If you want a perfect summary of why people don’t trust the media anymore, and in particular CNN, this is it.
Back in September 2021 Joe Rogan announced that he had contracted COVID and was taking a “kitchen sink” approach to fighting it off. One of the drugs he took was Ivermectin.
Immediately, as in that same day, CNN started in on a campaign to mock Rogan for taking “horse dewormer.”
*On Sept. 1, CNN host Erin Burnett said: “Controversial podcast host Joe Rogan, who’s railed against vaccine requirements, says he has covid and took a drug intended for livestock.” She articulated similar descriptions two additional times before interviewing a doctor and noting that the drug is prescribed for people as well.
*The same day, CNN host Anderson Cooper said, “One of those drugs he mentioned, ivermectin, is something more often used to deworm horses.” On that same show, CNN chief media correspondent Brian Stelter said, “When you have a horse deworming medication that’s discouraged by the government that actually causes some people in this crazy environment we’re in to actually want to try it. That’s the upside down where we’re in with figures like Joe Rogan.”
*Also that day, host Don Lemon said, “The United States is now averaging 160,455 new covid-19 cases every day, including controversial podcast host Joe Rogan saying that he tested positive for covid and that he says he is taking several medications including a drug meant for deworming livestock.”
And it continued like that for several more days. One of the people who jumped on the bandwagon was then-CNN host Chris Cuomo.
Chris Cuomo just said that ivermectin works, he takes it daily, and that the medical community knew it couldn’t hurt you if you took it for Covid.🤡
Flashback to Cuomo version 2020. pic.twitter.com/hG62lWN5s7
— MAZE (@mazemoore) May 8, 2024
Given the history it comes as something of a shock that Chris Cuomo admitted this week he is now taking Ivermectin for long COVID.
Former CNN anchor Chris Cuomo admits he now takes Ivermectin *everyday* to treat his Covid vaccine injury
You can’t make this up
For years, he bashed Joe Rogan & others who took Ivermectin
He pushed everyone to get the jab
Now he’s a cheerleader for Ivermectin b/c it WORKS pic.twitter.com/LjEREh26Gd
— DC_Draino (@DC_Draino) May 9, 2024
He starts to take issue with Rogan one more time and then pauses and corrects himself.
“Everyone’s going to say ‘Joe Rogan was right,’” Cuomo continued. “No, Joe Rogan was saying – yeah, he was right – that’s not what matters. What matters is, the entire medical community knew that Ivermectin couldn’t hurt you.”
First of all, the issue with Rogan wasn’t that he was right it’s that CNN lied about what he was taking. He was not taking horse dewormer but pills designed for humans that were prescribed by a doctor. Second of all, everyone knew at the time that Ivermectin was a safe medication (when taken in proper doses of course). They knew because it had been given to hundreds of millions of people over the span of more than 20 years. The fact that Ivermectin was safe for humans was not a secret that was withheld from Chris Cuomo or anyone else at CNN. This is from Nature and was published in 2017:
Perhaps more than any other drug, ivermectin is a drug for the world’s poor. For most of this century, some 250 million people have been taking it annually to combat two of the world’s most devastating, disfiguring, debilitating and stigma-inducing diseases, Onchocerciasis and Lymphatic filariasis. Most of the recipients live in remote, rural, desperately under-resourced communities in developing countries and have virtually no access to even the most rudimentary of medical interventions. Moreover, all the treatments have been made available free of charge thanks to the unprecedented drug donation program…
Recent research has confounded the belief, held for most of the past 40 years, that ivermectin was devoid of any antiviral characteristics…
It has been shown to have potent antiviral action against HIV-1 and dengue viruses, both of which are dependent on the importin protein superfamily for several key cellular processes. Ivermectin may be of import in disrupting HIV-1 integrase in HIV-1 as well as NS-5 (non-structural protein 5) polymerase in dengue viruses.
The point is, whether or not Ivermectin was helpful in the specific case of COVID, it was widely considered a wonder-drug in humans something which CNN’s hosts could have known in 2021 with a quick Google search.
Rogan did eventually get a chance to confront CNN in the form of their chief medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta who eventually admitted CNN was wrong to frame Rogan’s treatment the way it had.
Joe Rogan asks Sanjay Gupta if it bothers him that CNN outright lied about Rogan taking horse dewormer to recover from covid. This is fantastic: pic.twitter.com/PEgJqIXhSD
— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) October 14, 2021
The Post’s Erik Wemple asked CNN for a comment after Gupta said this and got this response:
The heart of this debate has been purposely confused and ultimately lost. It’s never been about livestock versus human dosage of Ivermectin. The issue is that a powerful voice in the media, who by example and through his platform, sowed doubt in the proven and approved science of vaccines while promoting the use of an unproven treatment for covid-19 — a drug developed to ward off parasites in farm animals. The only thing CNN did wrong here was bruise the ego of a popular podcaster who pushed dangerous conspiracy theories and risked the lives of millions of people in doing so.
So it sounds like Chris Cuomo has learned his lesson and good for him for admitting it, but of course he’s no longer at CNN. The network still has a long way to go.