Trump ditches 'new tone' for old, false coronavirus theories
Issued on: 28/07/2020 -
US President Donald Trump is back to promoting conspiracy theories about the coronavirus crisis JIM WATSON AFP/File
Washington (AFP)
Only days after proclaiming a sober new tone on the coronavirus pandemic, President Donald Trump reverted to spreading misleading medical information, criticizing his top expert and promoting conspiracy theories.
Twitter took the rare step of removing clips tweeted by Trump from a video earlier deleted by Facebook in which a group of doctors tells Americans that masks are unnecessary and that hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malarial drug, can cure the COVID-19 virus.
Twitter said Tuesday that tweeting the video was "in violation of our COVID-19 misinformation policy."
Twitter also blocked Trump's son Don Jr -- a major player in the president's struggling reelection campaign -- from tweeting for 12 hours after he uploaded a version of the video.
At the center of the group speaking on the video is a doctor named Stella Immanuel, who doubles as a right-wing preacher who believes in witches.
The physician, who calls herself "God's battle axe," claims in the video that "the virus has a cure" in hydroxychloroquine.
This is false. There is currently no cure for the coronavirus, which has spread around the world and already killed nearly 150,000 Americans, wreaking havoc in the world's largest economy.
A majority of medical authorities now have also decided, after some initial debate, that hydroxychloroquine in particular has no proven benefit for coronavirus patients and can be harmful. The US Food and Drug Administration revoked emergency authorization for its use in June.
Trump, however, has persistently pushed the notion of hydroxychloroquine as an answer to the crisis and says he took the drug for two weeks as a precaution.
- Anti-Fauci rants -
In his Twitter spree late Monday, the president also retweeted a growing right-wing conspiracy theory that the nation's top expert on infectious diseases, Doctor Anthony Fauci, helped push coronavirus to hurt Trump's reelection in November.
The tweet, shared by Trump to his 84 million followers, claimed that Immanuel is highlighting "what should be the biggest scandal in modern American history."
This was "the suppression of #Hydroxychloroquine by Fauci & the Democrats to perpetuate Covid deaths to hurt Trump," the tweet reads.
Trump also attacked Fauci by retweeting a comment on a podcast hosted by his former advisor Steve Bannon that Fauci "misled the American public on many issues."
Fauci responded early Tuesday on ABC News saying he ignores Twitter. "I don’t tweet, I don’t even read them," he said.
"I have not been misleading the American public under any circumstances," said Fauci, whose decades of experience include pioneering the fight against AIDS from the 1980s onward.
"We’re in the middle of a crisis with regard to a pandemic," he said. "This is what I’ve been trained for my entire professional life."
- New tone? -
Trump's Twitter activity was made more remarkable by the fact that just a week ago he embarked on a distinctly more serious tone when discussing the out-of-control health crisis.
Earlier Monday, he'd made a trip to North Carolina for a visit to a laboratory taking part in the race for a coronavirus vaccine.
Trump used the photo-op, where he was shown inspecting high-tech lab equipment at Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies in Morrisville, to underline his support for the scientific response to the pandemic.
"We will achieve a victory over the virus by unleashing American scientific genius," he told reporters.
The facility has been awarded a contract to mass produce an experimental vaccine developed by Novavax, as part of a multi-billion dollar government initiative dubbed Operation Warp Speed.
However, Trump has repeatedly wavered between between trust in the country's scientists and sympathy for claims on the right that the dangers of the illness have been exaggerated to weaken his presidency.
The United States is by far the worst-hit country in the world, with more than 4.2 million confirmed COVID-19 cases.
Trump's support in pre-election polls has plummeted, with a large majority of voter saying they distrust the president on his handling of the coronavirus crisis.
© 2020 AFP
Washington (AFP)
Only days after proclaiming a sober new tone on the coronavirus pandemic, President Donald Trump reverted to spreading misleading medical information, criticizing his top expert and promoting conspiracy theories.
Twitter took the rare step of removing clips tweeted by Trump from a video earlier deleted by Facebook in which a group of doctors tells Americans that masks are unnecessary and that hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malarial drug, can cure the COVID-19 virus.
Twitter said Tuesday that tweeting the video was "in violation of our COVID-19 misinformation policy."
Twitter also blocked Trump's son Don Jr -- a major player in the president's struggling reelection campaign -- from tweeting for 12 hours after he uploaded a version of the video.
At the center of the group speaking on the video is a doctor named Stella Immanuel, who doubles as a right-wing preacher who believes in witches.
The physician, who calls herself "God's battle axe," claims in the video that "the virus has a cure" in hydroxychloroquine.
This is false. There is currently no cure for the coronavirus, which has spread around the world and already killed nearly 150,000 Americans, wreaking havoc in the world's largest economy.
A majority of medical authorities now have also decided, after some initial debate, that hydroxychloroquine in particular has no proven benefit for coronavirus patients and can be harmful. The US Food and Drug Administration revoked emergency authorization for its use in June.
Trump, however, has persistently pushed the notion of hydroxychloroquine as an answer to the crisis and says he took the drug for two weeks as a precaution.
- Anti-Fauci rants -
In his Twitter spree late Monday, the president also retweeted a growing right-wing conspiracy theory that the nation's top expert on infectious diseases, Doctor Anthony Fauci, helped push coronavirus to hurt Trump's reelection in November.
The tweet, shared by Trump to his 84 million followers, claimed that Immanuel is highlighting "what should be the biggest scandal in modern American history."
This was "the suppression of #Hydroxychloroquine by Fauci & the Democrats to perpetuate Covid deaths to hurt Trump," the tweet reads.
Trump also attacked Fauci by retweeting a comment on a podcast hosted by his former advisor Steve Bannon that Fauci "misled the American public on many issues."
Fauci responded early Tuesday on ABC News saying he ignores Twitter. "I don’t tweet, I don’t even read them," he said.
"I have not been misleading the American public under any circumstances," said Fauci, whose decades of experience include pioneering the fight against AIDS from the 1980s onward.
"We’re in the middle of a crisis with regard to a pandemic," he said. "This is what I’ve been trained for my entire professional life."
- New tone? -
Trump's Twitter activity was made more remarkable by the fact that just a week ago he embarked on a distinctly more serious tone when discussing the out-of-control health crisis.
Earlier Monday, he'd made a trip to North Carolina for a visit to a laboratory taking part in the race for a coronavirus vaccine.
Trump used the photo-op, where he was shown inspecting high-tech lab equipment at Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies in Morrisville, to underline his support for the scientific response to the pandemic.
"We will achieve a victory over the virus by unleashing American scientific genius," he told reporters.
The facility has been awarded a contract to mass produce an experimental vaccine developed by Novavax, as part of a multi-billion dollar government initiative dubbed Operation Warp Speed.
However, Trump has repeatedly wavered between between trust in the country's scientists and sympathy for claims on the right that the dangers of the illness have been exaggerated to weaken his presidency.
The United States is by far the worst-hit country in the world, with more than 4.2 million confirmed COVID-19 cases.
Trump's support in pre-election polls has plummeted, with a large majority of voter saying they distrust the president on his handling of the coronavirus crisis.
© 2020 AFP
Trump again pushes unproven drug as COVID-19 treatment
President Donald Trump wears a face mask as he participates in a tour of Bioprocess Innovation Center at Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies, Monday, July 27, 2020, in Morrisville, N.C. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
SECOND TIME LUCKY, HE HAS NOW WORN A MASK AT PUBLIC EVENTS TWICE IN TWO WEEKS....
WASHINGTON (AP) — A week after appearing to project a more serious tone about the coronaviru s, President Donald Trump is back to spreading misinformation about how to combat the virus and the credibility of Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert.
Fauci pushed back Tuesday, saying he will keep doing his job.
Trump pushed unproven claims that an anti-malaria drug, hydroxychloroquine, is an effective treatment for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. But numerous studies have shown that hydroxychloroquine is not effective and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently withdrew an order that allowed the drug’s use as a emergency treatment for COVID-19.
Trump returned to his earlier advocacy for hydroxychloroquine after returning from a trip to North Carolina Monday where he promoted efforts to develop a COVID-19 vaccine. Trump retweeted a series of tweets advocating for hydroxychloroquine, including a video of a doctor claiming to have successfully used the drug on hundreds of patients.
The president also shared a post from the Twitter account for a podcast hosted by Steve Bannon, a former top White House adviser to Trump, accusing Fauci of misleading the public over hydroxychloroquine.
Fauci, a leading member of the White House coronavirus task force, responded to Trump’s tweets during an appearance Tuesday on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
“I go along with the FDA,” said Fauci, the longtime director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases. “The overwhelming prevailing clinical trials that have looked at the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine have indicated that it is not effective in coronavirus disease.”
It’s not the first time Fauci has come under attack from Trump and those close to him.
The president’s top trade adviser, Peter Navarro, who has clashed with Fauci over hydroxychloroquine, recently penned a scathing attack on the doctor that was published by USA Today. The newspaper later said the opinion piece did not meet its standards.
In recent nationally televised interviews, Trump himself has described Fauci as “a bit of an alarmist” and accused him of making “mistakes” in his coronavirus guidance to the American people.
“I don’t tweet. I don’t even read them, so I don’t really want to go there,” Fauci said. “I just will continue to do my job no matter what comes out because I think it’s very important. We’re in the middle of a crisis with regard to an epidemic, a pandemic. This is what I do. This is what I’ve been trained for my entire professional life and I’ll continue to do it.”
Asked about claims he’s been misleading the public, Fauci said: “I have not been misleading the American public under any circumstances.”
Trump retweeted a video that is circulating on social media pushing misleading claims about hydroxychloroquine. Earlier in the pandemic, Trump advocated vigorously for hydroxychloroquine to be used as a treatment, or even a preventative, telling people, “What have you got to lose?”
NOW 150,000 DEAD AMERICANS
Trump also said he took a 14-day course of hydroxychloroquine.
Facebook, Twitter and YouTube began scrubbing their sites of the video Monday because it includes misleading claims about hydroxychloroquine, and glosses over the dangers of taking it. But dozens of versions of the video remain live on their platforms, with conservative news outlets, groups and internet personalities sharing it on their pages, where users have viewed them millions of times.
One version of the video had more than 17 million views before Facebook took it down.
Facebook is trying to remove the video because it is “sharing false information about cures and treatments for COVID-19,” according to Andy Stone, a spokesman for the platform.
Twitter also said it is working to remove the video. A tweet from the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., describing one version of the video as a “must watch!!!” Monday night was also taken down by the platform.
In the video, Dr. Stella Immanuel, a physician from Houston, Texas, promotes hydroxychloroquine as a sure-fire cure for the coronavirus,. She claims to have successfully treated 350 people “and counting,” including some with underlying medical conditions.
“You don’t need masks, there is a cure,” Immanuel says in the video. “You don’t need people to be locked down.” She was among physicians in a group called “America’s Frontline Doctors” who made misleading claims about the virus at a news conference Monday in Washington.
Several Trump allies, groups and conservative news outlets shared the video of the event on Facebook and Twitter.
Facebook, Twitter and YouTube began scrubbing their sites of the video Monday because it includes misleading claims about hydroxychloroquine, and glosses over the dangers of taking it. But dozens of versions of the video remain live on their platforms, with conservative news outlets, groups and internet personalities sharing it on their pages, where users have viewed them millions of times.
One version of the video had more than 17 million views before Facebook took it down.
Facebook is trying to remove the video because it is “sharing false information about cures and treatments for COVID-19,” according to Andy Stone, a spokesman for the platform.
Twitter also said it is working to remove the video. A tweet from the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., describing one version of the video as a “must watch!!!” Monday night was also taken down by the platform.
In the video, Dr. Stella Immanuel, a physician from Houston, Texas, promotes hydroxychloroquine as a sure-fire cure for the coronavirus,. She claims to have successfully treated 350 people “and counting,” including some with underlying medical conditions.
“You don’t need masks, there is a cure,” Immanuel says in the video. “You don’t need people to be locked down.” She was among physicians in a group called “America’s Frontline Doctors” who made misleading claims about the virus at a news conference Monday in Washington.
Several Trump allies, groups and conservative news outlets shared the video of the event on Facebook and Twitter.
In another video shared widely on Twitter by a pro-Trump nonprofit, Immanuel claims Fauci and CNN anchors are secretly taking hydroxychloroquine and challenges them to give her a urine sample.
Trump initially flouted guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on wearing face masks, saying he wouldn’t wear one himself and refusing to don one in public.
After multiple polls showed the public disapproves of his handling of the coronavirus, Trump recently began encouraging people to wear face coverings as he tried to project a more serious tone about the virus, which has surged in Arizona, California, Florida, Texas and other states.
Trump wore a face mask in public on Monday in North Carolina, just the second time he has done so during the pandemic.
Last week, Trump said the situation would probably worsen before it gets better. He also canceled GOP convention events scheduled for August in Jacksonville, Florida, citing the virus.
In the U.S., more than 4 million people have been infected by the coronavirus and the death toll is nearing 150,000, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.
___
Seitz reported from Chicago. Associated Press writer David Klepper in Providence, R.I., contributed to this report.
Trump initially flouted guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on wearing face masks, saying he wouldn’t wear one himself and refusing to don one in public.
After multiple polls showed the public disapproves of his handling of the coronavirus, Trump recently began encouraging people to wear face coverings as he tried to project a more serious tone about the virus, which has surged in Arizona, California, Florida, Texas and other states.
Trump wore a face mask in public on Monday in North Carolina, just the second time he has done so during the pandemic.
Last week, Trump said the situation would probably worsen before it gets better. He also canceled GOP convention events scheduled for August in Jacksonville, Florida, citing the virus.
In the U.S., more than 4 million people have been infected by the coronavirus and the death toll is nearing 150,000, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.
___
Seitz reported from Chicago. Associated Press writer David Klepper in Providence, R.I., contributed to this report.
No comments:
Post a Comment