Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) affects around 400,000 people in the UK

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) affects around 400,000 people in the UK and nearly 1.3 million adults in the US.

Women are up to three times more likely to develop the condition than men. Those with family history of rheumatoid arthritis are also more vulnerable.

It is a long-term illness in which the immune system causes the body to attack itself, causing painful, swollen and stiff joints.  

RA, the second most common form of arthritis that often begins between the ages of 40 and 50, tends to strike the hands, wrists and knees.

Scientists are currently unsure as to the exact cause of RA, but smoking, eating lots of red meat and coffee drinkers are at higher risk. 

A cure has yet to be found, but treatments are available and proven to help slow down the progressive condition.

Patients can manage their agonising symptoms with over-the-counter drugs that combat the inflammation, such as aspirin.

But some will need replacement joints to relieve them of their pain. Exercise is recommended as it can help to look after joints.   

President Trump just killed people.

I don’t know how many yet, or who they are, or when they will die, but the one absolute certainty from his public boast that he’s taking hydroxychloroquine is it will cost lives.

Some people will now take it who shouldn’t.

And some people won’t be able to take it who should.

When Trump previously touted the benefits of using disinfectant in the body, I ripped into him for spreading ‘batsh*t crazy’ ideas for a cure during a global pandemic and told him to ‘shut the f*ck up’.

It wasn’t nice language but then this isn’t a very nice situation, is it?

More than 90,000 people in America have now died from coronavirus, by far the worst death toll in the world. Each one of those people left a family mourning the loss of a grandparent, parent, sibling or child.

Speaking at the White house during an event with restaurant workers, Trump suddenly announced to the media that he’s been taking hydroxychloroquine for the past fortnight

The Food and Drug Administration warned in April, after Trump first aired his enthusiasm for it, that hydroxychloroquine can significantly increase the risk of death in people, especially those with heart problems, and cautioned against its use

Trump responded to my critique by unfollowing me on Twitter, cancelling his chaotic self-aggrandizing daily news briefings, and avoiding spewing more insane ‘cures’.

So, he didn’t like my advice, but appeared to take it.

Now, sadly, Dr Trump – a man with all the certainty of Dr House but none of the medical training - is back spewing his dangerous half-baked medical claptrap.

Speaking at the White house during an event with restaurant workers, he suddenly announced to the media that he’s been taking hydroxychloroquine for the past fortnight.

This is a drug normally used to treat people with malaria, or conditions like lupus and rheumatoid arthritis.

But it’s not recommended for use in relation to COVID-19.

The Food and Drug Administration warned in April, after Trump first aired his enthusiasm for it, that hydroxychloroquine can significantly increase the risk of death in people, especially those with heart problems, and cautioned against its use.

‘Hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine have not been shown to be safe and effective for treating or preventing COVID-19,’ the FDA declared.

It was supported by the British Medical Journal which published a study of 150 patients this month that found the drug didn’t significantly improve outcomes for coronavirus patients but did induce potentially serious side effects in a third of those who took it.

The FDA is the US Government’s own public health agency.

Dr. Sean Conley, the White House physician, released a memo Monday night, saying he and Trump discussed the matter and believed the benefits of using hydroxychloroquine outweighed its risk factors

Yet the President has now directly defied its specific advice.

And he’s also ignored America’s top infectious disease expert Dr Anthony Fauci who said last week: ‘We need solid data from a large randomized, controlled clinical trial to determine whether this experimental treatment is safe and can improve clinical outcomes.’

By doing this, Trump has effectively told 320 million Americans to ignore the expert warnings about hydroxychloroquine too.

As with his insane theory that disinfectant should be put inside the body to fight coronavirus – one that led to an immediate spike in people using disinfectant and calling health helplines with serious side effects – it’s hard to think of a more staggeringly irresponsible thing for a President to do.

Yet it’s entirely in keeping with Trump’s whole dangerously erratic behavioral pattern throughout this crisis.

First, he constantly tried to dismiss the coronavirus as nothing much to worry about, assuring us it would disappear ‘like a miracle’.

Then, when it began to spread in America, he constantly insisted he had it all under control.

Then, as it spiraled out of control, and the US death toll surged, he constantly changed the goalposts of what number of deaths would constitute ‘success’.

Then, as the US economy tanked, Trump actively encouraged Americans to defy his own administration’s guidance and break the lockdown and social-distancing rules designed to save their lives – a decision that will lead to many more infections and deaths.

Trump has ignored America’s top infectious disease expert Dr Anthony Fauci who said last week: ‘We need solid data from a large randomized, controlled clinical trial to determine whether this experimental treatment is safe and can improve clinical outcomes’

Now as America’s cases and deaths continue to soar - Trump even ludicrously moaned that the more coronavirus tests were done, the more cases were found, inferring the testing should stop to make him look better - he’s reduced to distracting everyone’s attention from the horrifying loss of life by flouting insane medical theories about how to beat the virus.

Last night’s hydroxychloroquine revelation was so shockingly bad that even anchors from the largely pro-Trump Fox News network moved quickly to plead with viewers not to do what their President is doing.

‘If you are in a risky population here,’ said Neil Cavuto, ‘and you are taking this as a preventative treatment to ward off the virus, or in a worse-case scenario you are dealing with the virus and you are in this vulnerable population, it will kill you. I cannot stress enough. This will KILL you.’

It was one of the most startling moments of television I’ve ever watched, and it was followed by the extraordinary spectacle of Nancy Pelosi, his most bitter rival, pleading with Trump to stop taking the drug because she doesn’t want him to die.

Let’s be very clear: there is no evidence hydroxychloroquine can prevent you from being infected by COVID-19. None.

Nor is there any proven evidence it can be used to treat COVID patients in a significantly beneficial way.

A trial in China established it did not speed up the recovery of any patients.

And New York researchers last week said patients in its studies got no benefits from the drug.

So, there is no demonstrable upside for anyone to take it in relation to coronavirus.

But there is a big potential downside.

Leading doctors have warned of serious side effects including arrhythmia, a condition that throws off the process that makes the heart beat in time.

One trial in Brazil actually had to be stopped because so many of the enrolled coronavirus patients treated with hydroxychloroquine developed this very issue.

Harvard scientists reported in a separate review of 10 studies that it may even impair the ability of patients’ immune systems to fight off the virus.

Even anchors from the largely pro-Trump Fox News network moved quickly to plead with viewers not to do what their President is doing. ‘If you are in a risky population here,’ said Neil Cavuto, ‘and you are taking this as a preventative treatment to ward off the virus, or in a worse-case scenario you are dealing with the virus and you are in this vulnerable population, it will kill you. I cannot stress enough. This will KILL you’

It was followed by the extraordinary spectacle of Nancy Pelosi, his most bitter rival, pleading with Trump to stop taking the drug because she doesn’t want him to die

And a study of hundreds of patients at US Veterans Health Administration medical centers found that those treated with hydroxychloroquine had much higher death rates than those who weren’t.

It wasn’t even close: the 97 patients who took it had a 27.8% mortality rate compared to 11.4% of the 158 patients who didn’t.

The conclusion from all this is obvious: hydroxychloroquine, for some people, can be a killer.

That’s why it is so vitally important that only those who absolutely need it, for things like malaria, are prescribed it.

Yet now the President of the United States has said he’s taking it to ward off coronavirus, many millions of people around the world will think they should be too.

That, as I said at the start of this column, will inevitably mean some will take it for COVID-19 who shouldn’t, and it will kill them.

And it also means that some others who desperately need it, to repel other illnesses, will inevitably not be able to get their usual supply due to massive increased demand, so it will kill them too.

Either way, people will die because President Trump has once again decided he knows better than the science and medical experts.

It’s a disgraceful abuse of his power and position, and a woefully negligent act for any leader to take during the world’s worst health crisis in 100 years.

‘I was just waiting to see your eyes light up when I said this, when I announced this,’ Trump told reporters excitedly.

They did indeed light up, in the same way that mine did when I heard what he’d said: with utter horror.

Shame on you, Mr President.