hydroxy chloroquine rx
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merri ok
see misinfo
see fail 3 covid
see fox ingraham
hannity 5 25
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MMA
Sean Hannity has a lot to say about the “stupid flu shot” all of a sudden
Sean Hannity used to tell his audience about getting the flu shot every year and how much it helped him. Now, he’s calling it a “stupid flu shot.”
Written by Helena Hind
Research contributions from Alicia Sadowski & Isabella Corrao
Published 05/29/25
Citation
Fox News, 9/16/2020
After years of assuring his audience that he regularly gets his yearly flu vaccination, Sean Hannity has suddenly changed his tune, casting doubt on the efficacy of the “stupid flu shot” during the May 28 edition of his radio show.
The MAGA propagandist’s comments come as harmful anti-vaccine policy takes root in the Trump administration, with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. bucking the normal scientific review process and removing the COVID-19 vaccine from the CDC’s recommended immunizations for children and those who are pregnant.
During the May 28 edition of The Sean Hannity Show, guest Dr. Brian Tyson claimed that COVID-19 booster vaccines are “negative effective, just like last year's flu shot.” Hannity jumped in: “Well, people don't understand that. Every year, they will start producing a flu virus. They're guessing what flu is likely to hit. They don't know for sure”
The Fox News host continued: “My understanding is they're wrong 75% of the time, and people, you know, annually go get the stupid flu shot anyway.”
Sean Hannity attacks COVID vaccines and the “stupid flu shot”
May 28, 2025
Audio file
Audio
Citation
From the May 28, 2025, edition of Premiere Radio Networks' The Sean Hannity Show
SEAN HANNITY (HOST): And even the creator, who I know you're familiar with, Dr. Robert Malone, was very outspoken, and he came on this program often. And he said that mRNA technology has not been perfected. He did support emergency authorization vaccinations for people over 65 that had preexisting conditions and comorbidities because they were the ones that were more likely to be -- their lives would be put in jeopardy by the virus. He absolutely was crystal clear. It was not designed for healthy people that were younger, meaning below the age of 65, and it's absolutely not designed for children.
Now, he's the one that created the technology that allowed for the creation of this, and he's saying this. And then he gets excoriated like you got excoriated for trying alternative treatment, which, by the way, studies, since that time have proven that you were right about things like hydroxychloroquine taken early, mitigating circumstances.
How many studies now have come out confirming that? How many studies have come out showing that masks really didn't help? How many studies came out, you know, showing that your protocols actually worked? How many patients' lives did you save, and how many patients did you lose in the process?
DR. BRIAN TYSON (GUEST): Yeah. I mean, it's -- so you're 100% correct. If you go to the website c19.org, you'll be able to pull up all the different treatments and all of the studies that are listed underneath those. There's over 400 studies on hydroxychloroquine, there's over 300 studies on ivermectin.
What we found was early treatment is the key. It's not about vaccines at this point because these vaccines are not effective. Actually, they're negative effective, just like last year's flu shot. Last year's flu shot had a negative efficacy of 26%, meaning those who got the flu shot were more likely to get the flu. It's the same thing with these COVID vaccine boosters.
HANNITY: Well, people don't understand that. Every year, they will start producing a flu virus. They're guessing what flu is likely to hit. They don't know for sure. And my understanding is that they're wrong 75% of the time, and people, you know, annually go get the stupid flu shot anyway.
TYSON: Yeah. But they made $6 billion off of it last year. And that's the problem. When you continuously approve vaccines without data and without research -- this is where you know the MAHA movement is -- hopefully it's going to make some ground -- you can't continue to produce vaccines without seeing the results. And you have to start holding the pharmaceutical companies accountable.
Once upon a time, Hannity was among those who chose to “go get the stupid flu shot” every year. In April 2020, the Fox host told his radio listeners it was “my choice” to “get a flu shot every year.” Months later, he said his choice to get his annual shot is “what freedom’s all about."
That November, in an attempt to assure his listeners that the COVID-19 vaccine was safe, he said he has “taken the flu shot for many, many years with no side effects at all whatsoever… it’s helped me."
Hannity also proclaimed his dedication to regular flu immunization to his Fox News audience: “I choose to get the flu shot every year and some of my friends think I’m nuts."
Video
Citation
From the September 16, 2020, edition of Fox News' Hannity
Hannity’s sudden reversal on the “stupid flu shot” is hardly surprising, considering his yearslong assault on the COVID-19 vaccine, his network’s dedication to pushing anti-vaccine narratives, and the Trump administration’s adoption of vaccine skepticism as policy.
Meanwhile, the American Medical Association recommends on its website that “everyone aged six months or older should receive an annual flu shot.” The AMA has more on the flu vaccine and the COVID vaccine here. On its YouTube page, the AMA also its for the flu and COVID vaccine in 2024.
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Fauci blames Fox News’ Laura Ingraham for Trump's obsession with COVID “miracle cures like hydroxychloroquine”
06/18/24 mma
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intercept 8 23
hacked Records Corroborate Claims in Hydroxychloroquine Wrongful Death Suit
Micah Lee
Jeremy Parker died soon after taking the drug, which was prescribed to him by a physician with the anti-vaccine group America’s Frontline Doctors.
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6? 2020 an 22x?
when Peter Navarro, one of President Donald Trump’s top economic advisers, appeared on CNN’s “New Day” on Tuesday morning, July 7, he not only tried to put a rosy spin on Trump’s response to the coronavirus surge in Florida and other Sun Belt states — Navarro also refused to criticize Trump’s recent defense of Confederate symbols. But host John Berman didn’t let him get away with it, grilling Navarro relentlessly. And instead of saying anything critical of Trump, Navarro recalled his own experience with Jim Crow laws in the late 1950s.
Navarro, now 70, told Berman, “My awakening on the race issue was when I was eight years old in a Woolworth's store in West Palm Beach, Florida when I walked over and I took a drink from the colored water fountain because I wanted to see colored water.And this woman came up to me and just gently said, ‘You can’t, can’t drink from that.’ And I go, ‘Why?’ She says, ‘That’s for colored people.’ It’s like — I mean, I’m eight years old, and that didn’t make sense to me….. I’m a Californian; we don't see race out there.”
Most of the interview was devoted to Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, and Navarro tried to promote hydroxychloroquine — which Trump has touted as a miracle drug for fighting COVID-19. But the drug’s benefits against coronavirus are unproven, and health experts (including Dr. Anthony Fauci) have warned that it can have dangerous side effects. Nonetheless, Navarro doubled down on his support of hydroxychloroquine as a possible COVID-19 treatment, telling Berman, “It will save lives.”
During the interview, Berman demanded to know why the number of new COVID-19 infections is “rising” in the U.S. even though infection rates have decreased in France, Italy, Germany, South Korea and other countries. “What is unique about the United States, where we’re seeing the increase?,” the CNN host asked.
Navarro was evasive, telling Berman, “That’s not my lane to answer that question” and echoing President Donald Trump’s rhetoric about COVID-19 being a “China virus.”
Trump’s economic adviser told Berman that if the U.S. “locks down too hard,” it will hurt the country economically. But Berman noted that states that reopened non-essential businesses too soon are now seeing COVID-19 surges.
Berman went on to grill Navarro about Trump’s refusal to wear a mask, and Navarro complained that members of the mainstream media have “beat that one to death.” Berman, however, responded that prominent Republicans like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell are now encouraging mask wearing — to which Navarro responded, “I’m not going to go there.”
Watch the video below:
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mma 9 22
Then-President Donald Trump ordered Alex Azar, then his health and human services secretary, to immediately approve the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine as a coronavirus treatment because Fox News host Laura Ingraham had said it was effective, according to a new book.
Trump, an avid Fox viewer who regularly turned the network’s programming into White House policy, became transfixed by the drug after his trusted Fox hosts started talking it up in mid-March of 2020, as the novel coronavirus swept across the country. If hydroxychloroquine had worked as the COVID-19 miracle cure Fox claimed, it would have allowed Americans to swiftly return to normal life without fear of becoming seriously ill from the virus. Unfortunately, hydroxychloroquine is not an effective coronavirus treatment, according to numerous studies as well as U.S. and international health agencies.
Peter Baker and Susan Glasser shed new light on the role Fox played in convincing Trump that hydroxychloroquine would be a COVID-19 “game changer” in their new book, The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021.
They chronicle a phone call between Trump and Azar that took place on March 18, 2020, two days after Ingraham had praised the hydroxychloroquine’s potential during an interview with the Long Island lawyer Gregory Rigano, who championed the drug.
“Laura says hydroxychloroquine works. It’s perfectly safe, so just approve it,” they write that Trump told Azar during the phone call.
When Azar protested, the then-president told him, “Laura takes it. It’s safe,” Baker and Glasser report.
“I want it approved today. That’s an order,” he ultimately demanded, according to the book.
After Trump publicly touted hydroxychloroquine at a press briefing the day after his call with Azar, the Fox-Trump feedback loop went into full swing: Fox ran hundreds of segments talking up the drug’s benefits; Trump tweeted praise of the drug in response to the coverage and successfully pressured health officials to issue guidance supporting the use of the drug as a coronavirus treatment; and Ingraham visited the White House with two members of her “medicine cabinet” to meet with Trump and FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn and push for additional support for the treatment.
The federal government ultimately amassed a stockpile of 66 million doses of a drug that is not effective in treating COVID-19 because Fox hosts told Trump that it worked and he believed them. Meanwhile, the network moved on to peddling ivermectin, another drug studies show is ineffective in treating COVID-19, while slandering the actually effective COVID-19 vaccines. The results for Fox’s viewers have been devastating.
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https://theintercept.com/2021/09/28/covid-telehealth-hydroxychloroquine-ivermectin-hacked/
a NETWORK OF health care providers pocketed millions of dollars selling hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin, and online consultations, according to hacked data provided to The Intercept. The data show that vast sums of money are being extracted from people concerned about or suffering from Covid-19 but resistant to vaccinations or other recommendations of public health authorities.
America’s Frontline Doctors, a right-wing group founded last year to promote pro-Trump doctors during the coronavirus pandemic, is working in tandem with a small network of health care companies to sow distrust in the Covid-19 vaccine, dupe tens of thousands of people into seeking ineffective treatments for the disease, and then sell consultations and millions of dollars’ worth of those medications. The data indicate patients spent at least $15 million — and potentially much more — on consultations and medications combined.
Intercept has obtained hundreds of thousands of records from two companies, CadenceHealth.us and Ravkoo, revealing just how the lucrative operation works. America’s Frontline Doctors, or AFLDS, has been spreading highly politicized misinformation about Covid-19 since the summer of 2020 and refers its many followers to its telemedicine partner SpeakWithAnMD.com, which uses Cadence Health as a platform. People who sign up then pay $90 for a phone consultation with “AFLDS-trained physicians” who prescribe treatments such as hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin to prevent and treat Covid-19. The drugs are delivered by Ravkoo, a service that works with local pharmacies to ship drugs to patients’ doors. Of course, that’s if patients ever get the consultation; many customers told Time they never received the call after paying.
The data from the Cadence Health and Ravkoo sites was provided to The Intercept by an anonymous hacker who said the sites were “hilariously easy” to hack, despite promises of patient privacy. It was corroborated by comparing it to publicly available information. The Intercept is not publishing any individual patient data and has taken steps to secure the data. After The Intercept reached out, Cadence Health’s Roque Espinal-Valdez said he shut the platform down, not wanting any part in profiting off of Covid-19 “quackery.”...
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rudy radio study for ducey gov
HCQ says gov't is hoarding; ivermectin
Dr. Jane Orient Discusses COVID-19 Treatment with Mayor Rudy Giuliani
3,639 viewsMay 5, 2020
Association of American Physicians and Surgeons
53K subscribers
On WABC 770AM, May 5, 2020.
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A Senate hearing promoted unproven drugs and dubious ...https://www.nytimes.com › 2020/12/08 › technology › a-...
Dec 8, 2020 — Hydroxychloroquine is an antimalarial drug that President Trump has heavily ... Dr. Jane M. Orient, a prominent skeptic of vaccines, ...
TECHNOLOGY
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A Senate hearing promoted unproven drugs and dubious claims about the coronavirus
Tracking Viral Misinformation: Latest Updates
A Senate hearing promoted unproven drugs and dubious claims about the coronavirus
Dec. 8, 2020
By Linda Qiu
Senator Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin, at the Capitol last week, has embraced the role of the Senate’s leading contrarian on the coronavirus.]
Senator Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin, spent much of this year promoting investigations into Hunter Biden, trying fruitlessly to show corruption on the part of Joseph R. Biden Jr.
Now Mr. Johnson, the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, is more focused on another narrative sympathetic to President Trump if not to established science: that the reaction to the coronavirus pandemic has been overblown and that public health officials have been too quick to come to conclusions about the best ways to deal with it.
So on Tuesday, for not the first time, Mr. Johnson lent his committee’s platform to the promotion of unproven drugs and dubious claims about stemming the spread of the coronavirus while giving prominence to a vaccine skeptic.
In a move that led even most members of his own party on the committee to avoid the hearing, Mr. Johnson called witnesses who promoted the use of hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin. The National Institutes of Health guidelines recommend against using either drug to treat coronavirus patients except in clinical trials.
Hydroxychloroquine is an antimalarial drug that President Trump has heavily promoted but has shown disappointing results in many clinical trials. Ivermectin is used to treat parasites in humans as well as to prevent heartworms in dogs; research on its effectiveness in treating the coronavirus has been mixed.
Despite the regulatory warnings and the lack of substantial scientific evidence for their efficacy, Mr. Johnson claimed that “discouraging and in some cases prohibiting the research and use of drugs that have been safely used for decades has cost tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people their lives.”
Just three other senators on the 14-member committee attended Tuesday’s session — “such low participation,” Mr. Johnson acknowledged at one point.Senator Gary Peters of Michigan, the top Democrat on the committee, criticized the hearing in opening remarks but left before asking questions. On the Republican side, only Senators Rand Paul of Kentucky and Josh Hawley of Missouri made appearances.
For about two and a half hours, the participants continuously challenged public health consensus, sometimes advancing inaccurate and previously debunked claims.
One witness, Dr. Ramin Oskoui, a cardiologist in Washington, argued that “masks do not work” and “social distancing doesn’t work” by citing a recent study published in The New England Journal of Medicine.
The study tracked virus transmission among Marine Corps recruits who underwent quarantine. But two of the study’s authors refuted Dr. Oskoui’s interpretation. Rather, they said, the study showed that nonpharmaceutical interventions like masks and social distancing cannot be relied on alone to eliminate transmission.
“For me, drawing the conclusion from our study that masking is not effective is like claiming that car brakes are not effective in preventing crashes because accidents still occur when they are used,” said Dr. Stuart C. Sealfon, the senior author of the study and a professor at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. “This is either a mistaken or a deliberately misleading interpretation of the results of the study.”
Dr. Sealfon added: “In view of the preponderance of evidence in the scientific literature supporting the benefits of mask wearing in reducing the transmission of SARS-COV-2, no reasonable scientist would conclude that these measures are ineffective. They are very effective, but they are not foolproof.”
Throughout the hearing, Dr. Oskoui also promoted prescribing zinc and vitamin D. He said that the United States should follow the example of Britain and distribute vitamin D supplements to older people.
The N.I.H. also recommends against using zinc to treat the coronavirus except in clinical trials. The British government has offered 2.5 million people free vitamin D to keep bones and muscle healthy, especially as more people stayed indoors, but the National Health Service has noted that “there is currently not enough evidence to support taking vitamin D to prevent or treat coronavirus.”
Dr. Jane M. Orient, a prominent skeptic of vaccines, also cast doubt on mask wearing, suggesting that “maybe instead of putting masks on everybody, we should be putting lids on the toilet or putting Clorox into it before you flush it.” While there is some evidence that toilet bowls can be infectious, the virus is most commonly distributed through close contact with others, and masks do offer some protection.
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Dr. Orient also cited “192 studies compiled on hydroxychloroquine with all showing some benefit when used early.”
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That appeared to be an exaggerated reference to a database of studies gathered by an anonymous group. Of those studies, about 40 were categorized as researching use of hydroxychloroquine as an early treatment, and about two dozen of those concluding that the drug demonstrated “positive” effects.
Mr. Hawley criticized lockdowns as harmful to mental health, accurately citing a government survey showing that a quarter of young adults seriously thought about suicide in June. He then repeated an inaccurate claim from Mr. Trump that the World Health Organization no longer recommends lockdowns.
Mr. Johnson himself echoed praise for hydroxychloroquine, claiming that Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, also “talked” about the drug. While it is true that Dr. Fauci has discussed hydroxychloroquine in the pandemic, he has warned against its use.
As the hearing drew to a close, the senator offered his opinion of the severity of the pandemic.
“It’s certainly worse than the flu, but is it that much worse to cause that much economic devastation with that severe of a human toll?” Mr. Johnson asked.
That prompted almost immediate pushback from one of his own witnesses, Dr. Jayanta Bhattacharya of Stanford University School of Medicine, who told the senator: “It is worse than the flu.”
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NOTE CORP CNP ALEC KOCH BASTARDS USE HYDROXY IN CYNICAL? FURY? MOVE TO RE-OPEN ECONOMY
9/20
https://washingtonspectator.org/anatomy-of-deceit/
On July 27, a dozen physicians posed in front of the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., dressed in white lab coats with “America’s Frontline Doctors” stitched over the pocket. The group’s chief spokesperson was Dr. Simone Gold, an emergency physician from Los Angeles. They were introduced by Jenny Beth Martin, the founding CEO of Tea Party Patriots, as participants in the “White Coat Summit.” The doctors made spirited arguments for the use of hydroxychloroquine as a “cure” for Covid-19 and against wearing masks and imposing lockdowns—all running counter to the recommendations of Dr. Anthony Fauci and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.[[1]](https://washingtonspectator.org/anatomy-of-deceit/#_ftn1)
Although the event was billed as a “press conference,” few journalists attended. A video posted by a bystander showed only a handful of attendees, most of them dressed in tourists’ shorts and T-shirts. But the event was livestreamed by Breitbart News and quickly went (so to speak) viral.
There was a rapid backlash. Much of the media attention focused onDr. Stella Immanuel, one of Gold’s cohort. Following the press conference, the Daily Beast posted a video of Immanuel, who is also a Pentecostal preacher, delivering a sermon claiming that various female ailments were caused by sexual visitations from “demons.”
Immanuel has since disappeared from the America’s Frontline Doctors online roster, but the group has continued to get traction. On August 10, Pat Robertson’s show on the Christian Broadcasting Network carried an interview with Simone Gold and an endorsement of her hydroxychloroquine cure.On August 21, Alex Jones’s NewsWars carried an interview with another member of America’s Frontline Doctors, Mark McDonald. McDonald—a child psychiatrist—maintained, “If all Americans had access to hydroxychloroquine, the pandemic would essentially end in about 30 days.”
Science has shown otherwise. Despite early hopes last spring, there is mounting evidence that hydroxychloroquine is a problematic—and even dangerous—treatment for Covid-19. One expert with firsthand knowledge is Nick Sawyer, an academic emergency physician in Sacramento, Calif. In July he wrote an article for Lifeline, the publication of the California chapter of the American College of Emergency Physicians, describing his harrowing two weeks of service in the Covid wards of Elmhurst Hospital in Queens. Sawyer was part of a team of California doctors dispatched by Governor Gavin Newsome to offer emergency assistance at the epicenter of the epidemic, at the height of the New York City outbreak.
Sawyer is now dealing with the spike in cases in California, this time with the benefit of four months of additional Covid research. “The science on the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine in treating Covid-19 is settled—multiple high-quality studies have shown that it shows no benefit,” he notes. Far more concerning, Sawyer says, is its potential harm: “Hydroxychloroquine can cause unstable cardiac arrhythmias, cardiac arrest and sudden cardiac death.” Over recent months, the Food and Drug Administration, the American Medical Association, and other organizations have issued warnings that the drug should be withdrawn as a Covid-19 treatment. “It’s irresponsible for America’s Frontline Doctors to continue to push this medication on the unwitting American population,” Sawyer states.
Why, then, would Gold’s band of physicians continue its campaign to pitch the treatment to the public? Simone Gold has repeatedly described her group as a “grassroots organization” acting in the service of its patients.[[2]](https://washingtonspectator.org/anatomy-of-deceit/#_ftn2) In fact, it has been a highly orchestrated effort, months in the making, assembled by conservative Washington insiders in direct consultation with the White House, with the goal of reopening the economy in time to benefit Trump’s reelection prospects—regardless of the toll in human lives.
The first public mention of the initiative may have been a Washington Post story on April 13, as the virus raged across New York City and Covid-19 deaths passed the 20,000 mark.[[3]](https://washingtonspectator.org/anatomy-of-deceit/#_ftn3) The Post reported the creation of a new conservative coalition “pushing for the White House and GOP lawmakers to push back against health professionals who have urged more caution.” The leadership was listed as Stephen Moore of the Heritage Foundation, Adam Brandon of FreedomWorks, and Lisa Nelson of the American Legislative Exchange Council. A fourth individual, Jenny Beth Martin, is the founding director of the Tea Party Patriots. She would play a key role in organizing the events to come, including the doctors’ Washington “summit” in July.
Brandon, Nelson, and Martin are all prominent members of a secretive organization called the Council for National Policy,a shadowy coalition that coordinates initiatives among conservative megadonors, political operatives, and media owners, many of them Christian fundamentalists (see “Holding Democracy Hostage”).
The Post story quoted an interview with Richard Viguerie, a co-founder of the CNP, on the mission of the initiative: “The sooner we get the economy going and back up, the better it’s going to be for conservatives and Republicans in this election year. . . . Conservatives feel the government has overreacted, and it’s got to end.”[[4]](https://washingtonspectator.org/anatomy-of-deceit/#_ftn4)
The new coalition, called Save Our Country, officially debuted on April 27, as U.S. Covid deaths approached 55,000.[[5]](https://washingtonspectator.org/anatomy-of-deceit/#_ftn5) Headed by economist Art Laffer, its maiden press release featured quotes from Brandon, Nelson, and Martin. “The long-term consequences of a prolonged societal shutdown outweigh the damage done by the virus itself,” Martin stated. “We must immediately reopen the economy.”[[6]](https://washingtonspectator.org/anatomy-of-deceit/#_ftn6) Earlier that week, The New York Times reported that the Save Our Country coalition’s members were mobilizing their networks for state-level rallies, filing lawsuits, and commissioning polls, all to counter the lockdowns: “Nonprofit groups including FreedomWorks and Tea Party Patriots have used their social media accounts and text and email lists to spread the word about protests across the country.”[[7]](https://washingtonspectator.org/anatomy-of-deceit/#_ftn7)
But the state-level protests turned out to be of limited utility, and the group began to look for new avenues. In April, CNP Action, the lobbying arm of the CNP, began a series of weekly conference calls to discuss Covid strategy. On May 11—as U.S. Covid deaths reached 74,270[[8]](https://washingtonspectator.org/anatomy-of-deceit/#_ftn8)—one of the calls was intercepted and published by the Center for Media and Democracy and the Associated Press.
Among the participants were CNP President William Walton, CNP member Nancy Schulze,[[9]](https://washingtonspectator.org/anatomy-of-deceit/#_ftn9) and Mercedes Schlapp, a senior adviser to the Trump campaign. Schulze, the wife of former nine-term Pennsylvania Republican Congressman Dick Schulze, opened the call with a warning that two-thirds of the American people were wary of reopening the economy. But, she added, “Doctors are seen by the American people—they have a 92 percent trust rate with the American people according to polling. . . . There is a coalition of doctors, doctors’ coalition, who are extremely pro-Trump, that have been preparing and coming together for the war ahead in the campaign on health care, andthese doctors could be activated for this conversation now for reopening. NOTE RWI NICHE SLEEPER CELLS]
“The one thing the left does give credence to, in that they tend to be motivated by a secular worldview, the one thing that they do appreciate and listen to is science, and we have doctors that have the facts, that lived this themselves, that are in the trenches, that are saying it’s time to reopen,” Schulze continued. “I’ve been working with them for three years. There’s a coalition of doctors . . . including the most respected doctors in this country, that are ready to speak if somebody will just call on them.”
Walton told her, “We need to not just make the economic argument,we need to make the health argument, and we need doctors to make that argument, not us. THIRD PARTY TOBACCO PR BS And so that would be great if you, if we could tee that up.”
Schulze said she’d be happy to put him in touch “with any and all of these doctors, and I have submitted 27 of these doctors’ names to the campaign for the doctors’ coalition that they’re in the process of building.”
Mercedes Schlapp asked Schulze if she had spoken with Hannah Castillo, director of coalitions for the Trump campaign.“I know they’ve been working on building that coalition. I know they’re going through the vetting process right now. As long as you have the names, that would be helpful. . . . Those are the type of guys we want to get out on TV and radio to help push out the message.”
Schulze replied, “I’ve been working with Hannah for over six weeks now, so they already have been vetted. But they need to be put on the screen.”[[10]](https://washingtonspectator.org/anatomy-of-deceit/#_ftn10)
Dr. Simone Gold, a 54-year-old emergency physician from Los Angeles, was ready for her close-up. On April 22, Gold had tweeted a stand-up of herself wearing a white “Emergency Dept.” coat, in front of Los Angeles’ Cedars-Sinai hospital emergency room, suggesting that concerns over the virus were inflated. She pointed out that the hospital “parking lots are empty, the emergency department volume is down, the patient census is down, and that’s really in most of the areas I’ve been to.”[[11]](https://washingtonspectator.org/anatomy-of-deceit/#_ftn11)
On May 7, she brought a more explicit anti-lockdown message to a program on the Whiskey Politics show on Salem Radio, part of the massive Salem Media conglomerate owned by two leading members of the Council for National Policy.[[12]](https://washingtonspectator.org/anatomy-of-deceit/#_ftn12) It was headlined “DR. SIMONE GOLD GOES PUBLIC! What the Government WON’T Tell Us About COVID-19.”
“It’s not at all clear that overall, that social distancing is going to make a huge impact,” Gold said.[[13]](https://washingtonspectator.org/anatomy-of-deceit/#_ftn13) “We’re all acting like as though there’s a huge medical crisis. There’s a medical issue, we should handle it responsibly, but what’s going on in our country now is a terrible legal crisis. Our constitutional rights are being trampled on right and left.”[[14]](https://washingtonspectator.org/anatomy-of-deceit/#_ftn14) Gold later added, “There’s always viruses . . . but I’m not sure that it’s front-page news.”[[15]](https://washingtonspectator.org/anatomy-of-deceit/#_ftn15)
The Guardian reported that over the same period, the Save Our Country coalition spent $50,000 on videos on social media platforms “targeting independents and Republicans with the message that Covid-19 mostly hits the elderly to minimize risks for others.”[16] GUK
On May 19—as U.S. Covid deaths reached 84,640[[17]](https://washingtonspectator.org/anatomy-of-deceit/#_ftn17)—the CNP’s doctors coalition (billed as “A Doctor A Day”) made its debut with an open letter to Donald Trump signed by “500+ doctors” (a number that was later revised to over 800). “In medical terms, the shutdown was a mass casualty incident,” it stated. “It is impossible to overstate the short, medium, and long-term harm to people’s health with a continued shutdown.” The lead signatory was Dr. Simone Gold.
On June 16—with U.S. Covid deaths approaching 110,000[[18]](https://washingtonspectator.org/anatomy-of-deceit/#_ftn18) and the U.S. economy in freefall—the Save Our Country coalition published an open letter to President Trump and Leader McConnell, urging “that the multi-trillions of dollars of federal government debt spending in the wake of the Coronavirus come to a stop.”[[19]](https://washingtonspectator.org/anatomy-of-deceit/#_ftn19) Twelve of the 20 signatories (among them Brandon, Nelson, and Martin) were members of the CNP, including CNP President William Walton and Executive Director Bob McEwen.
The push to reopen the schools became a full-court press. On July 7, Trump assembled a White House meeting on the subject. Jenny Beth Martin spoke as both the CEO of Tea Party Patriots and “as a mom.”
“Mr. President, you were right, and I hope you will trust your instincts,” she told Trump. “America is not meant to be shut down. And we have to reopen schools this fall. I’ve been in touch with almost a thousand doctors from around the country. I helped Dr. Simone Gold spearhead a letter to you signed by 800 physicians and surgeons who talked about the side effects of the lockdowns. I’ve done a second letter with over 150 doctors, 240 nurses, 330 educators, 70 national groups, and thousands of parents and concerned Americans who want to see schools reopened.”
A video of Martin’s statement appeared, billed as “Mom Gives Unexpected Speech Directly to Trump” without naming her or her affiliation. It was posted on various social media platforms, including Glenn Beck’s YouTube channel, The Blaze (where it clocked over 400,000 views as of August 4).[[20]](https://washingtonspectator.org/anatomy-of-deceit/#_ftn20)
Dr. Simone Gold was now preparing to join Jenny Beth Martin on center stage. On July 22, Gold warmed up for her appearance on The Charlie Kirk Show, with over 157,000 YouTube subscribers. Kirk, a member of the Council for National Policy, heads a group called Turning Point USA, which recruits right-wing campus activists. (Donald Trump addressed its Youth Action Summit last December, and Donald Trump Jr. is quoted on its website stating, “I’m convinced that the work by Turning Point USA and Charlie Kirk will win back the future of America.”)[[21]](https://washingtonspectator.org/anatomy-of-deceit/#_ftn21)
The introduction for Kirk’s show summed up the case Gold and her colleagues would make over the coming weeks: “Charlie is joined in studio by board-certified emergency physician Dr. Simon [sic] Gold, who says nearly everything we’ve been told about the Chinese Coronavirus is a lie.She and Charlie take a deep dive into the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine and why the U.S. government is barring physicians from prescribing the drug—endangering potentially 100,000 lives, at least. Charlie also takes on Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx, asking if Dr. Gold challenges the effectiveness of wearing masks. Dr. Gold makes a stunning and factual assertion about the death rates and who exactly is to blame for what she believes is one of the biggest lies ever perpetrated against the American people.” [[22]](https://washingtonspectator.org/anatomy-of-deceit/#_ftn22)
Gold’s “stunning assertion” was the often-repeated claim that doctors were falsifying death certificates, speculating without foundation that they were inflating Covid-19 cases by “20 to 30 percent.”[[23]](https://washingtonspectator.org/anatomy-of-deceit/#_ftn23) Gold also asserted, “Masks are really foolish, they don’t do anything. . . . There’s zero scientific justification for the mask.”[[24]](https://washingtonspectator.org/anatomy-of-deceit/#_ftn24)
Jenny Beth Martin emphasized a social media campaign from the start. Her Tea Party Patriots website posted the program of the White Coat Summit, offering the participating doctors a two-hour session devoted to expanding their social media reach: “YouTube and other social media vastly exceed television news as the information source for most Americans. Interviews and Q/A with social media personalities with large followers is the best way to talk to Americans. Doctors who want to answer questions from these modern journalists will have the opportunity.”
By the time Jenny Beth Martin hosted Gold’s White Coat Summit on July 27, U.S. Covid-19 deaths had skyrocketed to over 136,000.[[25]](https://washingtonspectator.org/anatomy-of-deceit/#_ftn25) The physicians’ presentation carried a lethal stew of misinformation. Dr. Bob Hamilton, a pediatrician from Santa Monica, assured viewers, “Children are not passing [the virus] on to their parents or their teachers.” (A few days later, the CDC released a report on a massive transmission event in June at a Georgia summer camp, with a median age of 12.[[26]](https://washingtonspectator.org/anatomy-of-deceit/#_ftn26))
Dr. Richard Urso—an ophthalmologist—praised hydroxychloroquine as a “cure” for the virus,but it was not clear that Urso had ever had any significant experience treating Covid-19 patients. Another speaker was Dr. Daniel Erickson, a Bakersfield physician who co-owns an urgent care facility. In April he had been censured by the American College of Emergency Physicians and the American Academy of Emergency Medicine for his “reckless and untested musings” opposing stay-at-home orders and promoting the conspiracy theory about doctors misattributing deaths to Covid-19.[[27]](https://washingtonspectator.org/anatomy-of-deceit/#_ftn27)
The social media strategy paid off. Gold and her colleagues’ video, livestreamed on Breitbart News, reportedly reached 185,000 concurrent users.[[28]](https://washingtonspectator.org/anatomy-of-deceit/#_ftn28) The New York Times’ Kevin Roose reported that over its six hours on Facebook, it was the second-most-engaged post on the platform, with 14 million views.[[29]](https://washingtonspectator.org/anatomy-of-deceit/#_ftn29) (The audiences for network news broadcasts, by comparison, range from 9 to 12 million.) A few hours after the presentation, President Trump tweeted the video to his 84.5 million followers. Donald Trump Jr. told his 5.3 million Twitter followers, “This video is a much [sic] watch!!! So different from the narrative everyone is running with.”[[30]](https://washingtonspectator.org/anatomy-of-deceit/#_ftn30) Trump redoubled his support at his press conference the following day, stating “I think they’re very respected doctors.”[[31]](https://washingtonspectator.org/anatomy-of-deceit/#_ftn31)
But major social media platforms reacted with relative speed. Facebook took the group’s video down a few hours after it was posted, and Twitter and YouTube followed suit, all three on the grounds that the video violated their Covid-19 misinformation policies.[[32]](https://washingtonspectator.org/anatomy-of-deceit/#_ftn32) Twitter took the unusual step of suspending Trump Jr.’s account for 12 hours.
Gold had built the original America’s Frontline Doctors website on a SquareSpace platform, but SquareSpace took it down. Gold rebuilt the website (omitting Stella Immanuel of “demon sperm” renown) and started raising money through PayPal and fundly.com. The doctors’ program also remained on the Tea Party Patriots site.
There was an additional reaction to the doctors’ “frontline” Covid credentials. MedPageToday, a peer-reviewed medical news site, was unable to find evidence that any of America’s Frontline Doctors in Washington had served in “frontline” emergency rooms during the Covid epidemic.[[33]](https://washingtonspectator.org/anatomy-of-deceit/#_ftn33) Simone Gold came under additional scrutiny. Her initial Whiskey Politics introduction described her as a “frontline doctor” in an “inner-city emergency room” that treated “150 patients a day,” but neither her LinkedIn profile nor other available sources listed the emergency room in question. Her personal website (taken down amid the controversy but archived) described her as a “Concierge Immediate Needs Physician” working in “C-Suite Medicine.”[[34]](https://washingtonspectator.org/anatomy-of-deceit/#_ftn34)
On July 29, Cedars-Sinai, the backdrop for Gold’s Twitter video, issued a disavowal stating, “Simone Gold, MD, has not worked with Cedars-Sinai Medical Center or any of its offices or affiliates since 2015. For three weeks in late 2015, Dr. Gold was employed on a per diem basis by Cedars-Sinai Medical Network, a component of Cedars-Sinai. She worked during this brief time in a network urgent care clinic. Dr. Gold is not authorized to represent or speak about any information on behalf of Cedars-Sinai.”
The sharecare.com “Find a Doctor” site stated that “Dr. Simone Gold, MD, is a[n] emergency medicine specialist in Los Angeles, CA. and is affiliated with Centinela Hospital Medical Center.” But on July 31, Centinela Hospital posted a statement reading: “Simone Gold, MD, is not credentialed as part of the Centinela Medical Staff, as she resigned her position here a number of years ago. Dr. Gold was never employed here as we don’t employ our physicians.”[[35]](https://washingtonspectator.org/anatomy-of-deceit/#_ftn35)
Also troubling was American Frontline Doctors’ repeated suggestion that patients should demand hydroxychloroquine from their doctors for Covid-19. The medication has been an important treatment for lupus and other autoimmune diseases, but the publicity around its application to Covid has created an ongoing shortage with devastating consequences.
Much of the mainstream coverage of America’s Frontline Doctors was devoted to Stella Immanuel’s “demon sperm” sermon, but alternative platforms were another story.
Simone Gold was reaching a vast new public and was now celebrated as a victim. On July 30, Fox News’s Tucker Carlson interviewed her on his nightly program. The crawl stated, “Doctor Censored by Big Tech Has Now Lost Her Job” (though that job was never specified)—echoing Trump’s executive order on Big Tech censorship released the previous day.[[36]](https://washingtonspectator.org/anatomy-of-deceit/#_ftn36) (Carlson’s show is currently the highest-rated program on cable television, with an audience of over 4.3 million.[[37]](https://washingtonspectator.org/anatomy-of-deceit/#_ftn37))
Glenn Beck’s multi-platform media operation, The Blaze, covered the story on his radio program and posted the Tucker Carlson video on its website on July 31, with a companion piece repeating her case for hydroxychloroquine.[[38]](https://washingtonspectator.org/anatomy-of-deceit/#_ftn38) A similar report was posted the same day on CNS News, founded by Council for National Policy Executive Committee member L. Brent Bozell III.[[39]](https://washingtonspectator.org/anatomy-of-deceit/#_ftn39) (MediaPost recently named CNS News as the country’s fastest-growing conservative website, with more than 8.3 million unique visitors in June and over 1,000 percent gain in year-over-year unique visitors.[[40]](https://washingtonspectator.org/anatomy-of-deceit/#_ftn40))
Pat Robertson’s CBN.com averages over four million unique visitors each month. Add these to Alex Jones’s August 21 coverage—as well as legions of subsidiary platforms—and you have a deadly misinformation campaign that’s reaching tens of millions of voters, most of them off the radar of the national news media.
Emergency physician Nick Sawyer is disturbed by the implications for medical practitioners. The America’s Frontline Doctors campaign, he says, “violates two of the primary principles of medical ethics. Medical ethics has four major principles: beneficence, non-maleficence, autonomy, and justice. As hydroxychloroquine offers no clinical benefit and may be harmful, it violates the first two tenets. Further, their statements place actual frontline physicians treating patients with Covid-19 in conflict with patients’ right to autonomy.
“Patients have the right to make decisions regarding their medical care, but as more and more patients are asking—if not outright demanding—that physicians prescribe hydroxychloroquine to them, it places these physicians in a position where they are faced with an ethical dilemma. We respect patients’ right to autonomy, but we are not willing to allow them to demand a treatment that is not helpful and may be harmful. In sum, America’s Frontline Doctors are introducing additional havoc into the already complex Covid-19 pandemic.”
As of the publication deadline for this article, neither Jenny Beth Martin or Simone Gold had responded to requests for comment.
The day after Gold’s Washington presentation, U.S. Covid-19 deaths stood at 140,309; they swelled to 147,653 only a week later.[[41]](https://washingtonspectator.org/anatomy-of-deceit/#_ftn41) Less than a month later, on August 21, Donald Trump addressed the Council for National Policy at the Ritz-Carlton in Pentagon City, his last major address before the Republican convention. In his opening remarks, he thanked several figures from the CNP, including Jenny Beth Martin, “for your tremendous leadership of the CNP. You’ve done a fantastic job.”
As of that Friday, over 174,000 Americans had died of Covid-19. That number continues to climb.[[42]](https://washingtonspectator.org/anatomy-of-deceit/#_ftn42)
Anne Nelson is the author of Shadow Network: Money, Media, and the Secret Hub of the Radical Right. She is the recipient of the Livingston Award for journalism and a Guggenheim Fellowship for historical research.
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https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/theres-a-reason-why-republicans-are-pushing-hydroxychloroquine-again-and-its-ugly/
no lnx
There’s a reason why Republicans are pushing hydroxychloroquine again — and it’s ugly
Written by Mark Sumner / Daily Kos July 30, 2020
On Wednesday morning, Republicans are in the second day of a full-on blitz attempting to sell the idea that hydroxychloroquine is effective as a treatment against COVID-19. That effort comes in the form of not just statements from Donald Trump, but supporting tweets and emails from Republican candidates and a full-court press from Fox News. At first, the idea that the GOP is latching onto claims from a doctor who believes medicines come from alien DNA to justify renewed support for a drug proven ineffective months ago seems baffling.Even if everyone from Ron DeSantis to Peter Navarro has joined in buying hundreds of millions of pointless doses, and they have, the billions wasted on the drug hardly seem to justify a second round of life-threatening propaganda.
But the hydroxychloroquine story isn’t about whether or not the drug is effective—and to be clear, it’s not. The reason Republicans are supporting this fresh round of out-and-out lies about a treatment that is more harmful than helpful isn’t because they’re getting rich off the pills. It’s because they really, really need to convince people that it’s safe to go back to work and send their kids back to school. Because hydroxychloroquine, schools reopening, and the GOP “plan” for COVID-19 are all a single story. It’s the story of Republicans needing working class people to go out there and generate money—for the wealthy.
On Monday, Republicans finally produced a draft of their take on the next round of addressing COVID-19—a round that, though a third the size of what’s needed at this point, is still much larger than the entire economic stimulus program that Barack Obama fought for and signed in 2009. The Republican plan not only cuts unemployment compensation for those unable to work because of the pandemic, it sweeps in $30 billion for critical pandemic items like more F-35 fighters and a new FBI building. It took that kind of “sweetening” to get enough Republicans to agree to having any plan at all.
But there are two things that Republicans were dead set on getting into their package. Two things that Sen. Mitch McConnell and others made clear were absolutely a requirement before the Senate would lift a finger. The Republican plan had to:
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Ensure that it cut unemployment benefits to workers sent home by business closures during the pandemic.
Protect corporations from being sued by workers who caught COVID-19 from being forced to work in unsafe conditions.
These were not a secret agenda. These were McConnell’s openly stated goals. He has been pushing for weeks the idea that, unless corporations are given a free pass to get as many workers sick as they like, America would be “swamped by personal injury lawsuits,” just because people had been personally injured. Republicans aren’t hiding this. Their entire agenda when it comes to COVID-19 is making sure that people have no choice but to get out there and put their lives on the line for minimum wage. Trump even used an executive order to put mostly immigrant workers back onto the lines at meatpacking facilities even as people at those facilities were literally dying.
And that’s exactly why Republicans are also keen on reopening schools. Those complaining about people not being eager to work for minimum wage in the midst of a pandemic and those calling for the reopening of public schools are after the same thing: Maintaining a low-cost “service class” that does the actual work while the wealthy and corporations collect the benefit of their labor. It’s not anything new. It’s actually baked into the unfettered capitalism of the American system. The COVID-19 crisis only serves to underline the utter cruelty and inhumanity intrinsic to that system.
The public school funding system in the United States—where almost all the cost falls on property tax in local communities—is one of the best tools the wealthy have ever created to externalize costs and ensure the continued presence of a low-cost worker class. The result of the current system of school funding is that poor communities end up paying a much higher tax rate, while still getting schools that provide inadequate opportunities for their children, helping to lock in a poverty cycle. This is by no means an accident.
Across the nation, private schools are not opening. Barron Trump’s school is not opening.But Republicans want public schools open for the same reason they want unemployment benefits ended: the working class is the engine that puts more money in wealthy pockets. Reopening public schools in the midst of a pandemic has nothing to do with educating the nation’s children. It has everything to do with removing obstacles that keep the cogs from getting back out there and turning the wheels of commerce.
Cutting unemployment and opening schools is entirely designed to give American workers absolutely no choice but to put their lives on the line without making a single demand on their employers. That’s what Republicans are saying every time they complain about the chance that someone might possibly be able to survive for another month on unemployment benefits. Other nations are absolutely providing workers with enhanced benefits during the pandemic because “paying people to stay home” is good public policy. It’s impossible to have effective social distancing if workers are being put in a position where they cannot stay home, and cannot disobey directives from their employers, even if those directives are unsafe.
Hydroxychloroquine is just the carrot being dangled in front of workers as they’re forced back on the job, and their children are forced back into school without an option. It’s the promise that if they do get sick, there’s something that can be done about it. Unfortunately, it’s also an absolute lie.
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https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/trump-tweets-covid-19-conspiracy-video-so-outrageous-it-was-banned-from-facebook-and-twitter/
see below
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nb womAN reporter, at least no attacked. President Donald Trump abruptly ended his press briefing on Tuesday when CNN reporter Kaitlan Collins pressed him on his promotion of a quack doctor’s dangerous claims about COVID-19.
On Monday night, Trump shared a video of the doctor who falsely claimed hydroxychloroquine is a “cure” for COVID-19 and that it obviated the need to wear masks or undertake other mitigation measures during the pandemic. Some of her claims were clearly wrong on their face — it’s important to reduce the risk of catching diseases even if we have a cure for them — and& >top experts argue that the evidence continues to give little indication that hydroxychloroquine is effective against the virus. The video Trump shared was so dangerously wrong that social media platforms began removing it. Subsequent reporting revealed that the doctor in the video is a complete quack — she has previously promoted claims about alien DNA and demon sperm.
“The woman that you said is a ‘great doctor’ in that video that you retweeted last night said that masks don’t work and there’s a cure for COVID-19, both of which experts say is not true,” Collins told Trump during the evening briefing. “She’s also made videos saying that doctors make medicine using DNA from aliens and that they’re trying to make a vaccine to make you immune from becoming religious. So, what’s the logic in retweeting that?” Trump shook his head and looked down.
“I can tell you this,” he said. “She was on air with many other doctors. They were big fans of hydroxychloroquine. And I thought she was very impressive in the sense that where she came — I don’t know what country she comes from — but she’s said that she’s had tremendous success with hundreds of different patients. And I thought her voice was an important voice, but I know nothing about her.”
Trump tried to move on to another reporter, but Collins had a follow-up. As she tried to cut in, he clearly grew annoyed. He decided to give up on getting a question from another reporter, said only, ‘Thank you very much, everybody,” and quickly left the room.
Watch the exchange below:
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https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/7/28/21345008/donald-trump-jr-twitter-suspension-stella-immanuel-hydroxychloroquine-misinformation
social media platforms are struggling to contain a new round of coronavirus conspiracy theories thanks, in part, to Donald Trump.
On Monday night, the president retweeted multiple accounts that posted a video falsely claiming that hydroxychloroquine cured Covid-19, including one tweet from his son, Donald Trump Jr. Many of those tweets were later removed, and Twitter suspended several of the users behind them, including Trump’s son, for 12 hours. But the video itself has continued to spread across social media platforms, raising fresh questions about how companies like Facebook and Twitter handle misinformation.
The video in question, which Trump Jr. called a “must watch,” features Houston doctor Stella Immanuel, who claimed that a combination of hydroxychloroquine, zinc, and the antibiotic Zithromax was a “cure” for the coronavirus and that “you don’t need to wear a mask.” The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has said that hydroxychloroquine is “unlikely to produce an antiviral effect,” and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends wearing masks to stop the spread of the virus. The video of Immanuel quickly went viral, drawing millions of views on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube in a matter of hours.
The event itself also had some political support. Immanuel was speaking at a gathering called the “White Coat Summit,” held on Monday by a group called America’s Frontline Doctors. The press conference, which was held on the steps of the Supreme Court, was organized by right-wing group Tea Party Patriots and also featured Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC). A spokesperson for Norman told Recode that he didn’t know ahead of time what Immanuel was going to say.
“While the Congressman does not agree with her statement on the use of masks, and certainly has no expertise in medications, he strongly believes that she has a right to say what she came to say without being censored by big tech,” Rep. Norman’s spokesperson said.....has a history of strange medical claims, including that fibroids and cysts are caused by having sex with demons in dreams and that alien DNA is being used in medical treatments. Records from the Texas Medical Board show that Immanuel, who was trained as a pediatrician, is a licensed physician with a practice in Houston that has the same address as her own church, Firepower Ministries. Immanuel’s sermons, several of which are hosted on her YouTube channel, include messages of support for President Trump. Most of those videos have only a few thousand views.
Why this specific video about hydroxychloroquine went viral so quickly is likely a combination of the high profile of the right-wing personalities and publications that shared it and the controversial subject matter. Although Twitter attracted attention by suspending Donald Trump Jr.’s account for posting the video of Immanuel’s speech, the source of the virality appears to be conservative publication Breitbart, which shared the video of Immanuel’s speech to its 4.7 million Facebook followers. Facebook later removed the post, but not before it got millions of views on the platform.
“We’ve removed this video for violating our policies that prohibit false claims about cures for Covid-19, since no such cure currently exists,” a Facebook spokesperson told Recode in a statement. “Under this policy, we remove posts that make claims like this video did that hydroxychloroquine is an absolute cure for Covid-19. From April to June we removed more than 7 million pieces of content on Facebook and Instagram for violating this policy and have shown messages to people who have reacted to, commented on or shared this kind of content.”
YouTube also says it has taken steps to remove the video. “We have removed the video for violating our COVID-19 misinformation policies,” a spokesperson for Google, which owns YouTube, told Recode.
The Breitbart detail is especially problematic for Facebook. The social network drew criticism after it named Breitbart as a partner in its Facebook News initiative, which involved collecting trusted news sources in a dedicated tab. Once described by co-founder Steve Bannon as “a platform for the alt-right,” Breitbart is also known to spread misinformation. A Facebook spokesperson confirmed to Recode that Breitbart is still eligible to appear in the News tab — meaning it could appear in peoples’ individual News tabs — but its content has never appeared in the top stories feature, which is what’s curated by Facebook employees.
Meanwhile, hydroxychloroquine continues to be the source of many conspiracy theories, so one might expect social media companies to be prepared to halt the spread of dubious content related to the topic. But it’s not entirely clear where any of these social media platforms draw the line between actionable misinformation and allowable claims about hydroxychloroquine.
Facebook has generally tried to take a mostly hands-off stance when it comes to the president’s posts. The company did remove campaign ads that ... applying a warning label to two tweets that included misinformation about voting by mail. A Trump tweet that included the same “shooting ... looting” language that was in his Facebook post also received a warning label. In this week’s incident involving the Immanuel video, several tweets that were retweeted by President Trump have been deleted, although others claiming that hydroxychloroquine can treat the coronavirus remain up as of publication (Twitter did not respond to comment about this ...most scientific studies tells us that the drug doesn’t make a difference. Much like wearing masks, however, the use of hydroxychloroquine has become politicized.
Typically used to prevent malaria and treat certain autoimmune disorders, hydroxychloroquine was identified as a potential treatment for coronavirus after a February report from a French doctor claimed that a combination of the drug and Zithromax cured 100 percent of his small sample size of coronavirus patients. Despite& ...for never featuring “good” trends about him, calling the omission “illegal.” Twitter did not append a fact-check to that tweet, but there is no American law that says social media platforms have to feature good trending topics about the president.
As is often the case with social media companies moderating users who violate their policies, some are accusing Facebook and Twitter of censorship. Immanuel complained on Monday evening that her Facebook profile page and videos had been removed, threatening that the entire platform would “be down in Jesus name” if they were not restored. She then went silent for about 13 hours. By Tuesday afternoon, she was back, and tweeted her video again. It gained 104,000 views and 11,200 retweets in 90 minutes and has yet to be removed.[twt # iwill not be silenced]
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an 520
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https://www.mediamatters.org/coronavirus-covid-19/downplaying-risk-death-sinclair-ran-national-segment-promoting
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https://www.mediamatters.org/coronavirus-covid-19/trump-claims-he-recently-started-taking-hydroxychloroquine-laura-ingraham
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seven times that Fox News promoted taking hydroxychloroquine to prevent contracting COVID-19
05/18/20 7:57 PM EDT
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520 mma
A new study from British medical journal The Lancet shows that the drug Fox News and President Donald Trump had relentlessly promoted may not be the miracle cure for COVID-19 that the network had made it out to be.
“A study of 96,000 hospitalized coronavirus patients on six continents found that those who received an antimalarial drug promoted by President Trump as a ‘game changer’ in the fight against the virus had a significantly higher risk of death compared with those who did not,” The Washington Post reported. “People treated with hydroxychloroquine... were also more likely to develop a type of irregular heart rhythm, or arrhythmia, that can lead to sudden cardiac death, it concluded.”
Fox News is the source of the president's belief that hydroxychloroquine is an effective treatment for the coronavirus. The network’s hosts and contributors promoted the drug literally hundreds of times, running with the flawed conclusions of grifters and charlatans:(style="background-color:#ffff66ff"):}::{ . Trump responded by publicly promoting the drug and even saying that he was taking it personally, as his public health experts stressed that evidence supporting its use as a treatment was sparse.
Trump even changed federal policy based on Fox’s hydroxychloroquine coverage. Administration officials diverted time and resources from other potential efforts to fight the coronavirus toward the drug because of Fox’s influence. The network continued to tout the drug even as evidence mounted that it was ineffectual.
The drug Fox promoted, according to this Lancet study, actually makes things worse. Instead of listening to public health experts, the network sent the president -- and the federal government -- down a rabbit hole.
Also: Sean Hannity claimed that the worst side effect of hydroxychloroquine is “an allergic rash or upset stomach”; Fox host Jesse Wattersmocked people concerned over FDA warnings on hydroxychloroquine.
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"straight news"?
omg wow conscience?
an 5/20
Fox News host Neil Cavuto rushed to warn viewers on Monday that despite President Donald Trump’s new claim that he is taking hydroxychloroquine to prevent the infection by the coronavirus, the…
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The COVID-19 coronavirus has been deadly not only because it is so infectious, but also because it is a novel pathogen that has no vaccination or known therapeutics.
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https://www.mediamatters.org/coronavirus-covid-19/these-pharmaceutical-companies-are-funding-spread-covid-misinformation-fox
04/10/20 4:07 PM EDT
Many pharmaceutical companies that are conducting ongoing research into COVID-19 therapeutics and vaccines are among the top sponsors of the Fox News Channel,a cesspool of medical misinformation, racist fearmongering, and reckless speculation that put vulnerable populations in harm’s way. These companies, many of which are spending millions to research therapies and donate specialized resources that might alleviate the toll of the virus, are undermining their own work by advertising on Fox News, whose coverage of the pandemic has been described as a “genuine public health threat.”
Here’s a list of these pharmaceutical companies. You can let them know they must stop sponsoring the spread of deadly misinformation during a global pandemic.
GlaxoSmithKline (GSK)
GlaxoSmithKline is a U.K.-based global pharmaceutical and vaccine manufacturer and a leading Fox News advertiser. It has invested hundreds of millions of dollars into researching COVID-19 therapeutics and has partnered with the British government and AstraZeneca to set up a testing facility at the University of Cambridge.
The company has run over 3,000 ads on Fox News since January 2019 and recently advertised on shows that have misinformed viewers about COVID-19, including Fox & Friends and The Next Revolution with Steve Hilton.
Pfizer Inc.
Pfizer is an American biopharmaceutical company and a top Fox News advertiser. The company has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to scale up its manufacturing capacity to fight COVID-19 and is running multiple studies into potential therapeutics.
Pfizer has run over 2,600 ads on Fox News since January 2019.
Novartis
Novartis is a Swiss pharmaceutical manufacturer and a Fox News advertiser. The company makes hydroxychloroquine and has promised to donate its entire inventory “not already allocated to existing orders and customers” to combat COVID-19. It also recently established the COVID-19 Response Fund, pledging “$20 million in grants to support public health initiatives.”
The company has run nearly 1,900 ads on Fox News since January 2019. In 2020, it has advertised on shows hosted by COVID misinformers such as Maria Bartiromo and Laura Ingraham.
Sanofi
Sanofi is a multinational pharmaceutical company, a manufacturer of hydroxychloroquine, and a top advertiser on COVID misinformer Sean Hannity’s prime-time show.
In collaboration with Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Sanofi is currently testing a prescription medication designed to treat rheumatoid arthritis among COVID patients in New York with the hope that the drug can alleviate fevers and aid patients with oxygen intake.
Since January 2019, Sanofi-owned brands have advertised on Fox News over 1,700 times. Besides being a top advertiser on Hannity, Sanofi has paid for programming on shows that have advocated for the premature end to social distancing guidelines, includingThe Ingraham Angleand Fox & Friends. Previously, Sanofi dropped Bill O’Reilly’s now-defunct prime-time show when he was accused of sexual harassment by multiple women. It remains to be seen if the company will do the same when even more is at stake.
Vanda Pharmaceuticals
Vanda Pharmaceuticals is a therapeutics manufacturer based in Washington, D.C. It is currently running a clinical study of potential COVID treatments. The company has run 269 advertisements on Fox News since January 2019, including following Sean Hannity’s interview with President Donald Trump in which Trump touted “potential cures” for coronavirus that might benefit Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
Bayer
Bayer is a multinational pharmaceutical manufacturer that also manufactures chloroquine phosphate, and it is a top advertiser on Hannity and Fox News overall. The company has made multiple pledges to donate resources to fight COVID-19 in the U.S. and Spain. It is also paying for the spread of medical misinformation by advertising on Fox News: the company has run over 3,900 ads since January 2019, including 493 since the beginning of 2020. Brands owned by Bayer that run advertisements on the network include Bayer Aspirin, Aleve, Claritin, Dr. Scholl’s and Alka-Seltzer, among many others.
Gilead Sciences
Gilead Sciences is a California-based pharmaceutical research and development company that has a forthcoming study of its drug Remdesivir and whether it has therapeutic properties to treat COVID-19. It has run 269 advertisements on Fox since January 2019. This year, the company advertised on shows hosted by coronavirus misinformers, including Sean Hannity and Jeanine Pirro.
AstraZeneca
AstraZeneca is a multinational biopharmaceutical company that frequently advertises on Fox News.The company is currently researching potential treatments for coronavirus using antibody therapeutics. It has also publicly committed to donating 9 million face masks to health care workers across the world. The company is also a major sponsor of programs spreading COVID-19 misinformation; since January 2019 it has run over 700 advertisements on Fox News, including on Fox & Friends, and The Five.
Takeda
Takeda is a global pharmaceutical company and a Fox News advertiser that recently announced it is partnering with plasma companies to develop an antibody therapeutic to treat complications associated with COVID-19.It has advertised on Fox 563 times since January 2019and recently ran ads on The Next Revolution with Steve Hilton, a show that has promoted an approach to COVID-19 that runs afoul of guidance from public health experts.
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Invesco Exchange-Traded Fund Trust
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/06/us/politics/coronavirus-trump-malaria-drug.html
nyt
no lnx
Trump’s Aggressive Advocacy of Malaria Drug for Treating Coronavirus Divides Medical Community
While Dr. Anthony Fauci has urged caution in using hydroxychloroquine, some doctors are prescribing it to patients who have the virus despite the fact it has never been tested for it.
President Trump on Sunday during a news conference with members of the coronavirus task force at the White House.]
By Peter Baker, Katie Rogers, David Enrich and Maggie Haberman
April 6, 2020
WASHINGTON — President Trump made a rare appearance in the Situation Room on Sunday as his pandemic task force was meeting, determined to talk about the anti-malaria medicine that he has aggressively promoted lately as a treatment for the coronavirus.
Once again, according to a person briefed on the session, the experts warned against overselling a drug yet to be proved a safe remedy, particularly for heart patients. “Yes, the heart stuff,” Mr. Trump acknowledged. Then he headed out to the cameras to promote it anyway. “So what do I know?” he conceded to reporters at his daily briefing. “I’m not a doctor. But I have common sense.”
Day after day, the salesman turned president has encouraged coronavirus patients to try hydroxychloroquinewith all of the enthusiasm of a real estate developer. The passing reference he makes to the possible dangers is usually overwhelmed by the full-throated endorsement. “What do you have to lose?” he asked five times on Sunday.
Bolstered by his trade adviser, a television doctor, Larry Ellison of Oracle and Rudolph W. Giuliani, a former New York mayor, Mr. Trump has seized on the drug as a miracle cure for the virus that has killed thousands and paralyzed American life. Along the way, he has prompted an international debate about a drug that many doctors in New York and elsewhere have been trying in desperation even without conclusive scientific studies.
Mr. Trump may ultimately be right, and physicians report anecdotal evidence that has provided hope. But it remains far from certain, and the president’s assertiveness in pressing the case over the advice of advisers like Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease specialist, has driven a wedge inside his coronavirus task force and has raised questions about his motives.
If hydroxychloroquine becomes an accepted treatment, several pharmaceutical companies stand to profit, including shareholders and senior executives with connections to the president. Mr. Trump himself has a small personal financial interest in Sanofi, the French drugmaker that makes Plaquenil, the brand-name version of hydroxychloroquine.
“I certainly understand why the president is pushing it,” said Dr. Joshua Rosenberg, a critical care doctor at Brooklyn Hospital Center. “He’s the president of the United States. He has to project hope. And when you are in a situation without hope, things go very badly. So I’m not faulting him for pushing it even if there isn’t a lot of science behind it, because it is, at this point, the best, most available option for use.”
A senior physician at Wyckoff Heights Medical Center in Brooklyn, where doctors are not providing the drug, however, said the current demand was worrisome for patients on it chronically for rheumatic diseases. At St. Barnabas Hospital in the Bronx, another doctor said his staff was giving it to coronavirus patients but criticized the president and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo for “cheerleading” the drug without proof. “False hope can be bad, too,” he said.
The professional organization that published a positive French study cited by Mr. Trump’s allies changed its mind in recent days. The International Society of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy said, “The article does not meet the society’s expected standard.” Some hospitals in Sweden stopped providing hydroxychloroquine to treat the coronavirus after reports of adverse side effects, according to Swedish news media.
But Mr. Cuomo told reporters on Monday that he would ask Mr. Trump to increase the federal supply of hydroxychloroquine to New York pharmacies, allowing the state to lift a limit on purchases. “There has been anecdotal evidence that it is promising,” Mr. Cuomo said, while noting the lack of a formal study.
Mr. Trump first expressed interest in hydroxychloroquine a few weeks ago, telling associates that Mr. Ellison, a billionaire and a founder of Oracle, had discussed it with him. At the time, Dr. Mehmet Oz, the host of television’s “The Doctor Oz Show,” was in touch with Mr. Trump’s advisers about expediting approval to use the drug for the coronavirus.
Mr. Giuliani has urged Mr. Trump to embrace the drug, based in part on the advice of Dr. Vladimir Zelenko, a self-described simple country doctor who has become a hit on conservative media after administering a cocktail of hydroxychloroquine, the antibiotic azithromycin and zinc sulfate.
In an interview on Monday, Mr. Giuliani denied any financial stake and said he spoke with Mr. Trump only after the president had already promoted the drug publicly. Mr. Giuliani said he turned to the issue after researching former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. in Ukraine, a project that led to the president’s impeachment.
“When I finished Biden, I immediately switched to coronavirus and I have been doing an enormous amount of research on it,” he said. As it happened, Dr. Zelenko was born in Ukraine, and when they first spoke, Mr. Giuliani accidentally called him “Dr. Zelensky,” mixing up his name with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky.
Mr. Giuliani said he brought a prosecutor’s experience to his research. “One of the things that a good litigator becomes, is you kind of become an instant expert on stuff, and then you forget about it,” he said. “I don’t claim to be a doctor. I just repeat what they said.”
The Food and Drug Administration, which has approved hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for malaria and lupus, issued an emergency order late last month allowing doctors to administer it to coronavirus patients if they saw fit. Mr. Trump said the federal government would distribute 29 million doses and that he had called Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India requesting more.
Dr. Fauci made his concern clear last week. “I think we’ve got to be careful that we don’t make that majestic leap to assume that this is a knockout drug,” he said on Friday on Fox News. “We still need to do the kinds of studies that definitively prove whether any intervention, not just this one, any intervention is truly safe and effective.”
The same day, Laura Ingraham, a Fox host, visited Mr. Trump at the White House with two doctors who had been on her program promoting hydroxychloroquine, one of whom made a presentation on its virtues, according to an official, confirming a Washington Post report.
The next day, Peter Navarro, the president’s trade adviser, who has been assigned to expedite production of medical equipment and become an advocate of the drug, upbraided Dr. Fauci at a White House task force meeting, according to people informed about the discussion.
Mr. Navarro arrived at the meeting armed with a thick sheaf of papers recounting research. When the issue was raised, according to a person informed about the meeting, confirming a report by Axios, Mr. Navarro picked it up off a chair, dropped it on the table and started handing out copies.
Mr. Navarro, who earned a doctorate in economics from Harvard, defended his position on Monday despite his lack of medical credentials. “Doctors disagree about things all the time. My qualifications in terms of looking at the science is that I’m a social scientist,” he said on CNN. “I have a Ph.D. And I understand how to read statistical studies, whether it’s in medicine, the law, economics or whatever.”
Mr. Trump made clear on Sunday whose side he took in Mr. Navarro’s confrontation with Dr. Fauci. At his briefing after the meeting, he said it was wrong to wait for the kind of study Dr. Fauci wanted. “We don’t have time,” the president said. “We don’t have two hours because there are people dying right now.”
Some associates of Mr. Trump’s have financial interests in the issue. Sanofi’s largest shareholders include Fisher Asset Management, the investment company run by Ken Fisher, a major donor to Republicans, including Mr. Trump. A spokesman for Mr. Fisher declined to comment.
Another investor in both Sanofi and Mylan, another pharmaceutical firm, is Invesco, the fund previously run by Wilbur Ross, the commerce secretary. Mr. Ross said in a statement Monday that he “was not aware that Invesco has any investments in companies producing” the drug, “nor do I have any involvement in the decision to explore this as a treatment.”
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As of last year, Mr. Trump reported that his three family trusts each had investments in a Dodge & Cox mutual fund, whose largest holding was in Sanofi.
Ashleigh Koss, a Sanofi spokeswoman, said the company no longer sells or distributes Plaquenil in the United States, although it does sell it internationally.
Several generic drugmakers are gearing up to produce hydroxychloroquine pills, including Amneal Pharmaceuticals, whose co-founder Chirag Patel is a member of Trump National Golf Course Bedminster in New Jersey and has golfed with Mr. Trump at least twice since he became president, according to a person who saw them.
Mr. Patel, whose company is based in Bridgewater, N.J., did not respond to a request for comment. Amneal announced last month that it would increase production of the drug and donate millions of pills to New York and other states. Other generic drugmakers are ramping up production, including Mylan and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries.
Roberto Mignone, a Teva board member, reached out to the team of Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, through Nitin Saigal, who used to work for Mr. Mignone and is a friend of Mr. Kushner’s, according to people informed about the discussions.
Mr. Kushner’s team referred him to the White House task force and Mr. Mignone asked for help getting India to ease export restrictions, which have since been relaxed, allowing Teva to bring more pills into the United States. Mr. Mignone, who is also a vice chairman of NYU Langone Health, which is running a clinical study of hydroxychloroquine, confirmed on Monday that he has spoken with the administration about getting more medicine into the country.
Dr. Daniel H. Sterman, the critical care director at NYU Langone Health, said doctors there are using hydroxychloroquine, but data about its effectiveness remained “weak and unsubstantiated” pending the study. “We do not know whether our patients are benefiting from hydroxychloroquine treatment at the present time,” he said.
New York City’s Health and Hospitals Corporation, which runs its public hospitals, is advising but not requiring doctors to use hydroxychloroquine based on a trial showing a decreased cough and fever with mild side effects in two patients, Dr. Mitchell Katz, who oversees the hospital system, said by email on Monday.
Dr. Roy M. Gulick, the chief of infectious diseases at Weill Cornell Medicine, said hydroxychloroquine was given on a case-by-case basis. “We explain the pros and cons and explain that we don’t know if it works or not,” he said.
Doctors at Northwell Health and Mount Sinai Health System are using it as well. At the Mount Sinai South Nassau County branch on Long Island, doctors have employed a regimen of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin “pretty much since day one” with mixed results, said Dr. Adhi Sharma, its chief medical officer.
“We’ve been throwing the kitchen sink at these patients,” he said. “I can’t tell whether someone got better on their own or because of the medication.”
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https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/toxic-risk-french-hospital-halts-test-of-trump-promoted-malaria-drug-to-battle-covid-19-over-heart-failure-worries/
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https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/heres-the-real-reason-bill-barr-has-re-emerged-to-give-us-a-double-dose-of-crazy/
no lnx
Here’s the real reason Bill Barr has re-emerged to give us a double dose of crazy
Written by Heather Digby Parton / Salon April 10, 2020
New White House chief of staff Mark Meadows announced this week that onetime Trump campaign spokesperson Kayleigh McEnany will become the White House press secretary. The campaign is looking for a replacement and it seems that Attorney General William Barr may be auditioning for the role. Judging from his two-night interview with Laura Ingraham, he is as enthusiastic about the boss as one of the famed Mar-a-Lago Trumpettes.
We hadn’t heard much from Barr since he was scathingly chastised by a federal judge last month for his “lack of candor” in public descriptions of the Mueller report, saying that Barr had “distorted the findings” of the April 2019 report in his notorious press conference and a letter to lawmakers. The judge demanded a full copy of the Mueller report to review in order to decide whether to reveal the entire document, without redactions.
It’s not every day that the attorney general of the United States is personally castigated by a federal judge. But it was obviously too much to hope that Barr had taken his criticism to heart and had decided to play it straight. His return to the spotlight this week showed that while he may not have contracted the coronavirus, his Fox News brain rot is still raging out of control.
Ingraham has two main hobbyhorses at the moment. She believes that the response to the virus is an attack on civil liberties and that the quick cure for the disease is Dr. Trump’s magic elixir, hydroxychloroquine. She also believes that anyone who disagrees with this is part of a plot to take down her beloved president. So it was within that framework that Barr gave his interview, and he did not disappoint.
Under intense questioning about whether freedom of religion was being infringed by the shutdown, he managed to say that public health measures are acceptable for a short period and then went on to parrot Trump’s maxim that “the cure can’t be worse than the disease,” and even suggesting that more people will die of cancer because researchers are unable to continue their work during the shutdown. He made it clear that he thinks the government should be opened sooner rather than later:
I think we have to be very careful to make sure this is — you know, that the draconian measures that are being adopted are fully justified, and there are not alternative ways of protecting people. And I think, you know, when this — when this period of time is — at the end of April expires, I think we have to allow people to adapt more than we have and not just tell people to go home and hide under the bed,
The “adaptations” he had in mind were unclear, recommending vague “protocols” for restaurants and throwing around terms like “PPE” as if he were the head epidemiologist at the Harvard School of Public Health.For all his alleged concern with civil liberties he seemed to indicate that he thinks restrictions on travel would be a positive consequence of this crisis. At least that’s what it sounded like, since he talked about stricter border laws being a good way to prevent pandemics. After all, viruses don’t recognize citizenship or nationality. If you can’t let people come in, in an attempt to protect yourself from infection, you can’t let people out either. Otherwise, they might bring it back.
It was obvious that Barr has been spending a lot of time watching Fox News. Unprompted, he let loose with a hydroxychloroquine rant worthy of Sean Hannity himself:
Acyn Torabi
@Acyn
Barr says he’s disappointed about partisanship during the pandemic because the President has acted statesmanlike and worked with all the governors while dealing with gotcha questions from the media.He goes on to accuse the media of leading a jihad against Hydroxychloroquine
Embedded video
Barr apparently missed this exchange on his favorite channel the other day in which Dr. William Haseltine, a renowned biologist and retired Harvard professor, took Fox News host Dana Perino to task for pushing this drug with little evidence to back it up.
Lis Power
@LisPower1
Fox anchor: Can you tell me your thoughts on the drug that is used normally to treat malaria.
Dr. Haseltine: It's sad to me that people are promoting that drug.
Anchor: But what about the anecdotal evidence?
Haseltine: That's complete and utter nonsense. Irresponsible.
Embedded video
The blowback over this alleged miracle cure being relentlessly touted by Trump and his friends at Fox News isn’t coming from the press or the Democrats. It’s coming from the medical community, which is appalled that the president of the United States would use his platform to push unproven drugs based on the recommendation of TV quacks and his own “feelings.”
I guess everyone’s an armchair epidemiologist these days, but the Fox News coronavirus coverage is actually dangerous. The fact that the president and the attorney general consider their blather as a basis for policymaking is kind of terrifying.
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https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/chilling-trump-stun-americans-by-refusing-to-let-dr-fauci-answer-question-on-dangers-of-hydroxychloroquine/
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https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/cnn-host-spars-with-trump-economist-peter-navarro-for-touting-his-social-scientist-credentials-in-hydroxychloroquine-fight-why-should-we-listen-to-you-and-not-fauci
CNN host spars with Trump economist Navarro for touting ‘social scientist’ credentials in hydroxychloroquine fight: ‘Why should we listen to you?’
Written by Alex Henderson April 6, 2020
Axios’ Jonathan Swan has reported that Dr. Anthony Fauci and Peter Navarro (policy coordinator for the Trump White House’s trade policy) had a heated argument in the White House’s Situation Room over the benefits of hydroxychloroquine as a way to possibly treat coronavirus. Navarro, like President Donald Trump, has been pushing chloroquine aggressively — while Fauci has strong reservations. And the merits of hydroxychloroquine (which has been used to treat malaria) in relation to coronavirus were hotly debated on Monday morning, April 6 when Navarro appeared on CNN’s “New Day” and was aggressively grilled by host John Berman.
Berman emphasized that Navarro lacks Fauci’s medical expertise, asking why someone would believe Navarro over a well-respected “infectious disease doctor” like Fauci. When Navarro described himself as a “social scientist,” Berman responded that being a “social scientist” is not the same as having medical expertise.
“I’m sorry, that doesn’t qualify you to treat patients,” Berman said. “You know it doesn’t qualify to you treat patients.”
“Why should we listen to you and not Dr. Anthony Fauci?,” Berman maintained. The CNN host demanded to know, “Why is Dr. Anthony Fauci, the lead infectious disease doctor in this country, wrong about this?”...
after spending several minutes grilling Navarro and noting some of Fauci’s assertions on hydroxychloroquine, Berman offered Navarro an olive branch, saying, “We all want the same thing, which is people to get better.” And Navarro replied, “I’m not sure we do sometimes.”
Berman, testy, asserted, “What are you talking about?…. Don’t you dare for a second suggest that I don’t want people to get better from this. I got two friends in bed right now with coronavirus.”
Navarro replied, “That’s not what I said: don’t put those words in my mouth. When you say that when we come on here and we say we all want the same thing, there’s this political overtone — this battle between… You know, you’re trying to create this false dichotomy.”
Presumably, the “two friends” Berman was referring to were his CNN colleagues Chris Cuomo and Brooke Baldwin — both of whom have been diagnosed with COVID-19.
After the interview, a “New Day” panel continued the discussion — and Dr. Sanjay Gupta, often featured as a medical expert on CNN, clearly agreed with Fauci. According to Gupta, chloroquine can suppress one’s immune system — which is not what one should be doing during the coronavirus pandemic.
Watch the video below:
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