A full week has passed since the New York Times reported a major new study showing that ivermectin does not work against Covid-19. Eve...
A full week has passed since the New York Times reported a major new study showing that ivermectin does not work against Covid-19. Even so, Fox News — a network that has spent about a year trying to convince its viewers otherwise — has yet to report on this study, which debunks some of the most dangerous nonsense ever to air.
For starters, Fox News primetime programming led the charge in casting doubt on the safety and effectiveness of the Covid vaccine, even after it was shown to be extremely efficient in preventing hospitalizations and deaths. Hosts regularly set up a rotating roster of cranks like Alex Berenson, a.k.a“The Pandemic’s Wrongest Man”, to tell people that the vaccine is ineffective or even deadly, because it made in january.
Of course, just telling viewers that “Vaccine bad” is only half the anti-vaxx propaganda battle. If you’re going to spread fear about the best way to prevent people from dying from a disease, it helps give them other “options”. And when experts point out how useless these options are, you can accuse them of being part of the establishment trying to keep you in the dark about remedies they don’t want you to know.
For much of 2021 and early 2022, the most popular suspected Covid remedy of this type was an antiparasitic drug called ivermectin. And nowhere has it featured more prominently in front of large audiences than Fox News’ prime-time programming. Hardly a night went by without one of his hosts interviewing a quoting idiot false studies give viewers garbage.
Here are some examples of hosts and guests promoting the drug:
In January 2021, Laura Ingraham claims a friend of hers took ivermectin after contracting Covid and the friend’s condition improved.
Back in September Brian Kilmeade suggested ivermectin could treat Covid, saying: “Sometimes drugs work for different things.”
In December, Ben Carson mentioned ivermectin is effective against Covid.
Two weeks later, Tucker-Carlson interviewed a psychiatrist who said ivermectin “could be a lifeline” for Covid patients.
These are only a fraction of the almost 300 cases in which hosts or guests brought up ivermectin as a possible Covid treatment. Even then, there was no credible evidence that ivermectin worked against the virus.
But in case there was any doubt, last week we got the results of a massive clinical trial and they reaffirmed what any non-quack already knew: ivermectin does not work against covid – at all.
However, you wouldn’t know that if you only watched Fox News – and not just primetime Fox News. A search of transcripts in a database called TVEyes indicates that the study has not been mentioned on any of the network’s shows during the week since the Time the article was published.
So, after positively mentioning the drug hundreds of times, the network apparently has no interest in reporting on the study to correct its long, embarrassing and shameful record on the matter.
Keep in mind that this was not an effort to convince people that the moon landing was faked or that the world is flat. No, this was a deliberate attempt to convince viewers – many of whom fall into the high-risk category – by the nation’s most popular cable hosts on the country’s most popular cable news channel that ivermectin could be more effective than the vaccine.
How many people died because they believed the bullshit broadcast by the channel?
We’ll never know. But we must never forget that in the midst of the deadliest pandemic in 100 years, Fox News hosts cynically pimped out a completely ineffective drug while downplaying the importance of the highly effective vaccine, which actually works.
Shame.
This is an opinion piece. The opinions expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author.
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