It’s no secret that President Trump was given the steroid dexamethasone as part of his COVID-19 treatment regimen, but The New York Times is questioning why he received it.
“The drug is reserved for those with severe illness, because it has not been shown to benefit those with milder forms of the disease and may even be risky,” the Times says. Because Trump’s doctors were not as clear about the treatment as the Times expected, the newspaper questioned whether the president was sicker than reported, or if he’d just been given the medicine too soon.
“The dexamethasone is the most mystifying of the drugs we’re seeing him being given at this point,” said Dr. Thomas McGinn, physician-in-chief at Northwell Health, the largest health care provider in New York State. Another doctor, Esther Choo, at Oregon University in Portland, added, “This is no longer aspirationally positive. And it’s much more than just an ‘abundance of caution’ kind of thing.”
Alternatively, the Times also noted that some experts they’d spoken with suggested that perhaps Trump was demanding these intense treatments, himself. The news agency also criticized Trump’s doctors for not describing his imaging scans and blood work “in detail.”
SOURCE: The New York Times October 4, 2020