Infected with COVID-19, going in a "tailspin," and having what he now knows was just a "20% chance of survival," former Federal Communications Commissioner Rob McDowell told Newsmax TV hydroxychloroquine helped save his life.
"I had never heard of the drug before that," McDowell told Wednesday's "Spicer and Co." "At the hospital, they did put me on it. I began to stabilize within 24 hours or so, and I stay stabilized. I wasn't gaining any altitude, but I eventually got better, but that was the only change in my treatment.
"I got out of the hospital, and I found out it had been politicized, unfortunately."
McDowell said his primary care physician was "really fighting hard to get me on hydroxychlorquine," along with the those treating his serve COVID-19 infection at the Fairfax, Virginia, hospital.
"It wasn't just my primary care doctor's decision; it was the consensus of the physicians tending to me at the time," McDowell added to host Sean Spicer. "And sure, as a one-guy anecdotal focus group, I cannot say with certainty it was hydroxychlorquine.
"I had a lot of people praying for me, too. That probably had something to do with it as well."
McDowell laments the campaign to diminish the drug, particularly amid the attacks on President Donald Trump promoting its off-label use approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and taking it as prophylactic.
McDowell admits it would be better to have "double blind" clinical trials before being prescribed HCQ, but his life was on the line.
"Right now doctors don't have time for that," he added. "It was in the trenches, on the front line, hand-to-hand combat with coronavirus, thousands and thousands are seeing positive results from hydroxychlorquine.
"And we have to go with that as long as we can."
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Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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