Video file

Citation From the April 6, 2020, edition of Fox News' The Five*

JESSE WATTERS (CO-HOST): There's a lot of stuff now floating around -- let me just get to Dana. There's a lot of stuff floating around about the hydroxychloroquine.

GREG GUTFELD (CO-HOST): Very good.

WATTERS: And the media seems to be almost rooting for it not to work. And in my opinion, if I was about to die, and I had, you know, decision to make, I'd say doc, try anything. And I think that's what the president is saying --

...

DANA PERINO (CO-HOST): This whole debate has really confused me. I actually think the government, including the president, is saying, you know, it could work. We could be hopeful. Your doctor can make that decision. The government is not going to tell doctors that they can't prescribe it. There are some side effects. You have to talk those over with your doctor. But the government, you know, sometimes they're a little bit slow, but scientists are supposed to look at data. We want them to do that. And so I actually think this has been a little bit overblown, and I also don't understand how it becomes a red versus blue issue when we're talking about a possible therapy or a cure.

GUTFELD: Yes.

PERINO: You know, Peter was involved in a therapy back in the late 1980s. And actually, Dr. Fauci knew about it, and there was a Johnson and Johnson sort of -- I think was Johnson and Johnson. But basically, it was -- there was hope that it would treat AIDS. And there was a lot of hope. And the AIDS activists went absolutely crazy and they would protest at Dr. Fauci's office demanding that Dr. Fauci tell every doctor to prescribe AIDS patients with this therapy. And Dr. Fauci kept saying, let's be cautious, we're not sure, we can be hopeful, but let's check. Well, it turns out, it didn't work. And it was a therapy that had a lot of hope that it didn't. I just think that the doctors are being appropriately cautious. But they're not denying people the opportunity to have it if the doctor and the patient decide that it's a good idea.

WATTERS: Right. Katie, what do you think about the fact that this has become such a political issue? And this is a media that's supposed to believe in science and it's supposed to believe in progress, and it's supposed to believe in the doctor-patient relationship. And they go crazy when the president says, hey, this drug's showing signs of hope.

*Editor's note: Due to technical issues, the audio and video are out of sync.