RUSH: This morning Dr. Fauci was on Fox, and he finally got a little cross-examination. Dr. Fauci is not supportive of chloroquine, hydroxychloroquine in combination with azithromycin. He’s not a big fan. Hydroxychloroquine is a proven malaria fighter, and it’s been around and approved by the FDA for decades. But it hasn’t been approved for this.

They’re fast tracking it; people are prescribing it various places. Surveys of doctors are very hopeful. It seems to be working. We’re not hearing much about it. Dr. Fauci was asked about it, and he pretty much pooh-poohed it on the basis that we don’t have time to test it. There hasn’t been enough blind testing. There hasn’t been enough clinical testing, usual de rigueur stuff.

Now, at the moment, 75% of the doctors in Spain are prescribing chloroquine. Dr. Fauci remains steadfast in his bureaucracy. Dr. Fauci’s a conformist. He’s a scientist, obviously. Can I…? (sigh) You know, it’s really tough to say some things here, but I’m sorry, folks. It’s what I do. The National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control, we’re told they are among the best of the best — and why are they there?

The Centers for Disease Control, NIH, are supposed to know about all of the evil viruses and microbes and all that stuff all over the world, and they’re supposed to be studying it. They’re supposed to be aware of it. They’re supposed to be devising ways to protect America from these vicious diseases, and they got caught up short.

Now they’re out saying (whining), “The Chinese didn’t tell us the truth,” and I’m saying, “My goodness! The Chinese didn’t tell us the truth about how contagious it was and that’s…?” My question is: How can these people remain unassailable saviors when they are part of a bureaucracy that was obviously unprepared for this? They were as stunned and shocked as any of us were.

And yet they automatically, because of their positions, assume positions at the top of the authority ladder. But they were caught! They didn’t have the slightest idea about coronavirus — and when it first hit, they seemed content to think it would stay in China, and they seemed content to believe that it wasn’t contagious; that it couldn’t be spread person to person because the Chinese didn’t tell them the truth about it.

The Chinese lie. By definition, communism is built on deception. Never forget — never forget — the initial estimates they showed us predicted 2.2 million deaths in the United States by August. (sigh) I know I’m gonna catch hell. But, you know, people are telling me, “Don’t worry what the media says about you. Don’t worry about the media taking you out of context. You’ve got to keep speaking out for the people here.”

I fully intend to. I just… You know, not being a conformist comes naturally to me. Not following conventional wisdom comes naturally to me. And questioning common sense that doesn’t seem common to me comes naturally to me too. And we’re investing expertise in a bunch of people that got caught short here, and now — after having got caught short — they have become experts?

Now we’re being told that they are in charge of when and if our economy will be reopened? Now, to me, here’s the difference between a health professional bureaucrat expert and Donald Trump. I believe anybody can identify risk. I don’t think it takes any special training. I don’t think you have to be a lawyer or a doctor.

I don’t think you need to have 12 years of residency or whatever it is to recognize risk. You know what the rare quality is? The rare quality is quantifying risk. That’s the talent. That’s the skill. That’s the expertise. Anybody can tell you that something’s bad out there, and anybody can tell you to go hide from it. Anybody can tell you to hunker down. Anybody can tell you to stay home.

You don’t need experts for this. But you do need experts to put it all in perspective. You need experts — you need somebody with some kind of guts and knowledge and instinct combined with experience guided by intelligence — to be able to quantify risk. For example, either this pandemic is serious enough to destroy the U.S. economy or it isn’t.

You think Fredo Cuomo’s taking the drug? You think Fredo has taken chloroquine? (interruption) How do we know that? How do we know that he’s taking…? (interruption) No, how do we know that he’s “taking anything he thinks will work”? How do we know that? (interruption) Because you think anybody would? (interruption)

Okay. So you believe that Fredo’s taking that drug. Let’s say Fredo’s taking hydroxychloroquine. Let’s say he’s taking it — and a lot of people would want to take it if they got sick. A lot of people are being required to go to the hospital and beg for it. Chloroquine is a 70-year medicine whose side-effects are known. They are quantified! We don’t need months and months of clinical trial on chloroquine. We’ve already done it.

“But not for this disease, Rush!” The FDA is mired in protocols. The health experts are mired in, “Well, this is the way we’ve always done it.” They’re mired in their bureaucratic techniques, and they don’t like anybody horning in on the game, even when there is ample anecdotal evidence that a particular drug might be helpful. So, as usual, what we have is Donald Trump up against a bureaucracy.

It doesn’t matter who’s in it. He’s up against a bureaucracy, and I hope that it is Trump who makes the call as to when this economy gets reopened. Meanwhile, the days are passing by. Now, let me go to the Hydroxychloroquine Stack here. Here’s a story from the New York Post, and we had this yesterday. Two stories had this yesterday, so I want to repeat them.

The headline: “Hydroxychloroquine Rated ‘Most Effective’ Coronavirus Treatment, Poll of Doctors Finds — An international poll of thousands of doctors rated the Trump-touted anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine the best treatment for the novel coronavirus. Of the 6,227 physicians surveyed in 30 countries, 37% rated hydroxychloroquine the ‘most effective therapy’ for combating the potentially deadly illness, according to the results released Thursday.

“The survey, conducted by the global health care polling company Sermo, also found that 23% of medical professionals had prescribed the drug in the U.S. — far less than other countries. ‘Outside the U.S., hydroxychloroquine was equally used for diagnosed patients with mild to severe symptoms whereas in the U.S. it was most commonly used for high risk diagnosed patients’ … The medicine was most widely used in Spain, where 72% of physicians said they had prescribed it.

Now, a debate about hydroxychloroquine was sparked a couple weeks ago after Trump touted the drug as a possible game-changer in the fight against COVID-19. Now, the World Health Organization is in the back pocket of China. The World Health Organization is as bad as the United Nations. The guy that runs the World Health Organization is out pimping for China because China put him in the position. This guy that runs the World Health Organization is praising China for being truthful and honest and having the best policies to deal with the coronavirus. The Chinese haven’t told anybody the truth about it.

We got Dr. Birx out there, “They didn’t tell us the truth about how contagious it is.” Meanwhile, the World Health Organization out there saying, the ChiComs are showing the way, they’re leading the way. This guy is bogus. This guy has no credibility. The World Health Organization ought not even have a legitimate voice in this debate because the guy running it is in the back the pock of the Chinese government. And this guy is out saying that there is no evidence that any medicine can prevent or cure the disease.

Well, there’s a lot of doctors out there who say that it is helping. The CEO of the medical polling unit here, Sermo, called the polling results “a treasure trove of global insight for policymakers.” Here is another story. This from Fox News. Headline: “After Mocking Trump for Promoting Hydroxychloroquine, Journalists Acknowledge it Might Treat Coronavirus — After repeatedly mocking President Trump for suggesting on March 19 that hydroxychloroquine could be an effective treatment for coronavirus, media organizations have begun acknowledging that the drug — now approved for emergency use to treat coronavirus by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) — may be useful after all. Journalists and top Democrats -” Really? Journalists and top Democrats? I wonder why that association exists. “Journalists and top Democrats have beaten a similarly hasty retreat from their previous claims that Trump’s ban on travel from China was both xenophobic and ineffective.” They’re now having to change their tune because Trump was not xenophobic. The early ban was effective.

ABC News has run a story on the numbers of people from China that came to this country potentially carrying this virus as in the 700,000 number, starting in December, 700,000. ABC News. Trump bans travel in January. They called him a xenophobe. They called him a racist. Now they’re backtracking on that.

“Media outlets’ misinformation on hydroxychloroquine was unique because it involved not simply policy disagreements but also suggestive medical advice and directives that could have dissuaded some from seeking certain treatments. ‘Malaria Drug Helps Virus Patients Improve, in Small Study,’ The New York Times reported this week, adding: ‘A group of moderately ill people were given hydroxychloroquine, which appeared to ease their symptoms quickly, but more research is needed.’

“Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, went from threatening doctors who prescribed the drug with ‘administrative action’ to requesting that the federal government ship her state some.” Can I ask something? What about hospital discharges versus admissions? In New York, more people are being released from the hospital having had coronavirus than are being admitted now. You’re not hearing about that, but I just saw the story.

“USA Today’s editorial board was similarly aggressive and mocking, writing, ‘Coronavirus treatment: Dr. Donald Trump peddles snake oil and false hope — ‘There are no approved therapies or drugs to treat COVID-19 yet, but the president,'” is out there promoting some. Now everybody’s agreeing that it works, except for Dr. Fauci.

Another story: “Hydroxychloroquine Rated ‘Most Effective’ Coronavirus Treatment, Poll of Doctors Finds.” This is about the doctors, another poll of 6,000 doctors. And then we have the story, the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center that we had yesterday, that they think they’re on the way to finding a vaccine sooner than a year from September.