Even though Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) was being used successfully to treat COVID-19 from the beginning, there was a coordinated push to censor its efficacy, to mock individuals who used it and to attack doctors who prescribed it. One of the most disgusting hit pieces against HCQ claimed that it caused 17,000 deaths. The corporate media used the report to mock Donald Trump for using and recommending HCQ. However, eight months after its publication, researchers have audited these politically motivated claims and found the study to be a lie, based on fraudulent data. The 17,000 deaths never occurred.
The blacklisting of efficacious treatments caused numerous deaths, and the curse continues today
In order to legally achieve Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for experimental use COVID-19 vaccines, the Department of Defense (DoD) and its shell companies — Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson — had to convince the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that there were NO known treatments for COVID-19. Government lockdowns, widespread propaganda, the politicization of propaganda and the normalization of unlawful medical mandates applied additional, coercive pressure on the process.
From the FDA: Under an EUA, FDA may allow the use of unapproved medical products, or unapproved uses of approved medical products in an emergency to diagnose, treat, or prevent serious or life-threatening diseases or conditions when certain statutory criteria have been met, including that there are no adequate, approved, and available alternatives.
With billions of dollars already invested in this vaccine program (Operation Warp Speed), public health authorities, government czars, the corporate media and their Big Tech acolytes coordinated with one another to censor and disparage any treatment plan, including pharmaceuticals and nutraceuticals, that were being used by doctors to treat COVID-19. This censorship included academic fraud, unapologetic slander and a complete misrepresentation of clinical evidence and real-world outcomes for basic treatments that were working.
The censorship was even weaponized to threaten doctors who treated patients. Any treatment for respiratory symptoms or inflammatory conditions associated with the illness, whether it be an over-the-counter drug, an herbal or nutritional supplement, or a prescription medication, was blacklisted on social media, lied about on the corporate media channels and completely ignored by public health officials. The public health authorities insisted that populations stay locked down and terrorized until the DoD launched the COVID-19 vaccines, while hospitals received financial kickbacks for using kidney-damaging remdesivir on patients.
By blocking efficacious treatments and disparaging against their use, government and public health officials essentially injured and killed hundreds of thousands of people before the COVID-19 vaccines were fraudulently approved. Instead of reporting what was working to treat COVID-19 in communities across the nation, the Federal Coronavirus Task Force (which didn’t see patients) replayed a narrative of bio-terror and lockdown, demanding Americans follow the government’s narrative and controls.
Article that claimed HCQ caused 17,000 deaths gets retracted; its data based on fraud
After HCQ was successfully censored and disparaged, an academic article claimed that the medication was “responsible for 17,000 deaths.” This hit job against HCQ was effective and led to publishers and media outlets warning the public against using HCQ to treat COVID-19. The article was further politicized and used to attack Donald Trump because he originally promoted HCQ.
Now, the article is RETRACTED because researchers discovered that the data that underpinned the article was unreliable and fraudulent. The original publication, which appeared in Elsevier’s Journal of Biomedicine and Pharmacotherapy, was overseen by Dr. Danyelle Townsend, a professor at the University of South Carolina College of Pharmacy.
The article, “Deaths Induced by Compassionate Use of Hydroxychloroquine During the First COVID-19 Wave: An Estimate” tried to find potential deaths linked to HCQ during the initial COVID-19 outbreak. However, the Belgium dataset cited in the article has since been discredited, with claims of intentional fabrication. The authors, primarily from France and Canada, based their conclusions on questionable data from the RECOVERY trial, which has been criticized for its methodological flaws, including late treatment initiation and high dosing.
Corporate media outlets, including Forbes, The Hill and Politico, sensationalized the findings, leading to a wave of misinformation that implicated HCQ in non-existent fatalities. Josh Cohen, a senior healthcare columnist for Forbes, referred to the unfounded death toll in a highly charged op-ed linking HCQ to President Trump, further politicizing the issue and polarizing the nation to reject basic treatments. By the time the article was retracted on August 26, 2024 — 234 days after publication — the damage had been done. Many news stories propagating the false narrative continue to dominate search results, perpetuating confusion about HCQ’s safety and efficacy.
Since being exposed, Dr. Townsend’s editorial oversight has come under fire, raising questions about the qualifications of the journal’s editorial board and their ability to review complex clinical data. The situation has raised serious ethical questions about academic publishing and accountability. Why did it take nearly eight months for the journal to retract the article? What steps, if any, did Dr. Townsend take to inform the media and the public about the flaws in the study before its retraction? What qualifications do members of the editorial board possess to assess drug safety? Are there broader implications for the integrity of other journals and their publishing practices?
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