Social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter as well as video
streaming site, Youtube, have deleted videos by an American-based
physician, Dr Stella Immanuel, who claimed to have recorded a 100 per
cent success rate in the treatment of COVID-19 using hydroxychloroquine.
The
video was first published by Breitbart News, a right-wing medium
co-founded by Steve Bannon, a former aide to American President, Donald
Trump.
In the video, which was shot in front of the United States
Supreme Court, Dr Immanuel is seen with seven others wearing white lab
coats calling themselves “America’s Frontline Doctors” and addressing
the press.
President Trump, who is up for reelection in
November, shared multiple versions of the video with his 84 million
Twitter followers on Monday night.
During the press conference,
she claims “you don’t need masks” to prevent the spread of the
coronavirus, and that recent studies showing hydroxychloroquine is
ineffective for the treatment of Covid-19 are “fake science” sponsored
by “fake pharma companies”.
“This virus has a cure, it’s called
hydroxychloroquine, zinc, and Zithromax,” the woman claims. “You don’t
need masks, there is a cure.”
The claims run contrary to multiple
studies on the anti-malarial drug and advice from public health
officials to prevent the spread of the virus.
According to CNN, a
study found that neither hydroxychloroquine alone nor
hydroxychloroquine plus azithromycin appeared to affect the condition of
patients at the 15-day mark. Additionally, unusual heart rhythms and
elevated liver-enzyme levels were more frequent in patients receiving
hydroxychloroquine alone or with azithromycin, according to the study.
The
video quickly went viral on Facebook, becoming one of the
top-performing posts on the platform with more than 14 million views
before it was taken down Monday night for promoting misinformation. It
was shared nearly 600,000 times, according to Crowdtangle, a
data-analytics firm owned by Facebook.
“We’ve removed this video
for sharing false information about cures and treatments for COVID-19,” a
Facebook spokesperson told CNN, adding that the platform is “showing
messages in News Feed to people who have reacted to, commented on or
shared harmful COVID-19-related misinformation that we have removed,
connecting them to myths debunked by the WHO.”
Twitter worked to
scrub the video late Monday night after Trump shared versions of the
video that amassed hundreds of thousands of views.
“We’re taking action in line with our Covid misinfo policy,” a Twitter spokesperson told CNN.
Twitter
took action against the videos that Trump retweeted. By early Tuesday
morning, the videos were no longer able to be viewed on his account.
Twitter also took action on a version of the video posted by Donald
Trump Jr. and others shared by Breitbart News.
The video was also
removed by YouTube, where it had been viewed more than 40,000 times.
Users attempting to access the video late Monday were greeted with a
message that said it had been removed for “violating YouTube’s Community
Guidelines.”
According to the website for America’s Frontline
Doctors, the group is led by Dr. Simone Gold, a Los Angeles-based
emergency medicine specialist who has previously been featured on Fox
News for her views that stay-at-home orders are harmful. Gold told the
Associated Press in May she wanted to speak out against stay-home orders
because there was “no scientific basis that the average American should
be concerned” about Covid-19.
America’s Frontline Doctors could not be reached for comment late Monday.
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