evidence: Study found higher death rate among veterans taking hydroxychloroquine [...] On Tuesday, defending his apparent decision to take the drug, President Trump dismissed the research as "a bad survey" because doctors administered hydroxychloroquine to patients "that were in very bad shape, they were very old, almost dead." [...] In early May, an observational study of 1,446 patients at New York-Presbyterian-Columbia University Hospital was published showing no benefit to the drug. Of the patients given hydroxychloroquine, 32.3 percent ended up needing a ventilator or dying, compared to 14.9 percent of patients who did not receive the drug. Doctors involved in the study, however, were more likely to give the antimalarial to sicker patients, which most likely skewed the data.