Bolsonaro Tried to Change Chloroquine Package Insert by Decree, Says ex-Minister Mandetta

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Brazil’s former Minister of Health Luiz Henrique Mandetta has disclosed that the federal government intended to change the chloroquine package insert to include its recommendation for the treatment of Covid-19, a disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

In an interview with GloboNews on May 21st, Mandetta said that the protocol recommending the drug is “far from reasonable” and said that the attempt to change the package insert would have been achieved through a decree signed by President Bolsonaro.

“The President advised himself or surrounded himself with other medical professionals. I remember when, at the end of a day of cabinet meetings, I was asked to go into a room. There were an anesthesiologist and an immunologist, they were writing a prospective or future presidential decree or something like that, and their idea was to change the medication package insert at the ANVISA (National Sanitary Surveillance Agency), by including its recommendation for Covid-19,” Mandetta said.

The ex-Minister said that Ministers, members of the AGU (Solicitor General’s Offide), and the president of ANVISA, Antonio Barra Torres, were present at the meeting.

“The president of ANVISA himself was scared abour that route; he said he could not agree. I said that it was not an honest thing and that I wouldn’t go along with that; that discussion had to be held by the Federal Council of Medicine. That’s where that debate must take place. There’s no point for an expert in the field having a debate with a President who is not a doctor,” Mandetta said, arguing that decisions of this kind must be taken by a council of doctors, based on scientific data.

On Wednesday, the federal government published a protocol recommending the use of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine for treating Covid-19, also in patients in their early stages of the disease.

However, the drug’s efficacy for the novel coronavirus has not been proven. Its side effects, one of which is cardiac arrhythmia, are known to be severe and can lead to death.

Source: UOL