Former Trump Administration Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Ben Carson was featured on a Fox Business segment on Wednesday that most likely did not go as Dr. Carson planned.
Host Neil Cavuto, taking both Carson and likely the audience by surprise, immediately put a wedge in Carson's recommendation to use hydroxychloroquine to fight SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes the ongoing worldwide pandemic.
You can see the exchange here:
While Carson was talking about progress on the rollout of vaccines in the country, he also touted hydroxycholoroquine as a valid treatment.
"We as a nation, for instance, wanted to be focused only on one thing: vaccinations. There were people telling us, you know, there are other kinds of things that work."
"Hydroxychloroquine."
Carson then tried to claim correlation is causation to push a drug extensive international medical research showed as ineffective against COVID was a viable alternative to vaccination.
"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.
"Interestingly enough, their instance of COVID-19 is tremendously less than ours.
"Is that a coincidence? I don't think so."
Cavuto was not having it.
Fox Business host Cavuto began:
"Medical experts have looked at that, doctor, as you know, and poo-pooed that connection."
But Carson interrupted him to say:
"...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."
At that point, Cavuto had enough.
"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?"
Carson tried to defend the drug again, but Cavuto shut him down.
"At the time, we were driven by comments out of the National Institutes of Health and the FDA...that they did not recommend this."
"That's the best we had to go on at the time."
"Some of that has changed since but the issue at heart here and the push for vaccines was mistaking this one for that, wasn't it?"
Despite it being over a year since the hydroxychloroquine craze, Carson is still touting the malaria medication.
When Fox Business is more current than a doctor on medical research, it might be a sign it's time to stop listening to any advice that doctor offers.
