Existing comment:
Thank you
Dr. Robert Malone, MD
Dr. Peter McCullough, MD
& Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
True American Heros [sic]
Robert W. Malone
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Robert Wallace Malone (born 1959) is an American physician and biochemist. His early work focused on mRNA technology, pharmaceuticals, and drug repurposing research. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Malone has promoted misinformation about the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines.
COVID-19
In early 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Malone was involved in research into the heartburn medicine famotidine (Pepcid) as a potential COVID-19 treatment following anecdotal evidence suggesting that it may have been associated with higher COVID-19 survival. Malone, then with Alchem Laboratories, suspected famotidine may target an enzyme that the virus (SARS-CoV-2) uses to reproduce, and recruited a computational chemist to help design a 3D-model of the enzyme based on the viral sequence and comparisons to the 2003 SARS virus. After encouraging preliminary results, Alchem Laboratories, in conjunction with New York's Northwell Health, initiated a clinical trial on famotidine and hydroxychloroquine. Malone resigned from Alchem shortly after the trial began and Northwell paused the trial due to a shortage of hospitalized patients.
With another researcher, Malone successfully proposed to the publishers of Frontiers in Pharmacology a special issue featuring early observational studies on existing medication used in the treatment of COVID-19, for which they recruited other guest editors, contributors, and reviewers. The journal rejected two of the papers selected: one on famotidine co-authored by Malone and another submitted by physician Pierre Kory on the use of ivermectin. The publisher rejected the ivermectin paper due to what it stated were "a series of strong, unsupported claims" which they determined did "not offer an objective nor balanced scientific contribution." Malone and most other guest editors resigned in protest in April 2021, and the special issue has been pulled from the journal's website.
Malone received criticism for propagating COVID-19 misinformation, including making claims about the toxicity of spike proteins generated by some COVID-19 vaccines; using interviews on mass media to popularize medication with ivermectin; and tweeting a study by others questioning vaccine safety that was later retracted. He said that LinkedIn temporarily suspended his account over a post stating that the Chairman of the Thomson Reuters Foundation was also a board member at Pfizer, and other posts questioning the efficacy of some COVID-19 vaccines. Malone has also falsely claimed that the Pfizer–BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines could worsen COVID-19 infections, and that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had not granted full approval to the Pfizer vaccine in August 2021. In November 2021, Malone shared a deceptive video on Twitter that falsely linked athlete deaths to COVID-19 vaccines. In particular, the video suggested that Jake West, a 17-year-old Indiana high school football player who died of sudden cardiac arrest, had died from COVID-19 vaccination. However, West died in 2013 from an undiagnosed heart condition. Malone deleted the video from his Twitter account after receiving a cease-and-desist letter from West's family. Malone later said on Twitter that he did not know the video was doctored. On December 29, 2021, Twitter permanently suspended Malone from its platform, citing "repeated violations of our COVID-19 misinformation policy", after he shared on that platform a video about supposed harmful effects of the Pfizer vaccine.
On December 30, 2021, Malone claimed on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast that something called "mass formation psychosis" was developing in American society in its reaction to COVID-19 just as during the rise of Nazi Germany. The term mass formation psychosis isn't found in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, is not based on factual medical information, and is described by Steve Reicher, a professor of social psychology at the University of St Andrews, as "more metaphor than science, more ideology than fact." Clips of the podcast episode were removed by YouTube from their platform for violating the site's Community Guidelines. 270 physicians, scientists, academics, nurses and students wrote an open letter to Spotify complaining about the content of the podcast. On January 3, 2022, Congressman Troy Nehls entered a full transcript of The Joe Rogan Experience interview with Malone into the Congressional Record in order to circumvent what he said was censorship by social media.
On January 23, 2022, Malone spoke at an anti-vaccine and anti-vaccine mandate rally in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.
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Peter A. McCullough
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Peter Andrew McCullough (born December 29, 1962) is an American cardiologist. He was vice chief of internal medicine at Baylor University Medical Center and a professor at Texas A&M University.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, McCullough has promoted misinformation about COVID-19, the COVID-19 vaccine, and COVID-19 treatments. ...
COVID-19
During the COVID-19 pandemic, McCullough advocated for early treatment including hydroxychloroquine, criticized the response of the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration, dissented from public health recommendations, and contributed to COVID-19 misinformation.
Early outpatient treatment advocacy
In April 2020, McCullough led a study of the medication hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for COVID-19 for the Baylor Scott & White Medical Center. McCullough told The Wall Street Journal that the urgency of the public health crisis justified compromises on best practices in medical research. In July, after major studies found hydroxychloroquine was ineffective against COVID-19 and the Food and Drug Administration revoked its emergency use authorization (EUA), McCullough supported a second EUA.
McCullough, Harvey Risch of the Yale School of Public Health, and co-authors published an observational study proposing an early outpatient treatment regimen for COVID-19 in August 2020 in the American Journal of Medicine. Based on previous evidence, the article made recommendations for treating ambulatory COVID-19 patients, but presented no new evidence. The article was shared on social media, mainly by groups which had previously published COVID-19 misinformation, in posts falsely interpreting the publication as an endorsement of hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for COVID-19. The Ministry of Health of Brazil endorsed the article on its website, contributing to a severe COVID-19 misinformation problem in Brazil. The article was criticized in letters to the editors; the editors responded that the article included some "hopeful speculations...What seemed reasonable last summer based on laboratory experiments has subsequently been shown to be untrue."
McCullough and Risch were two of three witnesses called by committee chair Senator Ron Johnson to testify before a United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs hearing on COVID-19 treatments held in November 2020. McCullough testified in support of social distancing, vaccination, and treatments, including hydroxychloroquine. Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, called to testify by the ranking member, said the "clear consensus in the medical and scientific community, based on overwhelming evidence" is that hydroxychloroquine is ineffective as a treatment for COVID-19. McCullough said Jha was promoting misinformation and Jha's opposition to the drug was "reckless and dangerous for the nation." Jha responded on The New York Times opinion page, "By elevating witnesses who sound smart but endorse unfounded therapies, we risk jeopardizing a century's work of medical progress."
COVID-19 misinformation
Some of McCullough's public statements contributed to the spread of COVID-19 misinformation.
McCullough testified before a committee of the Texas Senate in March 2021, posted to YouTube by the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, in which he made false claims about COVID-19 and COVID-19 vaccines, including that people under 50 years of age and survivors do not need the vaccine and that there is no evidence of asymptomatic spread of COVID-19.
Posted on the Canadian online video sharing platform Rumble, McCullough gave an interview in April 2021 to The New American, the magazine of the right-wing John Birch Society, in which he advanced anti-vaccination messaging, including falsely claiming tens of thousands of fatalities attributed to the COVID-19 vaccines. In May 2021, McCullough gave an interview in which he made claims about COVID-19 and COVID-19 vaccines which were "inaccurate, misleading and/or unsupported by evidence", including that survivors cannot be re-infected and so do not require vaccination and that the vaccines are dangerous.
During television appearances, McCullough has contradicted public health recommendations, including when asked about the aggressive spread of COVID-19 among children, by suggesting that healthy persons under 30 had no need for a vaccine, and when asked about the relative merits of vaccination-induced immunity versus "natural" (survivor) immunity, by disputing the necessity of vaccinations to achieve herd immunity. |