President Donald Trump went into a Twitter frenzy Monday night, retweeting posts claiming that Dr. Anthony Fauci tricked the country with hydroxychloroquine and videos of a doctor who claimed the drug is a ‘cure’ for the virus.
In his Twitter spree, Trump retweeted a post claiming that 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 antimalarial drug in the fight against COVID-19.
Trump was a huge promoter of hydroxychloroquine and repeatedly lobbied it as a therapeutic treatment for the coronavirus, which has infected more than 4.2 million in the US and killed more than 148,000, despite the Federal Drug Administration warns that the drug has harmful side effects.
‘Dr. Fauci has misled the American public on many issues, but in particular, to drop #hydroxychloroquine and call Remdesivir the new gold standard, “the retweet said.
President Donald Trump went into a Twitter frenzy Monday night sharing a series of posts praising the controversial hydroxychloroquine drug for treating COVID-19, only to have some posts removed for misinformation about the coronavirus.
He shared this retweet claiming that Dr. Anthony Fauci is “tricking” the country by ruling out hydroxychloroquine and endorsing Remdesivir
Trump and Fauci ran into each other while leading the coronavirus briefings in the spring and disagreed on managing the pandemic and what remedies to support.
Trump also retweeted two posts from a doctor’s speech on the steps of the Capitol, making dubious claims that the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine is a ‘cure’ for the virus.
Twitter later removed those videos, citing misinformation regulations after Trump shared them with his 84 million followers.
The President has been criticized for his handling of the coronavirus crisis and in recent weeks has attempted to rectify his reputation by conducting coronavirus briefings alone, canceling some campaign events and wearing a mask in public.
He returned to preach about the benefits of the drug that he took for two weeks as a preventive measure against the virus.
However, the Federal Drug Administration stopped recommending the emergency use of hydroxycolloquine, citing safety concerns about harmful side effects.
Trump also retweeted two videos of Dr. Stella Immanuel speaking outside the United States Capitol on Friday with others calling themselves “United States Frontline Doctors.” She claimed that the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine is effective in treating COVID-19, despite other medical research refuting that
Donald Trump shared the video of his speech twice, but Twitter withdrew the clip both times citing a violation of the platform’s coronavirus disinformation policy.
In May, the World Health Organization stopped its hydroxychloroquine trial. The National Institutes of Health similarly stopped their trial in June after determining that it provided “no benefit” in the patients studied.
In his Twitter spree on Monday, Trump retweeted a video of Dr. Stella Immanuel stating that hydroxychloroquine works to fight the virus.
The video was released by the right-wing media outlet Breitbart News and showed Immanuel and others calling themselves “America’s Frontline Physicians” hosting a press conference in front of the United States Supreme Court in Washington, DC on Friday. .
She criticized the ‘fake doctors’ who doubt the drug’s effectiveness, and stated that it is a ‘cure’, adding ‘you don’t need a mask’.
“If any false science comes out and says that we have conducted studies and found that it doesn’t work, I can tell you categorically that it is false science,” he said.
‘I want to know who carried out that study and who is behind it. Because in no way have I treated 350 patients and counting and no one is dead, ‘he said of how he allegedly treated patients with hydroxychloroquine along with zinc and Zithromax.
Trump retweeted a large number of posts on Monday night in support of the controversial drug, despite scientific and medical evidence showing that it is not helpful in fighting the virus.
In May, the World Health Organization stopped its hydroxychloroquine trial. The National Institutes of Health similarly stopped their trial in June after determining that it provided no benefit to the patients they studied.
However, their claims are contrary to the extensive tests that have been conducted regarding the drug.
The video of his fiery speech was shared on Twitter, where he racked up more than 14 million views on Monday, in part due to promotion by far-right news organizations, but was later deleted by Twitter.
Facebook and YouTube also began displaying videos of their claims, claiming that it is spreading misinformation about the pandemic.
CNN’s Oliver Darcy turned to Twitter to shed light on Trump’s controversial posts that read: “The videos Trump shared are no longer available.”
“As Twitter reviews the video, it is worth noting that several versions of it have received hundreds of thousands of visits on this platform and more than one has been retweeted to the public by the President of the United States,” he added.
Trump was a huge promoter of hydroxychloroquine and repeatedly lobbied it as a therapeutic treatment for the coronavirus, which has infected more than 4.2 million in the US and killed more than 148,000, despite the Federal Drug Administration warning that the drug has harmful side effects
Twitter later removed it for its COVID-19 disinformation policy.
Similar videos of Immanuel’s speech were shared on Facebook on Monday.
It became one of the top-performing Facebook posts with over 14 million views and nearly 600,000 shares before it was pulled Monday night for promoting misinformation, according to Crowdtangle, a Facebook-owned data analytics firm. .
A Facebook spokesperson told CNN about the removal of the clip: “We have removed this video for sharing false information about cures and treatments for COVID-19.”
The spokesperson added that Facebook is “displaying News Feed messages to people who have reacted, commented, or shared misinformation related to harmful COVID-19 that we have removed, connecting them with myths debunked by the WHO.”
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