Wednesday, November 25, 2020

YouTube suspends TV network for report about COVID treatment

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YouTube temporarily suspended the One America News Network from its platform, apparently for posting a report about the successful treatment of COVID-19 patients with the highly politicized drug hydroxychloroquine.

YouTube said Tuesday that OAN violated its "misinformation" policy barring users from posting videos that claim the coronavirus can be "cured."

OAN, which has been touted by President Trump as an alternative to Fox News, was previously warned about violating the policy, Axios reported. And two more violations would result in termination of the account. The network will need to reapply to the YouTube Partner Program to resume making money off its videos.

OAN issued a statement saying the offending video was "unlisted" and viewable only by OAN staff.

The network said it will abide by YouTube's policies with future videos "but will not let YouTube's arbitrary rules infringe upon our First Amendment editorial rights to inform the public," reported City News Service.

"We believe that the opinions of frontline doctors should be heard, regardless if their views agree or differ from the CDC," the statement said. "YouTube requires a warning label if interviewed medical experts deviate from the CDC’s latest thinking, which is frequently subject to change. However, these are actual, practicing doctors who went to medical school and are highly qualified to make medical decisions — much more so than the moderators at YouTube."

City News Service noted OAN claims it has interviewed more than 50 doctors and healthcare professionals who have successfully treated more than 6,000 COVID-19 patients. The channel said it has "highlighted therapeutics — including hydroxychloroquine — recommended by these doctors and that showed evidence of success."

Meanwhile, a peer-reviewed study set to be published in December measuring the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine concluded the drug lowered hospitalizations and mortality rates of coronavirus patients.

In July, a study conducted by the Henry Ford Health System in Michigan found that patients treated with hydroxychloroquine were more likely to survive COVID-19.

Last Thursday, as WND reported, leading epidemiologists who have found hydroxychloroquine to be an effective treatment for COVID-19 and decry its politicization testified to the Senate's Homeland Security Committee.

Get the free "Guide to Home-Based COVID Treatment"

Dr. Harvey Risch, a professor of epidemiology at Yale University, emphasized the drug is "exceedingly safe," having been prescribed for more than 65 years to "hundreds of millions of people" in "10s of billions of doses."

He said there are seven studies on the use of hydroxychloroquine in high-risk patients, and every one has shown reductions of 50% or more in the risk of hospitalization and mortality.

Dr. George Fareed, medical director at Pioneers Health Center in the Imperial Valley in California, told the Senate panel he treated successfully more than 1,000 high-risk patients with a cocktail of hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin and zinc, which was developed by Dr. Zev Zelenko, who told WND in April of his 100% success treating 350 coronavirus patients.

An outspoken proponent of hydroxychloroquine, Dr. Steven Smith of East Orange, New Jersey, expressed in an interview with WND in May his frustration with the politicization of hydroxychloroquine.

Risch, in an interview with Fox News' Laura Ingraham in July, said hydroxychloroquine is "a political drug now, not a medical drug."

He said establishment media and politicians are "basically fighting a propaganda war against the medical facts" that is shaping not only how the population views the drug, but doctors as well."

Risch said he's received "hostile remarks" from doctors who say that "all the evidence is bad for it."

"And in fact, that's not true at all. And it's easy to show that the evidence – all the evidence is actually good for it when it's used in outpatient uses," he said. "Nevertheless, the only people who actually see that are a whole pile of doctors who are actually on the frontlines treating those patients across the country. And they are the ones who are at risk of being forced not to do it."

In a guest column for Newsweek, Risch, who has authored more than 300 peer-reviewed publications and currently hold senior positions on the editorial boards of several leading journals, argued hydroxychloroquine is the key to containing the virus.

In May, he published an article in the the world's leading epidemiology journal, the American Journal of Epidemiology, that analyzed five studies "demonstrating clear-cut and significant benefits" to treating patients with hydroxychloroquine along with other very large studies that demonstrated its safety.

"Physicians who have been using these medications in the face of widespread skepticism have been truly heroic," he wrote in the Newsweek column. "They have done what the science shows is best for their patients, often at great personal risk. I myself know of two doctors who have saved the lives of hundreds of patients with these medications, but are now fighting state medical boards to save their licenses and reputations. The cases against them are completely without scientific merit."

Smith, who briefed President Trump in April on the safety and effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine, pointed out the World Health Organization temporarily halted studying hydroxychloroquine in response to a widely reported observational study published in the medical journal The Lancet that concluded seriously ill COVID-19 patients who were treated with hydroxychloroquine were more likely to die.

But in an embarrassing turn, the premiere journal was forced to withdraw the study after three of the four authors issued an apology, citing concerns about the quality and veracity of the data.

The Lancet study's fatal flaws were immediately apparent to Smith when the study was released in May. Dr. Marc Siegel, associate professor of medicine at the New York University Langone Medical Center, called The Lancet study a "political hit job."

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The post YouTube suspends TV network for report about COVID treatment appeared first on WND.



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