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With November growing larger in the windshield, the liberal media continues its spirited campaign against the use of the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine to treat the coronavirus.
After all, a hopeful population may not have enough cause to vote Democratic.
“Fake News” CNN, as President Trump often calls the network, can be counted on to do its share, as seen in a segment Monday when anchor John Berman clashed with Yale epidemiology professor Harvey Risch, who backs the use of the drug to counter the effects of the virus imported from China.
The problem for Risch is that the deck was stacked against him all the time, and he likely wasn’t even aware.
While the discussion ensued, the CNN chyron informed viewers how wrong he was: “Yale Epidemiologist Insists, Against Evidence, Hydroxychloroquine Works.”
Risch penned an op-ed last month that advocated for using hydroxychloroquine as a countermeasure against COVID-19 — this being the same stance taken by the group of front line doctors in the news last week after Big Tech scrubbed their video from the web.
Berman cited Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx, members of the White House coronavirus task force, as the basis of his contention.
His challenge to the professor’s studies supporting his position — which came almost immediately — was to say “none of those are random placebo controlled trials, what Dr. Fauci refers to as the gold standard.”
“That’s not actually correct,” Risch retorted. “The problem with those randomized controlled trials is they were trials done on the wrong people. They were trials done on low-risk people with very low risk of hospitalization and mortality… They were on very low-risk people who are not going to get hospitalized or die by and large — we don’t treat those people. We treat high-risk people.”
Berman went on to accuse his guest of shifting his argument, which drew a protest, as the professor reiterated his original point about high risk people being treated.
Risch also spoke of a new standard suddenly being applied when it comes to the drug, prompted Berman to dispute the claim, before accusing the professor of “moving the bar” on random placebo controlled trials. Risch’s response was to say that these trials “are not the gold standard in the real world.”
“Relying on a so-called theoretical randomized controlled trial is a red herring,” he added. “Because that’s not the way the FDA works, the way scientists works, not the way anybody works in real world.”
“The benefit to these random placebo controlled trials, as you well know, is there’s a built-in bias or can be in any trial that’s not random,” Berman replied. “Why? Because the people administering the test know what the person is getting and they may treat that patient differently. The Henry Ford study, for instance, the patients who received hydroxychloroquine were handpicked and tended to be healthier, they were also twice as likely to receive steroids which are proven to have a benefit. That’s why randomized placebo controlled trials… are so useful and I know you know that.”
“No, please don’t speak for me,” the professor countered. “Don’t speak for me.”
While Berman persisted in his argument, when given an opportunity to get a word in edgewise, Risch informed the CNN host he made “three or four wrong statements,” as he proceeded to tear apart his argument.
Not that there was any chance that the chyron would swing in his favor as he did.
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Tom@bizpacreview.com
The longest-tenured writer at BizPac Review, Tom grew up in Maryland before moving to Central Florida as a young teen. It is in the Sunshine State that he honed both his passion for politics and his writing skills.
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