Dr. Fauci = Big Pharma; and "our free press" is his bitch.

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Mark Crispin Miller

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Apr 7, 2020, 11:04:44 AM4/7/20
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For an excellent demonstration of how not to be a journalist, watch this unhinged
attack by CNN's John Berman on Peter Navarro, White House trade advisor, for
having the audacity to disagree with Dr. Fauci on the wisdom of treating COVID-19
patients with hydroxychloroquine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oLstAAhhww.
To say that Berman was "biased" rather understates the virulence with which he
badgered, insulted, interrupted and misquoted Navarro, acting less like a reporter
than like a Merck propagandist—which, of course, is what he is.

You'll find the same ferocious deference to Il Fauci in "Trump Again Pushes Drug,
Never Mind Expert Opinion," a brief screed that required the labor of three New
York Times reporters—Michael Crowley, Katie Thomas and Maggie "Putin Ate My
Homework" Haberman—who evidently needed one another's help to cut and
paste what the Gray Lady has already published on hydroxychloroquine, the 
Bad Man who's said it "may help you to get better" if you have COVID-19, and
    the Good Doctor who keeps saying that it may not, and may even do you harm,
so nobody should be taking it.

That narrative pervades the "liberal media," whose war-like partiality to Dr.
    Fauci's view has left their audience (trembling) in the dark. Let's start by  
 start by noting that there's been a near-total blackout on the FDA's approval
of hydroxychloroquine for off-label use. That measure—announced a week
ago—has been reported only by Fox News and the New York Post, while the
New York Times and all the other "liberal media" have simply blacked it out,
despite the FDA's explicit statement that, while not yet officially approved,
hyrdoxychloroquine sulfate "may help you to get better" if you have the virus.
(So it wasn't Trump who used those words, as I mischievously wrote above,
but the FDA.) 

The Times has been especially careful to avoid reporting the FDA's 
revised position. On April 2, three days after the FDA released the
"fact sheet" announcing its new stand, the TImes ran a teeny item
at the bottom of p. A6, down in the lefthand corner of the page,
entitled "Study Shows Benefit From Malaria Drug." That wee piece
(barely) reported the results of a randomized clinical trial carried
out in Wuhan, demonstrating that the drug "significantly shortened"
recovery time for those with COVID-19. Rather than go into such
detail, the Times piece did include an an enthusiastic response 
from Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at
Vanderbilt, offering a view at striking variance with Dr. Fauci's 
categorical insistence that there's nothing there: "It's going to 
send a ripple of excitement out through the treating community"
—a "ripple" that the Times et al. have taken great pains to deny. 

The day after imperceptibly reporting that new Wuhan study,  
and as if in atonement for it, the Times ran "Touting Cure Brings
'Simple Country Doctor' Cheers, and Doubts," a long, chilly
profile of Dr. Vladimir Zelenko, who claims to have used
    hydrooxychloroquine, axithromycin and zinc sulfate to cure
hundreds of COVID-19 patients in Kryas Joel, a New York
    village with a Hasidic population. Rather than use that story 
    to suggest that maybe there is something to the promise of
hydroxychloroquine after all—which is to say, that maybe 
Dr. Fauci has it wrong—the Times' Kevin Roose and Matthew
Rosenberg, just following orders, use every grounds to
cast the doctor's story as a "parable" of how, within "our
fragile information ecosystem," we're all at risk if we don't
listen only to the likes of Dr. Fauci, "Bill and Melinda Gates," 
and the reporters at the Times: i.e., Those Who Know enough
to save us from the toxic "jumble of facts, falsehoods and
viral rumors" swirling miasmatically online. (The Times'
own online title to that piece is blunter than the paper version:
    "Touting Virus Cure, 'Simple Country Doctor' Becomes a Right-Wing Star.")

All that poisoned tripe from "our free press" is based squarely 
not on science, but on propaganda—especially Dr. Fauci's lie,
which he repeats hypnotically (as winning propaganda always 
does), that there has been no proper scientific study of 
hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19, that all the claims of
its success are purely "anecdotal." The watchdogs of our
media believe that line because that's what they're paid to do,
not because they've had their teams look into it and see if
Dr. Fauci's right. Doing so would weaken his authority, on
which (let me speak bluntly) scumbags like John Berman
are dependent—totally and abjectly dependent—for their 
belligerent certitude in shouting down whoever knows
what Dr. Fauci doesn't want the world to know about 
     
And so, if they were journalists, John Berman and the rest
of them would know that, as long ago as Feb. 4, a team
of Chinese doctors reported, in a letter to the editors of
Cell Research, that hydroxychloroquine—and the anti-
viral drug remdesevir—showed great effectiveness against
the new coronavirus in vitro. (The letter also ran in Nature.)

And on Feb. 20, the International Journal of Antimicrobial
Agents published the results of an open-label, non-randomized
clinical trial of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin in the
treatment of COVID-19 patients—the work of 18 specialists,
headed by Didier Raoult, the eminent French specialist whom
Macron's government has been vigorously smearing, in
deference to Big Pharma—as is much of "our free press,"
Slate lately calling him "the Trumpian French doctor behind
the chloroquine hype." This despite Dr. Raoult's golden 
reputation: "According to the Thomson Reuters source
'Highly Cited Researchers List,' Raoult is among the most
influential researchers in his field [infectious diseases]
and his publications are among the 1% most consulted in
academic journals," we learn from Wikipedia. That Dr.
Raoult is not only a far more prolific researcher than
Dr. Fauci, but one whose latest research could obstruct
Big Pharma's plans, explains why "our free press" reveres
the latter, and either slanders or blacks out the former
(whose work has not been mentioned by the New York Times).

And so the evidence that this drug shows effectiveness against the
virus isn't "anecdotal" after all—which means that Dr. Fauci can't be 
trusted, and neither can the Western press that treats him as a sage, 
and not an instrument of the huge industry that owns them all. That
danger is severe—and one that we can only overcome by breaking
out of house arrest, and gathering again, as soon as possible.

MCM


    

    
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