Last week, during his testimony, Dr. Anthony Fauci couldn't remember that a major study, which had been published in an influential medical journal, was retracted.
The study claimed that hydroxychloroquine was ineffective and had harmful side effects in treating COVID-19. Additionally, Dr. Fauci was unable to recall the names or specifics of other studies that he used to support his assertion that the drug is ineffective.
State GOP attorneys general Eric Schmitt and Jeff Landry deposed Fauci, the White House chief medical adviser and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, under oath as part of their lawsuit against the Biden administration.
According to the two AGs, top government officials collaborated with Twitter, YouTube, and Meta (the parent company of Facebook) to censor views on COVID that opposed the stance of the Biden administration.
Schmitt recently shared a complete transcript of the deposition on Monday. It stated that Fauci claimed hydroxychloroquine was not effective in treating COVID based on “a number of studies”. However, during questioning under oath, he was unable to remember any specific names or details of these studies. It should be noted that Fauci openly opposed the use of hydroxychloroquine as a treatment during the early stages of the pandemic.
Missouri Solicitor General John Sauer asked Fauci why he didn't agree with the claims of hydroxychloroquine being used to treat COVID. Fauci replied stating that there was no evidence to support hydroxychloroquine's effectiveness against coronavirus.
Fauci stated that papers were published afterwards which demonstrated that hydroxychloroquine did not have any effect.
“Do you consider the statement you mentioned earlier, which could potentially lead to loss of life, to be an example of misinformation or disinformation?” inquired Sauer.
Fauci said that the claim stating hydroxychloroquine is effective is not supported by any data, and this claim goes against established clinical data that clearly shows hydroxychloroquine is not effective.
“He added that spreading the idea that hydroxychloroquine is highly effective, when it is not, could be considered misinformation or disinformation. This could cause people to take a drug that will not benefit them and may even harm them.”
In the deposition, Sauer mentioned an article from Politico that was published in May 2020. The article was titled “Fauci: Hydroxychloroquine not effective against coronavirus.”
According to the article, Fauci made his statements a few days after The Lancet published a study that involved 96,000 patients. The study concluded that hydroxychloroquine did not show any positive impact on COVID-19 and it may have caused harm to some patients.
As per the transcript, Sauer requested Fauci to take a look at The Lancet Journal, which was published on May 22, 2020, five days before the Politico article was published. Sauer also mentioned that the research study in the Journal had been retracted.
“Did you know it was retracted when it happened? Can you remember if it was retracted?”
“I don't have any memory of it being retracted. I may have heard about it being retracted at that time, but there were multiple hydroxychloroquine papers,” answered Fauci.
Fauci explained that his opinion on the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine was based on data from multiple studies that he had reviewed in the past, although he couldn't remember the exact details of those studies at this time.
“Was your opinion based on other papers in addition to this one?”
The doctor said that his opinion about the impact of hydroxychloroquine was formed by studying data from multiple research studies. However, he cannot recall the specific details of those studies at this time.
The study that was published on June 4, 2020, in The New England Journal of Medicine and The Lancet was retracted because three of its authors were unable to conduct an independent audit of the data used in their analysis.
The Lancet stated that they cannot guarantee the accuracy of the main sources of data anymore in response to their findings.
