Fauci: Clinical trials necessary to approve HCQ, not vaccines

In a video shared by Rebel News Wednesday, White House Chief Medical Advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said that there is “no time” to conduct clinical trials to approve more COVID-19 boosters. 

Fauci, who is also director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), first said it is safe to assume the vaccine is more effective than previous vaccines, given that it’s aimed at a specific strain. 

“When you have a [sic] updated vaccine that serves as a booster as it were and is directed against the dominant circulating strain that’s in society, you have every reason to believe that that is going to be better than having a vaccine that isn’t highly specific to the circulating strain.” 

Then Fauci said the efficacy of the booster has not been proven, because there is “no time” for a clinical trial. 

“It hasn’t been proven in a clinical trial because we don’t have time to do a clinical trial because we have to get the vaccine out now because we have such a situation throughout the world and certainly the United States. We’re having 400 deaths a day and up to 5,000 hospitals a day – hospitalizations.” 

Fauci’s remark about the efficacy not having been proven in a clinical trial raises questions about whether the same can be said of the booster’s safety. 

The statement also represents a deviation from remarks he made in 2020, when the mainstream media and medical establishment launched an offensive against hydroxychloroquine (HCQ). HCQ was recommended by America’s Frontline Doctors and touted by President Trump as a cure for early COVID-19.  

At the time, Fauci demanded randomized controlled trials (RCT) to determine that HCQ is an effective early treatment for COVID-19. 

“The point that I think is important, because we all want to keep an open mind, any and all of the randomized placebo-controlled trials, which is the gold standard of determining if something is effective, none of them had shown any efficacy by hydroxychloroquine. Having said that, I will state, when I do see a randomized placebo-controlled trial that looks at any aspect of hydroxychloroquine, either early study, middle study, or late, if that randomized placebo-controlled trial shows efficacy, I would be the first one to admit it and to promote it. But I have not seen yet a randomized placebo-controlled trial that’s done that. And in fact, every randomized placebo-controlled trial that has looked at it, has shown no efficacy. So, I just have to go with the data. I don’t have any horse in the game one way or the other, I just look at the data.” 

Since then, not only has Fauci not required RCTs to determine the efficacy and safety of the new vaccine – despite RCTs being “the gold standard” – he also did not require RCTs to determine if mask-wearing was effective and mandate-worthy. 

If he had, he would have found that there have been two randomized controlled trial studies conducted on mask efficacy, neither of which support a mask mandate. One from Bangladesh showed that masks provide an 11% infection decrease for older people and no impact on younger people, and one from Denmark showed that masks have no effect on infections at all.