VIDEO - Clive Palmer buys 33 million doses of experimental, potentially dangerous COVID-19 drug
Former MP and billionaire Clive Palmer has taken out an ad in Melbourne newspaper the Herald Sun claiming he has purchased almost 33 million doses of an experimental drug some have claimed works against COVID-19.
In the ad published in this morning's paper, Mr Palmer announced he had purchased 32,900,000 doses of hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malaria drug being tested for usage in combating coronavirus.
Spread over three full pages, the ad claims Mr Palmer intends to treat Australians with the drug via "The Palmer Foundation".
The advertisement placed by Clive Palmer. (Herald Sun/Clive Palmer (advertisement))
"The Palmer Foundation has acquired 32.9 million doses of hydroxychloroquine for treating Australians free of charge," the ad reads.
"Part of this is a significant quantity of the active pharmaceutical ingredient which will enable the manufacture of the tablets right here in Australia."
Hydroxychloroquine first reached mainstream attention when US President Donald Trump championed the drug as a potential cure for COVID-19.
Medical experts have spoken out to warn there is not enough evidence to begin prescribing the drug en-masse to Australians.
Billionaire and former MP Clive Palmer. (AAP)
Studies in American and France have shown the drug to have little impact on coronavirus patients, and a study in Brazil last week had to be halted after 16 people died following being administered high doses of the drug.
The US Food and Drug Administration has warned against the use of hydroxychloroquine and another drug, chloroquine, that have been touted by Mr Trump as potential coronavirus treatments.
They should only be used in hospitals or clinical trials because they can kill or cause serious side effects, the FDA said.
Hydroxychloroquine is a commonly used drug to treat malaria, but has been dubiously linked to curing coronavirus. (AP)
Side effects include serious heart rhythm problems in COVID-19 patients treated with the drugs, especially when they are combined with the antibiotic azithromycin or other medications that can affect the heart.
Professor Peter Collignon, an infectious diseases physician and microbiologist at Canberra Hospital, told 9News the main worry with high doses of this drug was existing heart problems.
"The main risk we're worrying about is it effects the electrical conductions in the heart if you're in high doses so you can suddenly have what we call an arrhythmia and effectively have a heart attack that kills you," he said.
Mr Palmer declined to comment to 9News.