The most prominent person featured in the video, Stella Immanuel, who has said in the past that DNA from aliens is being used in medicine, did not meet with Pence.
But several others who have actively promoted hydroxychloroquine and downplayed the virus participated in the afternoon meeting in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, as did the head of a conservative activist group that helped amplify his message.
“We just met with Vice President Mike Pence to request administration assistance to authorize physicians to prescribe hydroxychloroquine without political obstruction,” group leader Simone Gold tweeted. “We also discussed the recent censorship of doctors on social media platforms.”
“I just finished a great meeting with Vice President Mike Pence and his chief of staff,” another participant, James Todaro, tweeted. “We are doing everything we can to restore the power of medicine to doctors. Doctors around the world should be able to prescribe hydroxychloroquine without repercussions or obstructions.”
Jenny Beth Martin, co-founder of Tea Party Patriots, also said she attended.
“Doctors must be able to prescribe FDA-approved medications for their patients as best they can before they co-supply without government interference,” Martin tweeted.
The vice president’s office did not immediately respond to a request for more information about the meeting.
The group depicted in the video and later at the White House, America’s frontline doctors, says its members are practicing doctors who have treated patients with coronavirus. Pence’s schedule described the meeting as a session with “practicing physicians at COVID-19”.
But it was not immediately clear how many patients doctors have treated. The group is backed by Tea Party Patriots, who promoted their press conference this week in the Supreme Court.
Both Tea Party Patriots and the group of doctors have denounced prolonged economic closings aimed at containing the spread of the virus.
Gold, the group’s leader, has said that people don’t need to wear masks and has downplayed the severity of the virus, even in May when he compared it to the flu and called it “truly a disease of patients with pre-existing conditions and even more patients than nursing homes. ”
Participants’ descriptions of their meeting with Pence suggest that the meeting focused primarily on hydroxychloroquine, an antimalarial drug that has not been shown to be effective in treating the coronavirus or preventing a person from contracting it.
Trump has been a leading advocate for the drug, even taking a course himself when some White House staff members became infected in May.
But top administration health experts have said there is no evidence that the drug is effective.
Speaking after Trump’s tweets on the matter on Tuesday, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the leading US infectious disease specialist, said he agreed with the Food and Drug Administration that “overwhelming clinical trials Predominants who have analyzed the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine have indicated that it is not effective in coronavirus disease. “
Trump insisted to the contrary during a briefing on Tuesday, saying that many people have suggested that hydroxychloroquine is safe and effective against the coronavirus.
But he seemed to back off when pressed about the statements made in the video itself, including that “he doesn’t need masks” and the doctor’s past statements about the alien DNA used in medical treatments.
“I thought her voice was an important voice, but I don’t know anything about her,” Trump said before abruptly leaving the meeting room.
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