Posted on 04/17/2020 7:51:19 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Last week, I wrote about the stupidity of rooting against hydroxychloroquine simply because Donald Trump has mentioned that it holds some therapeutic promise in the fight against coronavirus. This NBC News piece by Heidi Przybyla is the kind of shoddy journalism to which I was referring:
A New York woman with coronavirus symptoms died last week after being prescribed a drug cocktail with known cardiac side effects, and family members say she was not tested for COVID-19 or for heart problems before receiving the medication.
The piece goes on to mention — twice — that Trump touted the drug, and notes that Media Matters says that Fox News touts the drug. But it offers no evidence that the woman’s death had anything to do with hydroxychloroquine.
Despite strongly suggesting that Trump had a hand in death of a defenseless 65-year-old woman, the reporter failed to speak to the physician who prescribed the drugs, or even to obtain additional confirmation about the cause of death.
And even if the drug did play some role in the woman’s death — it’s certainly possible; every drug has side effects, and there are over confirmed 200,000 coronavirus cases in New York City — the piece offers no evidence that doctors in Queens, New York are handing out z-packs because the president mentioned hydroxychloroquine during a press conference.
A recent poll found that 65 percent of physicians in United States would prescribe chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19 in a family member. Whether hydroxychloroquine ends up being one of the answers (or other drugs), one assumes there are some medical reasons to believe the drug might hold promise.
The NBC article relies only on the non-medical claims of a distraught family. One relative, incidentally, says that the woman hadn’t even been tested for coronavirus. The doctor, according to the family, didn’t even examine the patient or ask if the patient had a heart condition.
If this is true, then perhaps the doctor was negligent, because azithromycin is known to cause heart arrhythmias — and it’s why doctors keep a close eye on patients who are now mixing hydroxychloroquine with other drugs. But both hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin have been widely used for decades, and most doctors are well acquainted with their side effects. Indeed, Americans with lupus and other autoimmune problems have been taking hydroxychloroquine and dealing with the same side effects for decades, too. Searching for horror stories such as this one — ignoring basic journalistic standards to run a predetermined gotcha — is not only transparently partisan and amateurish, it’s one of the reasons people have such a hard time trusting the news.
“...family members say she was not tested for COVID-19 or for heart problems before receiving the medication...”
Why, then, was she prescribed these drugs?????
HCQ appears to have remote adverse side effect: increased libido.
We all know the #1 rule of ‘journalism’ - if it bleeds, it leads. Used to be that being a newspaper man (yes, or woman -sheesh) was an honorable noble profession. Not anymore.
During the 1980s AIDS crisis, Democrats, leftists, Republicans...practically everyone...were advocating for use of alternative therapies and treatments.
IIRC the medical establishment itself was not thrilled. But there was a ground swell of support among the population for AZT and other drugs, including drug cocktails.
Expect more of these stories as we begin to open the country up, and as we move into the Fall.
Very true...Proven every day...
And now her Twitter timeline is filled with her pimping for Remdesivir.
Because "proven" after a 2-week clinical non-clinical trial - unlike the "unproven" 65-year-old medication HCQ...
“But it offers no evidence that the woman’s death had anything to do with hydroxychloroquine.”
Hell, it offers no evidence that the woman existed or actually DIED. They give us a first name only,
because the family wants privacy”. No death certificate because it’s so recent.
This smells like another in the long line of fake victims and sources that are the basis of another heart rending story. I doubt if this source even exists.
Well, they can’t support anything evil orange man supports. They’d rather die first.
Using that word in context with the President's comment really pisses me off as it carries a negative (as in race track tout) connotation. Both sides uses it, so IMO, it's sloppy journalism by conservatives.
The liberals have that negative wordsmithing down pat, but I see no reason our side has to follow their lead.
"put forward", "suggested", "mentioned" aren't good enough?
Not a Grammar Cop, but this time . . . :-)
Keep in mind that NatReview was, and maybe still is, a Never-Trump publication.
“We all know the #1 rule of ‘journalism’ - if it bleeds, it leads”
That’s so passee!
Today it’s, if it hurts Trump it leads.
We all know that Crap is King.
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