A 56-minute video in which a doctor claims to tell “the truth about CV19 vaccine” contains various misleading allegations, including that vaccines will make people test positive for COVID-19 and thus artificially increase the number of new cases; that the disease was renamed as part of a cover-up; and that there are proven effective treatments for COVID-19 that the media ignores. There are numerous other claims in the video that fall outside the scope of this fact check.
The video includes a speech by Dr Simone Gold during an event called ‘The Stand’, which describes itself as a series of ‘Open Air Mass Healing & Miracle Services’. Gold is the founder of America’s Frontline Doctors (here), an organization previously criticized for sharing misinformation (USA Today: here and here, AP: here, BBC: www.bbc.com/news/53559938, Politifact : here). The American Academy of General Practitioners described the organization’s claims as ‘outrageous’ and said that it was ‘in no way connected to this group’ (here).
America’s Frontline Doctors and Simone Gold did not respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.
POSITIVE TESTS
In the video (here time stamp 32.00) Gold says: ‘Maybe you have just started seeing news: people taking the vaccine, and now they are testing positive for COVID-19. This is quite funny. Are they going to test positive forever, like that? You know, they sold this piece of goods to us that there’s this asymptomatic transfer, and it seems to be difficult. But if you let ten or hundreds of millions walk around, just a positive low level, what does that mean? Like, why do we do this? Another problem with doing this is, I think they’re going to play the numbers, right? Let’s say all these people give this vaccine to a hundred million people, and now a hundred million people are already testing COVID-19 positively. They’re going to tell us that the cases have increased, and you know, we can never relax. It’s amazing. ”
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and academic institutes say that COVID-19 vaccines do not cause people to test positive on the tests used to measure the number of COVID-19 cases in the community (here and here).
A modern vaccine trial that gave RT-PCR tests for COVID-19 to asymptomatic participants before a second dose found that fewer people who received one dose of the vaccine tested positive for the disease compared to the control group (here). If everyone who received the vaccine became an asymptomatic carrier, it would be detected in the experiment and result in dramatically different results.
‘WUHAN VIRUS’
At another point in the video, Gold claims that the name of COVID-19 was changed for political reasons from “The Wuhan Virus”. (here timestamp 3.19).
She said: ‘The disinformation has been clear since the beginning. We call this disease COVID-19, but the real name must be in the place where it originated, namely Wuhan, China. And if you remember: it’s been called the Wuhan virus for a while, I do not know, a month or so. Before we discovered that the Chinese Communist Party did not like that name. They put a lot of pressure on the media and others – politicians, let’s say, to change that, and they called it the Coronavirus. ”
The World Health Organization (WHO), which calls the disease COVID-19 (mentioned here), has avoided the use of cities, countries, regions and continents in disease names in guidelines published since 2015 (here). Dr Keiji Fukuda, the WHO Assistant Director-General for Health Safety, commented on the guidelines in an online statement issued by the WHO in 2015: ‘We have seen certain illnesses cause a setback against members of certain religious or ethnic groups. ethnic communities, unjustified barriers to travel, trade and commerce, and cause unnecessary slaughter of food animals. ”(Here). The WHO told Reuters in an email that he had never referred to the disease as the “Wuhan virus”. Further details on its naming can be seen here.
COVID-19 TREATMENTS
During the video, Gold also endorses unproven treatments for COVID-19. At one point (here time stamp 1.38), she says: ‘The National Institutes of Health currently has its policy recommendation for patients with COVID-19, stating that unless you need oxygen in the hospital, there is no real treatment available to you . This is a complete lie, completely false. In most of the world, non-First World countries, there is enough treatment available: Hydroxychloroquine, Ivermectin. If you can prescribe a doctor in America for this, you will get this medicine. ‘
The treatment guidelines of the National Institute of Health COVID-19 can be seen here. Figure 1 on this page shows recommendations by the COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines panel for patients with different levels of disease. Those not admitted to the hospital say, “There are insufficient data to recommend for or against any specific antiviral or antibody therapy”. For patients admitted to the hospital but who do not require supplemental oxygen, it is stated: “There are insufficient data to recommend for or against the usual use of brake desivir. For patients at high risk of disease progression, the use of remdesivir should be appropriate. “
Reuters has already addressed claims about Ivermectin (here). Although there are (here) theoretical reasons to believe that Ivermectin can treat COVID-19, and there have been promising results (here and here), these papers suggest that more studies are needed before it can be recommended as a treatment, or based on incomplete trials (here). There are more ongoing trials that could prove or disprove the effectiveness of Ivermectin as a treatment for COVID-19 (here, here, here, here, here). The proof that it is effective as a treatment has not been published.
The National Institute of Health COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines Panel published a statement on the use of Ivermectin, stating that: “most studies reported to date have incomplete information and significant methodological limitations” and that “there are insufficient data is to recommend either for or against the use of ivermectin for the treatment of COVID-19. Results of adequately driven, well-designed and well-performed clinical trials are required ”(here).
Gold praises Hydroxychloroquine as a treatment against COVID-19 several times, insisting that it is safe (time stamp 4.55), and gives an anecdote about a patient who recovered quickly from COVID-19 during treatment (time stamp 7.03 ) and attributes the low mortality rates to COVID-19 in sub-Saharan Africa because the drug is widely available (timestamp 46.50).
She also tells the story (time stamp 20.50) of how the Lancet published a study which found that Hydroxychloroquine was not safe, which led to the treatment being discontinued and the medicine being discontinued, only to return the paper later to draw. She repeatedly describes the publication of the article as ‘fraud’ (timestamp 22.06).
Gold is correct in saying that the Lancet withdrew an article on Hydroxychloroquine in June 2020 (here), but trials for the drug continued and the Lancet later published articles which found that ‘no difference was seen in the mortality rate of COVID-19 related to use of hydroxychloroquine ”(here) and that the drug had no“ preventive effect ”on the disease (here).
The National Institute of Health COVID-19 treatment guidelines state: “Compared to placebo, hydroxychloroquine has been associated with an increased risk of mostly mild side effects” and is recommended (here).
Gold accused the media of lying about the Hydroxychloroquine newspaper, saying: “when it was withdrawn, they buried the story that it had been withdrawn. You really have to struggle to find the information. This is very dishonest. ”(Timestamp 22.32). The withdrawal of the Lancet article in June was widely discussed in the media. Stories about the retreat have been published by Reuters (here), The New York Times (here and here Washington Post (here), Bloomberg (here) CNN (here here), Voice of America (here), The Economist (here) and The Guardian (here).
VERDICT
This long video contains various false or misleading allegations, along with opinions that do not fall within the scope of this investigation. Vaccinations against COVID-19 do not cause recipients to test positive for the disease. The World Health Organization called the disease COVID-19, does not refer to the “Wuhan virus” and has recommended since 2015 to name diseases after places. There is no evidence that Ivermectin or Hydroxychloroquine are effective COVID-19 treatments.
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