President Donald Trump went into a Twitter frenzy on Monday night retweeting posts that claim Dr. Anthony Fauci misled the country on hydroxychloroquine and videos of a doctor who claimed the drug is a ‘cure’ for the virus.
In his Twitter spree Trump retweeted a post that claimed Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading expert on infectious diseases, is leading the country in the wrong direction by refusing to endorse the use of the anti-malaria drug in combating COVID-19.
Trump was a big promoter of the hydroxychloroquine and repeatedly pushed it as a therapeutic treatment for the coronavirus, which has infected over 4.2million in the US and killed more than 148,000, even though the Federal Drug Administration warns the drug has harmful side effects.
‘Dr. Fauci has misled the American public on many issues, but in particular, on dismissing #hydroxychloroquine and calling Remdesivir the new gold standard,’ the retweet said.
President Donald Trump went into a Twitter frenzy on Monday night sharing a slew of posts praising controversial drug hydroxychloroquine for treating COVID-19, only for some posts to be removed for coronavirus misinformation
He shared this retweet claiming that Dr. Anthony Fauci is ‘misleading’ the country by dismissing hydroxychloroquine and endorsing Remdesivir
Trump also retweeted two posts of a doctor’s speech on the steps of Capitol Hill making dubious claims that the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine is a ‘cure’ for the virus.
Those videos were later taken down by Twitter citing misinformation regulations after Trump shared them with his 84million followers.
The president has come under heat for his handling of the coronavirus crisis and in recent weeks has tried rectify his reputation by holding solo coronavirus briefings, canceling some campaign events, and wearing a mask in public.
He’s returned to preach about the benefits of the drug which he famously took for two weeks as a preventative measure against the virus.
However, the Federal Drug Administration stopped recommending emergency use of hydroxycholoquine citing safety concerns about harmful side effects.
Trump also retweeted two videos of Dr. Stella Immanuel speaking in front of the US Captiol on Friday with others calling themselves ‘America’s Frontline Doctors’. She claimed anti-malaria drug hydroxycloroquine is effective in treating COVID-19, despite other medical research disproving that
Donald Trump shared video of her speech twice, but the clip was taken down both times by Twitter citing a violation of the platform’s coronavirus misinformation policy
In May the World Health Organization stopped its hydroxychloroquine trial. The National Institutes for Health similarly halted their trial in June after determining it provided ‘no benefit’ in the patients studied.
In his Monday Twitter spree Trump retweeted a video of Dr. Stella Immanuel claiming hydroxychloroquine works in battling the virus.
The video was published by the right-wing media outlet Breitbart News and showed Immanuel and others calling themselves ‘America’s Frontline Doctors’ staging a press conference in front of the US Supreme Court in Washington, DC on Friday.
She slammed ‘fake doctors’ who doubt the efficacy of the drug, and claimed it’s a ‘cure’, adding ‘you don’t need a mask.’
‘If some fake science comes out and says we’ve done studies and they found out that it doesn’t work, I can tell you categorically it’s fake science,’ she said.
‘I want to know who’s conducted that study and who’s behind it. Because there is no way I have treat 350 patients and counting and nobody is dead,’ she said on how she allegedly treated patients with the hydroxychloroquine along with zinc, and Zithromax.
Trump retweeted a slew of posts on Monday night all in support of the controversial drug, despite science and medical tests proving it isn’t helpful in combating the virus
In May the World Health Organization stopped its hydroxychloroquine trial. The National Institutes for Health similarly halted their trial in June after determining it provided ‘no benefit’ in the patients studying
However, her claims are contrary to the extensive tests that have been done regarding the drug.
Video of her fiery speech was shared on Twitter where it racked up over 14million views on Monday, partly due to the promotion by far-right news organizations, but Twitter later took it down.
Facebook and YouTube also began to pull down videos of her claims, claiming it’s spreading misinformation about the pandemic.
CNN’s Oliver Darcy took to Twitter to shed light on Trump’s controversial posts saying: ‘Videos Trump shared are now no longer available.’
‘While Twitter reviews the video, it’s worth noting that various versions of it have received hundreds of thousands of views on this platform and more than one has been retweeted to the public by the President of the United States,’ he added.
In his Twitter spree Trump also retweeted a post that claimed Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading expert on infectious diseases, is misleading the country. The tweet said: ‘Dr. Fauci has misled the American public on many issues, but in particular, on dismissing #hydroxychloroquine and calling Remdesivir the new gold standard’
Twitter later took it down for its COVID-19 misinformation policy.
Similar videos of Immanuel’s speech were shared on Facebook on Monday.
It became one of the top performing posts on Facebook with more than 14million views and nearly 600,000 shares before it was taken down Monday night for promoting misinformation, according to Crowdtangle, a data-analytics firm owned by Facebook.
A Facebook spokesperon said to CNN on removing the clip: ‘We’ve removed this video for sharing false information about cures and treatments for COVID-19.’
The spokesperson added Facebook is ‘showing messages in News Feed to people who have reacted to, commented on or shared harmful COVID-19-related misinformation that we have removed, connecting them to myths debunked by the WHO.’