Remember hydroxychloroquine? It’s been a very long time — about a year— since doctors and public health organizations, like the FDA, warned against claims, most often floated by former president Donald Trump, that the drug meant to combat malaria could also work on COVID-19. It doesn’t, and what’s more, it causes side effects, on top of making it difficult for those who actually need it to obtain it. And yet on Wednesday, there was Ben Carson, retired neurosurgeon and former Trump staffer, talking about it like it was 2020 all over again.
This comes from Raw Story, who caught Carson’s disastrous appearance on Neil Cavuto’s Fox Business show, where he rambled on about how “we’ve allowed politics to be injected” into the vaccination roll-out, claiming that some people I “are skeptical about what they hear from the NIH, from the CDC, from various — quote — authorities.”
Carson using airquotes around “authorities” probably won’t exactly help the problem of wide swaths of Trump supporters refusing to get vaccinated, even though it will help things return to normal, which they want.
But he was just getting warmed up. Soon he was talking about “other things” that work to combat COVID-19 — like a drug whose effectiveness was disproven around this time last year. “You know, you look at the Western African countries along the coast. When you go there, you know, you have to take hydroxychloroquine or other antimalarials,” he said. “Interestingly enough, their instance of COVID-19 is tremendously less than ours. Is that a coincidence? I don’t think so.”
But even Cavuto knew that he had to nip this one in the bud, and quick. “Medical experts have looked at that, doctor, as you know, and poo-pooed that connection,” the host informed the doctor.
“You just said a bunch of people have poo-pooed the hydroxychloroquine,” Carson retorted. “But the evidence is there. What they haven’t done is investigated it. You know, and that’s part of the problem. And that’s why people don’t have confidence in our system.”
Cavuto again tried to talk some sense into him: “Wasn’t the evidence — the issue on that, doctor, for those with heart or other issues, it would not be a good idea — period — thinking that this was a magic or silver bullet to deal with the virus? Wasn’t that the issue?”
No,” Carson replied, then laid out a dishonest argument involving choice. “The issue is that we should put everything on the table. We shouldn’t just pick one thing and say, ‘You have to do this.’ We should say, let’s look at this whole variety, this whole plethora or possibilities that we have and let’s develop them all and let’s be objective about it instead of trying to steer them down one pathway.
“We should work together to give people choices,” he added, again dishonestly. “That’s what America is all about.”
Cavuto tried one more time to reason with him, pointing out that multiple public health bodies “did not recommend this.”
Shilling for a debunked miracle drug that even Trump stopped talking about almost a year ago wasn’t the only embarrassing thing Carson said on Wednesday. He also appeared on regular Fox News to decry calls for racial equity, trying to make the argument that basing anything on skin color — such as, say, pointing out that American society has long been rigged in favor of whites, and that some white people are prejudiced against people of different skin color — is “what animals do.”
After Carson’s banner day, he earned a lot of attention on social media. Some questioned his credentials.
People who say Ben Carson wasn't a great doctor are nuts!
Name another doctor who was able to complete a self-lobotomy?
I rest my case.
— Brian O'Sullivan (@osullivanauthor) April 21, 2021
Ben Carson has single-handedly taken the gravitas out of the phrase "brain surgeon". https://t.co/H6RQ7SMT4D
— Bread & Circuses
(@FeasterFamine) April 21, 2021
Ben Carson single-handedly rescued brain surgeons from the stereotype of being smart.
— Middle Age Riot (@middleageriot) April 19, 2021
Some couldn’t believe he was dropping this old favorite.
Hey @TeamCavuto , Ben Carson is still pushing Hyrdroxychloroquine. At some point you gotta send that jackass home and stop inviting him on as an expert.
— Mr. Newberger (@jeremynewberger) April 22, 2021
Some roped in Candace Owens.
Candice Owens, Ben Carson are Useful Tools for the white supremacist. https://t.co/4iIXJj5TSv
— arman walker (@armanwalker) April 21, 2021
Others made fun of him.
People who say Ben Carson wasn't a great doctor are nuts!
Name another doctor who was able to complete a self-lobotomy?
I rest my case.
— Brian O'Sullivan (@osullivanauthor) April 21, 2021
Ben Carson just knocked The White House front door and realized Donald Trump and Melania moved out. pic.twitter.com/UJWqoAcVUR
— ClockOutWars (@clockoutwars) April 21, 2021
Ben Carson is the Louie Gohmert of neurosurgeons. https://t.co/xHd5g2Eu8D
— Baligubadle (@Baligubadle1) April 21, 2021
BREAKING: Ben Carson woke up and some words fell from his mouth on his MyPillow
— Exploding Space Pillow Singh, MD
(@labyrinthweaver) April 21, 2021
And others reminded people that Carson himself contracted COVID-19, and when he did he was almost certainly not prescribed hydroxychloroquine.
Reminder:
Ben Carson contracted COVID-19 and was hospitalized. He was not given hydroxychloroquine. https://t.co/rrPwhc0InO
— Pé (@4everNeverTrump) April 21, 2021
You can watch Carson’s Cavuto appearance above.
(Via Raw Story)
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