science. In 2021, a Democratic-led House subcommittee investigating the pandemic response made public emails from Hatfill indicating he was among White House officials seeking evidence to support Trump’s false claims of voter fraud after his election loss the previous year.
Hatfill himself said his focus had “shifted over to the election fraud investigation,” in an email written in the final weeks of 2020, when the country was experiencing a surge in Covid-19 infections.
