Twitter has forced Fox News host Laura Ingraham to take down a tweet reporting on news that the malaria drug Hydroxychloroquine has been used to successfully treat sufferers of the Chinese virus in New York City hospitals.
In a now-deleted tweet, the Fox host reported that “Lenox Hill in New York among many hospitals using Hydroxychloroquine with promising results. One patient was described as “Lazarus” who was seriously ill from COVID-19, already released. #IngrahamAngle”
Twitter told left-wing reporters that Ingraham had been locked out of her account and forced to delete the tweet before regaining access. Twitter cited its new rules around “misleading information around COVID-19,” even though it appears that Chinese propagandists on the platform are being given a pass on virus-related misinformation.
A TWITTER SPOX confirmed to @Mediaite: the tweets “fall under our misleading information policy under Heightened-risk health claims,” adding the tweet has been “taken down.”
— Zachary Petrizzo (@ZTPetrizzo) March 30, 2020
Twitter spox confirms this tweet “fell under” its rules governing “misleading information around COVID-19” and Ingraham had to delete it in order to regain access to her account. https://t.co/SMHvJfQyso
— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) March 30, 2020
Ingraham’s tweet appears to have been based on comments from Dr. William Grace, an oncologist who touted the virus-busting benefits of Hydroxychloroquine on the Fox host’s show yesterday. Fox said it incorrectly identified Dr. Grace as an employee of Lenox Hill, but it did not say that his medical opinion about the drug was inaccurate.
ABC News has quoted a different doctor from Lenox Hill, Len Horovitz, who had a similar opinion.
Via ABC News:
Given chloroquine’s effectiveness in treating SARS, scientists have investigated if it will be an effective treatment against the new coronavirus responsible for COVID-19. So far, the initial trials are encouraging.
“There is evidence that chloroquine is effective when they looked at SARS in vitro with primate cells,” said Dr. Len Horovitz, a pulmonologist and internist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. “The theory of the experiment with primate cells was that chloroquine could be for preventing viral infection or as a treatment for viral infection after it had occurred. In vitro in these primate cells, there was evidence that viral particles were significantly reduced when chloroquine was used.”
ABC News, unlike Ingraham, is still allowed to describe its report on Twitter.
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