3 Ways To Look at the Navarro vs Fauci Showdown

Of course a possible cure is politicized

Axios reported that an argument took place in the situation room between Dr. Fauci and WH economic advisor Peter Navarro about the effect of hydroxychloroquine in treating the Wuhan virus. Navarro stated that is showed “clear therapeutic efficacy” and Fauci remarked that the evidence was simply anecdotal.

What’s happening here is obvious. Here’s the tape. CNN anchor presses Navarro on why he should be listened to and not Fauci. The GMA is attempting to leverage Facui’s credentials against Navarro in order to get Trump.

It really never mattered which position POTUS took on the drug, the GMA was always going to be opposed to it. So now that Navarro is saying that it could work, the narrative is that Trump & co are overruling science.

What can we learn from this?

1) People who say we can’t question the experts are the problem

Navarro has a PhD in economics from Harvard and has been an economist for 30 years. That does not qualify him to prescribe medicine, he is not making that argument. What he is saying is that studies have shown the drug’s effectiveness. And he’s certainly qualified to read the data from those studies, so are you.

This is irrefutable. Where the medical community is pushing back is on the way these studies have been done. There’s no control group.

The standard FDA procedure is to have a control group. Fauci has worked in govt for 40 years? Of course someone who has done something for years will want to do it that way. This is the same line of thinking that makes big companies vulnerable to tiny startups.

Fauci doesn’t deny that the tests have shown to be effective, he’s really only arguing against the speed of sending the FEMA stockpile of the drug to the worst places.

Fauci, no doubt a national hero at this point, is not infallible. On January 21st he told the nation this would not turn into a pandemic. Was no one supposed to question him then?

The entire notion of experts are above reproach is an anathema to growth.

2) If Navarro is just posturing for politics at the expense of the the country that’s bad

Here’s the argument against Navarro’s position. Is he finding what he wants to find in the data in order to win politically? If the the drug was as effective as the White House hopes, that would be a potential game changer for the country and therefore politically for POTUS.

If they are in fact attempting to do this without caution for potential negative medical outcomes, that is bad. Very bad.

But the studies have shown efficacy, so hopefully this isn’t the case.

3) The media is reporting this stuff with no named sources

Navarro doesn’t deny the argument in the situation room. But of course these bits of palace intrigue Axios loves are reported without named sources. Which simply means people could be lying. It’s a cheap way for news sites to drive traffic and has become commonplace. That’s fine so long as they don’t expect everyone to take their word at face value 100% of the time.

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