This archive report was first published on 23 April 2020.
Fox News Stars Promote Malaria Drug, Then Suddenly Stop ¶
For nearly a month, Fox News stars Laura Ingraham, Tucker Carlson, and Sean Hannity promoted hydroxychloroquine as a miracle cure for the coronavirus, despite a lack of rigorous trials.
Ms. Ingraham, who has nearly four million nightly viewers, repeatedly called the drug a 'game changer' and booked recovered patients to describe their 'miracle turnaround.'
However, as studies and health experts raised doubts about the drug's efficacy, the Fox News stars suddenly stopped mentioning it. Since April 13, hydroxychloroquine has been mentioned about a dozen times on Fox News, compared with more than 100 times in the four previous weeks.
The shift came as President Trump has dialed back his public zeal for the treatment. On Tuesday, a study of 368 Veterans Affairs patients showed that the use of hydroxychloroquine was associated with an increased risk of death.
Ms. Ingraham declined to be interviewed for this article, but on Wednesday, after this article was published online, she opened her Fox News program by dismissing the results of the Veterans Affairs study, calling it 'shoddy,' 'shockingly irresponsible,' and 'agenda-driven.'
She added: 'What's driving this blind obsession to disprove the effectiveness of a drug that is being used right now, tonight, in medical centers across America?' Ms. Ingraham said, above an onscreen graphic that read 'The Truth About Hydroxychloroquine.'
She also questioned whether the criticism of hydroxychloroquine was driven by 'pure hatred of Trump, of Fox, of me?' (Ms. Ingraham prefaced her remarks by reminding viewers: 'I'm not a doctor; I don't play one on TV.')
