Clive Palmer’s coronavirus newspaper ad slammed as ‘dangerous’ and ‘misleading’

Clive Palmer has taken out a massive three page advertisement in the Herald Sun this morning, detailing his efforts to fight coronavirus, but an infectious diseases expert says it’s “dangerous” and “misleading”.

The Australian businessman and former politician bought the huge advertising spread this morning to announce he has purchased almost 33 million doses of anti-malarial drug, hydroxychloroquine, to fight COVID-19 in Australia.

The drug showed promising results in fighting the disease in test tube testing, but further research suggests it is not an effective treatment, and may even be harmful.

“It’s actually quite dangerous and might mislead people to think there’s a drug that might work when in fact the available evidence is it probably does more harm than good and is already killing probably more people than it’s saving from COVID,” Professor Collignon told 3AW’s Ross and John.

“The harm is that any drug we have, whether it’s approved or not, particularly if you use it in high dose … can cause people to have heart arrhythmia, so basically you have a heart attack and can die.

“Also in high doses it can actually cause blindness.”

Professor Collignon said studies in France and Brazil indicate the drug should not be used to treat coronavirus.

“This might have looked good in a test tube … but the current available evidence suggests it kills more people than it saves,” he said.

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Image: Yui Mok – PA Images (Clive Palmer), Herald Sun/Clive Palmer (advertisement)