In November 2020, ten months into the Trump Administration’s fumbled response to the COVID-19 outbreak, and with cases surging, MAGA ally Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) hosted a hearing touting hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) as a treatment for the pandemic-causing virus. Frustrated public health experts characterized this Senate event as a dangerous distraction. President Donald Trump, who was desperate to downplay the pandemic ahead of his 2020 re-election attempt, had hailed the anti-malarial as a pandemic “game changer” in March of that year, though it had long since proven ineffective against COVID.
Nevertheless, MAGA loyalists, including a small handful of politically-aligned physician “experts,” had continued pushing Trump’s pandemic “cure.” Featured at Johnson’s hearing were early HCQ promoters who had worked with the Trump administration in its push for the drug: Dr. Peter McCullough, a Texas-based cardiologist, and Dr. Harvey Risch, a Yale University professor.
To back up debunked pro-HCQ claims, Risch cited deeply problematic Brazilian research in his written statement. This reliance on questionable research tied to ethical issues was a harbinger of Trump’s “gold standard” anti-science Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to come in his second term, which has escalated the attack on public health he launched during the final year of his first term.
Today, the second Trump HHS appears to be recreating many of the Brazilian health ministry’s missteps under President Jair Bolsonaro, who is now serving a 27-year prison sentence for his attempt to lead a coup in Brazil in 2022. In parallel with the MAGA movement, Bolsonaro promoted a series of false COVID cures as the health of his citizens suffered. While Brazil has since pursued some accountability for these COVID-era missteps, the United States, back under Trump’s rule, has further platformed them.
Trump, Bolsonaro, and the HCQ Debacle
Bolsonaro became the “poster boy” for HCQ as a COVID treatment – championing it even while sick with the virus – after his political ally Trump promoted it. The Brazilian leader accepted a donation of 2 million doses of the drug from the Trump administration in the spring of 2020, just as the American president’s promotion of HCQ for COVID led to shortages in the US for those who require it daily for its other uses.
Trump came to embrace HCQ as a COVID treatment after Elon Musk tweeted an obscure, problematic Google doc “white paper” supporting the drug’s use in March 2020, which was picked up by Fox News and sent up the chain to the White House. This document relied on the work of Didier Raoult, a now-disgraced French researcher whose influential HCQ paper was retracted late last year. As of 2025, at least 45 of Raoult’s publications have been retracted; separately, more than 200 of his studies have received expressions of concerns from their publishers regarding their ethics approvals.
Risch—who did not respond to a request for comment—embraced Raoult, citing him in his November 2020 testimony, as did the Trump and Bolsonaro governments.
Musk’s own foundation backed the nascent US-based, tech millionaire-run Covid Early Treatment Fund, which partially funded the major HCQ study at the University of Minnesota that showed no use for the drug against COVID by early June 2020. Beyond its lack of efficacy, a study in The Lancet raised safety concerns about the drug’s use for COVID around the same time, and its emergency use authorization was rescinded by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in mid-June of that year.
These disappointing results did not stop MAGA from promoting the drug. Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign was involved in the formation of the HCQ-promoting group America’s Frontline Doctors (AFLDS), which went public with their COVID-downplaying disinformation operation in July 2020 via social media.
Additionally, a 2022 report from the then-Democrat-helmed House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis titled “A Knife-Fight with the FDA” detailed the Trump administration’s relentless, though ultimately failed, pressure campaign to get HCQ’s emergency use reauthorized. The report discusses the administration’s direct work with Sen. Johnson, McCullough, and Risch in this effort, as well as with the conservative Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) which unsuccessfully sued the FDA to “end its arbitrary restrictions on hydroxychloroquine.”
The report also highlighted how key Trump insiders – chiefly trade adviser Peter Navarro and Dr. Steven Hatfill, who was working in Navarro’s office – were put in contact with Bolsonaro-allied virologist Paolo Zanotto to find favorable HCQ research. This Brazilian introduction came thanks to a former co-host of the War Room podcast run by former Trump chief strategist Steve Bannon. The podcast would promote HCQ and, later, ivermectin, platforming politically-aligned doctors, such as McCullough and Risch, who pushed these so-called “early treatment” drugs for COVID.
Later, Zanotto was recommended to be criminally charged for his promotion of bogus COVID “cures” by the Brazilian Senate, as the “Knife-Fight” report noted, and was accused of spearheading a “shadow cabinet” to advise Bolsonaro on “early treatment” and against the vaccines; thus far, there has been no prosecution against him. In the US, politically-aligned physicians and scientists who pushed “early treatment” drugs would go on to rail against the COVID vaccines, helping the pandemic-era anti-vax movement grow to the powerful and dangerous force it is in American politics today.
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Valorizing A ‘Humanitarian Catastrophe’ in Congress
Brazil and the US saw high COVID death rates in their respective countries following the politicization of public health responses – which apparently included collaboration between allies of the two nations’ leadership. Doctors Without Borders went as far as deeming Brazil’s pandemic response “humanitarian catastrophe” in 2021.
However, in late 2020, Risch was hyping COVID research out of Bolsonaro’s Brazil during his Congressional star turn. In addition to citing Raoult and various pre-print papers (that had not been peer reviewed or published) in his testimony document, Risch included a paper he co-authored about HCQ use at one of Brazil’s largest health maintenance organizations, Hapvida Saúde, and a Wordpress link to an unpublished HCQ paper from the Brazilian hospital system for the elderly, Prevent Senior.
Both Hapvida Saúde and Prevent Senior have since come under scrutiny for their COVID care, including purchasing millions of boxes of HCQ and ivermectin and prescribing the medications long after they were deemed ineffective against COVID, reportedly after doctors were pressured to do so. Worse, a group of whistleblower healthcare workers accused Prevent Senior, which had disregarded advice from the World Health Organization against using HCQ for COVID, of testing these drugs on their patients without their proper consent, as well as covering up COVID deaths.
In 2024, The Lancet reported that charges including involuntary manslaughter and patient endangerment had been brought against leaders and employees of Prevent Senior, which prescribed HCQ as part of a “Covid Kit;” the case has not yet gone to trial as of late 2025. The “Covid Kit” effort was “seen by some as an effort to support the claims made by Bolsonaro that hydroxychloroquine was effective in treating COVID-19.”
The cycle went both ways; not only did Risch amplify Brazilian HCQ “research” to the US government, his own pro-HCQ work was promoted by the Brazilian government as well. In 2021 the Brazilian Ministry of Health cited and misinterpreted work published by McCullough and Risch in support of HCQ for COVID, leading to pushback from scientists as well as a formal rebuttal from the journal that originally published their paper.
Covid Quick Fix Take Two: Ivermectin
A month after his November 2020 HCQ hearing, Johnson hosted Dr. Pierre Kory, another contrarian doctor, to testify about ivermectin as the next “miracle drug” for COVID. Kory, a Wisconsin-based intensivist, co-founded the ivermectin-promoting Frontline Covid-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC), which would join AFLDS as a go-to MAGA “early treatment” group. Kory would further peddle his partisan pseudoscience in a June 2021 appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast and would go on to publish pro-ivermectin papers with deeply problematic Brazilian doctors. Kory did not respond to requests for comment.
In 2022 Kory co-published two papers on a 2020 city-wide ivermectin experiment hosted by the Bolsonaro-aligned mayor of Itajaí, Brazil. A local doctor described the mass rollout of the drug in Itajaí as part of an effort “to minimize the pandemic and make people think there’s an easy solution.”
The papers on this “study” were first-authored by Dr. Lucy Kerr, who led the Bolsonaro-allied Médicos Pela Vida (Doctors for Life), which can be best understood as the AFLDS of Brazil, and were co-authored by Dr. Flavio Cadegiani, a Brazilian endocrinologist and a clinical advisor to Kory’s FLCCC since August 2021. Kory cited one of Cadegiani’s ivermectin papers in his April 2021 ivermectin meta analysis, which has been flagged with an “expression of concern” by the publishing journal due to its reliance on poor quality research.
A correction was issued for one of the 2022 Itajaí ivermectin papers shortly after its publication due to undisclosed conflicts of interest. These included Kory’s involvement with the ivermectin-promoting FLCCC and payments to Kerr and Cadegiani from the Brazilian ivermectin manufacturer Vitamedic, which had experienced a boom in ivermectin sales according to a company representative. Both Médicos Pela Vida and Vitamedic were among the “early treatment” groups condemned in 2023 for “collective moral and health damages” by the Brazilian Federal Court in the Rio Grande do Sul estate and ordered to jointly pay R$55M (10M USD). While appeals are proceeding, so far, higher courts have upheld the ruling.
Beyond the conflict of interest issues, the papers have faced methodological scrutiny. An independent team of doctors and scientists reanalyzed the data underpinning the two papers, and claimed the alleged reduction in infection, hospitalization, and mortality was explained by “statistical artifacts.” While Cureus, the journal that published the two papers, has not issued retractions, last year the Web of Science suspended indexation of Cureus, with coverage of this news from Retraction Watch noting the problematic ivermectin papers among the issues leading to the suspension.
A Third Miracle Cure: Proxalutamide in Brazil
Cadegiani’s problematic “early treatment” work did not end at ivermectin. Independent of his work with the FLCCC, he ran research looking into the androgen receptor antagonist proxalutamide, which was called out by research regulators as some of the “worst medical ethics violations in Brazil’s history” and drew accusations of “crimes against humanity.”
The National Health Council in Brazil said Cadegiani’s trial was carried out on individuals who were not adequately informed of the risks they were undertaking in the trial, and “some did not know they were taking part in one.” The Council further alleged that Cadegiani’s proxalutamide research potentially contributed to as many as 200 deaths in the treatment group and that more than 40 deaths were not included in the study’s conclusions; later, the Brazilian health regulator suspended the import, prescription, and use of the drug across the country and launched an investigation into the proxalutamide study.
Like HCQ and ivermectin, Bolsonaro advocated for proxalutamide for COVID, though it was not promoted by US politicians like the other two drugs. In 2022, a top prosecutor caused outrage in Brazil after she shelved the charges the nation’s Senate had recommended for Bolsonaro over his pandemic response just the previous year – which included “crimes against humanity and charlatanism” for his promotion of “false treatments.”
Like Bolsonaro, Cadegiani has evaded some consequences, with the Regional Council of Medicine of the Amazonas estate dropping charges against him in 2023. However, the prior year the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office filed suit in civil court against Cadegiani, a fellow researcher, and hospital officials who aided them for “compensation for potential damage to health and collective moral damages.” If convicted, they face fines of at least R$10m (1.86M USD).
The FLCCC celebrated the regional medical board dropping its action against their Brazilian colleague on their website as a “big WIN for Dr. Cadegiani—and ALL of humanity!” Their blog post celebrating the news featured supportive comments from Risch about the integrity of Cadegiani’s scientific work.
Last year the FLCCC even honored Cadegiani at their annual conference with their award for “Contributions to Research Excellence.” (According to a spokesperson, the organization honored him “because of his commitment to the scientific method, and his many inputs to the body of evidence and observational studies during the COVID era.”) The group once sold merchandise of Cadegiani, Kory, and their other doctors depicted as cartoon superheroes. It continues to cite Cadegiani’s proxalutamide papers in its COVID treatment protocols, although at least one of his papers has been retracted; the FLCCC’s paper on its first COVID protocol has also been retracted for flawed results.
However, the group, which has rebranded to the pro-”Make America Healthy Again” Independent Medical Alliance, no longer lists the Brazilian doctor among its members on its website. Cadegiani is notably not part of the rebranded group’s new international fellowship program; the group’s spokesperson told ASP his withdrawal was “due to his many commitments in other areas of work.” Kory has been replaced as the group’s president.
“Early Treatment” Doctors and the RFK Jr. HHS
Like McCullough, Kory was finally stripped of his board certifications by the American Board of Internal Medicine last year. The FLCCC/Independent Medical Alliance has seemingly evaded legal consequences for the promotion of their “cure” — unlike AFLDS, which is currently embroiled in a wrongful HCQ death lawsuit after grossing millions from their “early treatment” sales.
The Independent Medical Alliance, which has amassed millions of dollars including through shielded donor-advised funds, has only grown in prominence within right-wing politics. The far-right power player The Heritage Foundation, which was behind the Project 2025 plan for Trump’s second presidency, was listed as a partner at the re-branded group’s annual conference earlier this year. A Heritage fellow even testified in front of the GOP-led House in support of ivermectin for COVID in 2024
Additionally, the Independent Medical Alliance has benefitted from their close relationship with longtime anti-vaxxer, now Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.. Prior to being selected by Trump for his current cabinet position, Kennedy pushed both HCQ and ivermectin for COVID and worked alongside both AFLDS’s president and Kory.
Kennedy has also promoted the right-wing rhetoric that the “early treatment” drugs were somehow “suppressed,” seemingly as pretext for the pre-planned gutting of health institutions laid out in Project 2025. In November, just ahead of being nominated for health secretary, Kennedy took to X to accuse the FDA of “aggressive suppression” of HCQ and ivermectin, along with various “natural” remedies. In a recent Wall Street Journal opinion piece defending the Trump administration’s attacks on the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Kennedy claimed Americans’ lack of trust in the institution is due, in part, to what he alleges is the CDC’s previous “suppression of low-cost therapeutics” for COVID – meaning HCQ and ivermectin.
Now in office, Kennedy continues to rely on the work of doctors who made names for themselves in right-wing politics promoting the COVID “early treatment” drugs and advocating against pandemic mitigation measures. He has named two Independent Medical Alliance affiliates to the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices after firing all previous experts on the committee this summer. This committee has been elevating Kennedy’s ideology by chipping away at the federal vaccine program.
Additionally, Kennedy’s recent decision to pull $500m in funding for mRNA vaccine projects was supported on the HHS website by a single misleading document co-authored by, among others, McCullough and Risch, mirroring the actions of Bolsonaro’s Ministry of Health.
The doctors on whom the Trump/Kennedy HHS is relying have what should be disqualifying conflicts of interest, another similarity to Bolsonaro’s Brazil. For example, McCullough and Risch are both in leadership positions at the MAGA-allied outfit The Wellness Company, which sells HCQ and ivermectin as well as COVID vaccine “detox” supplements.
Kennedy and his top officials continue to rail against the mRNA vaccine technology behind the COVID vaccines which saved millions of lives and could have prevented an estimated 232,000 unvaccinated American COVID deaths. In the MAGA/MAHA alternate reality space, ivermectin maintains an unearned “miracle drug” position, despite repeated high quality studies demonstrating it has no use against COVID.
But lack of efficacy has not not stopped it from being pushed for the virus and a litany of maladies beyond COVID, with Independent Medical Alliance leadership and Florida First Lady Casey DeSantis now touting it for cancer. Risch recently announced his nomination by Trump to chair the President’s Cancer Panel, which was celebrated by the Independent Medical Alliance, saying they looked forward to “the opportunity to collaborate and support this important program.” Emboldened by Trump’s win and Kennedy’s governmental ascension, AFLDS and Kory have recently petitioned the FDA to make HCQ and ivermectin over the counter across the country.
Meanwhile, the second Trump administration has slashed scientific research funding for real medical cures, drained federal health institutions of resources and expertise, championed legislation set to strip millions of health insurance, and gutted global health aid programs.
Accountability When?
The dark saga of the push for a pandemic quick fix reveals the harsh reality of the so-called “gold standard science” backed by the Trump administration. Politicized science has already caused great harm both domestically and beyond our borders – while lining the pockets of right-wing allies and opportunists – and helped pave the way for the implosion of the American scientific enterprise.
This Trump-grade “science” will cause further senseless destruction if allowed to continue its course. The United States cannot understand the current anti-science American government and appropriately combat it without addressing the ugly recent past – both here and abroad – as well as the systemic failures and lack of accountability that brought the country to its current anti-science moment.
The deep-pocketed MAGA media machine worked overtime to make COVID vaccines a political wedge issue and anti-government radicalization pipeline, and to rewrite Trump’s dereliction of leadership during the pandemic outbreak. The U.S. is still feeling the reverberations of Trump’s downplaying of COVID risks and reckless promises of an easy pandemic “cure” for his own political ends ahead of the 2020 election. To this day, the country has not properly addressed these dangerous lies, among the President’s many others, before the American people. Instead, they are becoming government policy.
But at some point, we must have a proper reckoning. And Trump and his pandemic snake oil salesmen must be held to account for the blood on their hands – both here and abroad – and for selling out public health for power.
This post was updated on December 10 at 4:26 ET to reflect Risch’s nomination by Trump to chair the President’s Cancer Panel, along with reactions from the IMA.
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