Dr. Oz owns stock in companies that supply hydroxychloroquine, the anti-malaria drug he pushed the White House to use as unproven COVID treatment

Kelsey Vlamis
Updated ·3 min read
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  • Dr. Oz emailed the White House in March 2020 promoting an anti-malaria drug to treat COVID-19.

  • Oz owns stock in two companies that supply the drug, financial disclosures show.

  • Numerous studies have found hydroxychloroquine ineffective at treating COVID-19.

Dr. Mehmet Oz owns shares of two companies that supply hydroxychloroquine, the anti-malaria drug that he urged the White House to push as a treatment for COVID-19 despite a lack of evidence showing its efficacy.

CNBC first reported he owned stock in the companies on Wednesday, citing a financial disclosure. The document showed Oz and his wife owned at least a $615,000 stake in Thermo Fisher Scientific, a supplier that lists hydroxychloroquine as one of its products.

The disclosures also showed Oz and his wife owned between $15,001 and $50,000 worth of shares in McKesson Corporation, which labels and distributes hydroxychloroquine, according to the Food and Drug Administration.

It's unclear when Oz and his wife purchased the shares in the companies. A spokesperson for Oz's campaign did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

In a statement shared with CNBC, Oz campaign spokeswoman Brittany Yanick did not address the stocks but said: "At the outset of the pandemic, Dr. Mehmet Oz spoke with health experts worldwide who were seeing hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin as viable treatment options for desperately ill COVID patients. He offered to fund the clinical trial at Columbia University."

Hydroxychloroquine is an FDA-approved anti-malaria medicine that has been studied for its effectiveness in treating COVID-19. The drug was pushed by former President Donald Trump and prescribed by doctors across the country, however, numerous studies have found the drug is not effective in treating COVID-19. The FDA and the World Health Organization both recommend against using it to treat COVID-19.

Oz, a Republican running for a US Senate seat in Pennsylvania, sent emails to senior White House advisers in the early days of the pandemic promoting hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for COVID-19. The emails were made public last month in a report from the Select House Committee on the Coronavirus Crisis.

The report showed Oz sent separate emails promoting the drug in March 2020 to Jared Kushner, former President Donald Trump's son-in-law, and Dr. Deborah Birx, who was coordinating the administration's coronavirus response. Clinical trials on the drug's effectiveness against COVID-19 had not been completed.

Oz urged the US to begin patient trials and to allow doctors to start prescribing it, citing a French microbiologist who said he had success with the drug but whose tests weren't randomized or peer-reviewed.

"We cannot hide behind study protocols if we are not allowed to proceed," Oz wrote in the email to Birx.

"I want to push brave Americans to join trials on my show tomorrow, but cannot without a game plan for accessing drugs," he said, adding he would "personally recruit patients and pay for a trial" if he was able to obtain the hydroxychloroquine pills.

Oz, who has been endorsed by Trump, is running for Senate against Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, who criticized his opponent for having pushed the drug.

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