[LyndsySimon]

> Instead, the FDA publicly retracted it's authorization for the use of HCQ and said it did more harm than good,

Why? Are the data that the FDA relied upon for this determination public?

There is a great deal of internal politics at play within the federal government. I see this as the grain of truth behind the "deep state" allegations. Without knowing more about the FDA's justification, it seems completely reasonable to suspect that they may have acted out of their own personal and institutional biases.

I was interested in hydroxychloroquine long before Trump started talking about it. It was being administered both as a treatment and prophylaxis in Italy, and was showing promising results - it didn't look like it was going to be a panacea, but it seemed likely that it would be a good first-line treatment until something better came along. It also had the added benefit of an existing production capability that was already in place and easily scaled further.

Then Trump started talking about it, and it became effectively impossible to sort out reliable information about its use. Papers started coming out either strongly in favor or strongly opposed to its use, where before there was cautious optimism.

> If the FDA hadn't done that and the treatment continued to prove effective, I think we would all generally be on board with it.

That's an interesting statement. I read that as "because the FDA retracted their authorization, the effectiveness of the treatment is not relevant". The only other way I can wrap my head around it is a more charitable reading of "it's unlikely/impossible to be proven effective because the FDA retracted their authorization" - that reasoning is so at odds with my worldview that I'm not confident that others would consider it reasonable.