Epidemiologist slams CNN anchor who said hydroxy 'kills people'

FPI / July 24, 2020

Who is doing the disservice?

The medical professionals who insist that hydroxychloroquine is a safe and effective treatment for coronavirus?

Or the CNN on air personality who claims that hydroxy "kills people"? (She's not a doctor, but she pretends to play one on TV.)

CNN's Brianna Keilar, while interviewing Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh on Tuesday, griped that Murtaugh was doing a “disservice to the health of Americans” for even mentioning the drug.

“It kills people,” Keilar said of hydroxychloroquine.

Murtaugh pointed out that Keilar and many of her corporate media colleagues have pounced on debunked hydroxychloroquine information, such as a Lancet study that was retracted last month when the validity of the data was called into question.

“That study had to be withdrawn,” Murtaugh told Keilar. “Now there is another study that shows it can actually cut deaths by as much as 50 percent.”

Murtaugh was referring to a recent study by researchers at the Henry Ford Health System in Michigan that found early administration of the drug made hospitalized patients substantially less likely to die from coronavirus.

Keilar quickly dismissed the Michigan study, claimed that “studies have been canceled because this stuff is so dangerous,” and then ended the interview.

Yale epidemiology professor Harvey Risch said Keilar's claim that hydroxychloroquine is too dangerous to even talk about as an effective COVID-19 treatment is "ludicrous."

During an appearance of Fox News's “The Ingraham Angle” on Wednesday, host Laura Ingraham asked Risch: “Who is really doing a disservice to the American people, doctors with decades of experience like yourself, other treating physicians on COVID, or CNN hosts that think hydroxy is so dangerous that we shouldn’t even talk about it?”

Risch responded: “This is a drug that’s been used for 65-plus years in billions of doses around the world that people take without even thinking about it. And suddenly it’s become dangerous? That’s ludicrous.”

“It’s just amazing we have CNN anchors out there proclaiming on this drug ... it does such a disservice to people,” Ingraham said.

NewsBusters reported when the Lancet results were retracted that CNN spent “90 minutes and 54 seconds heralding a now-debunked study” in a single day back on May 22.

Earlier this week, Risch told Ingraham that he thinks hydroxychloroquine could save 75,000 to 100,000 lives if the drug is widely used as a prophylactic against coronavirus, especially for frontline workers.

Risch lamented that a "propaganda war" is being waged against the use of the drug for political purposes, not based on "medical facts."

Free Press International