As Trump pushed for Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) as preventive drug against Coronavirus, the global liberal media has started a concerted campaign against the drug that is being touted as ‘one of the biggest game-changers’.
There were three reasons behind global ‘liberal’ media to push against the anti-malarial drug. Firstly, it is pushed by Trump and liberal media’s hatred towards the person overshadows their logical reasoning to objectively analyze the pros and cons of the drug, and secondly, more than 70 percent of the global supply of HCQ coming from India. And thirdly, ‘interest’ of big pharmaceutical companies from the United States and Europe.
The Big media companies like Bloomberg, Financial Times, and Forbes are promoting a drug named by Remdesivir, produced by American biotechnology major Gilead Sciences.
The same firms which argued that there is no scientific evidence of Hydrocychloroquine (HCQ)’s effectiveness as preventive drug are now writing articles that how more Gilead’s drug is magically improving the conditions majority of Coronavirus disease patients.
Bloomberg, the ring leader of big financial media house, published a story titled “Two-Thirds of Severe Covid-19 Cases Improved on Gilead Drug” on April 11 to promote the anti-Covid-19 drug developed by Gilead Sciences. The link of the story is given below:
On April 10, the same Bloomberg published a story titled, “Malaria Drug Hype Lures Macron as Hope Gets Ahead of Science” mimicking the faith of French President in the drug that is primarily produced in India.
On this, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the famous philosopher and economist who was among the first few intellectuals to point out towards the dangers of not taking tough steps towards containment of this pandemic, tweeted, “Chloroquine: Does Big Pharma owns the media? + Studies are said to be “not rigorous” when it comes to Chloroquine in spite of robust statistical signal + Studies w/less rigor and significance are promoted when it comes to drugs by Gilead Note: Chl was OTC, costs 1 Euro a pack,” with image of both Bloomberg stories in contrast.
Chloroquine: Does Big Pharma owns the media?
+ Studies are said to be "not rigorous" when it comes to Chloroquine in spite of robust statistical signal
+ Studies w/less rigor and significance are promoted when it comes to drugs by Gilead
Note: Chl was OTC, costs 1 Euro a pack. pic.twitter.com/UU2URRxWNV
— Nassim Nicholas Taleb (@nntaleb) April 11, 2020
Bloomberg is not alone which has mocked the HCQ but promoted the drug developed by Gilead Sciences. Forbes Media and Financial Times, two other big names in financial news published stories in support of Gilead drug while they had earlier mocked HCQ.
“Gilead drug shows positive signs in early coronavirus testing,” wrote Financial Times.
https://www.ft.com/content/c59a385f-62e1-42a2-b8ac-2ecb44305e4e
“Gilead’s Drug Remdesivir Shows Hope In Treating Coronavirus Patients, But Data Is Limited,” wrote Forbes.
“U.S. Has Most Deaths Worldwide; French Cases Slow: Virus Update,” wrote BloombergQuint, the Indian arm of Bloomberg.
Read more at: https://www.bloombergquint.com/business/new-york-deaths-dip-gilead-drug-shows-promise-virus-update
Copyright © BloombergQuint
The campaign for the drug developed by Gilead Sciences, which is, obviously, priced many times compared to cheap but effective (ICMR has already approved it) HCQ, looks like a clear cut case of ‘advertising’ by large and influential business media house, than scientific evidence based reporting.
Various regulators including the Indian Council of Medical Research have approved HCQ as preventive drug against Covid-19. There are anecdotal evidences from many countries that HCQ is working against the disease, and therefore, Trump argued that the country should use it, given the fact ‘We (the country and people) have got nothing to lose.’ This seems a logical argument.
But the global liberal media started concerted campaign against the drug. The Guardian, the Fabian socialist newspaper from the United Kingdom, published an article titled Trump touts hydroxychloroquine as a cure for Covid-19. Don’t believe the hype by Oliver Milman, environment reporter of the newspaper.
“There is no magic cure for this pandemic, no matter what Trump says,” argued Milman, who turned to a medical expert from environment reporter, for the story- as many journalists across the world do.
The list of the other media house which carried out a story against HCQ, that too without any scientific evidence, could be read from the following article of mine.
The approval of HCQ as preventive drug is a great news for India and its pharmaceutical industry, as more than 70 percent of the global supply of the drug is met by Indian companies- primarily Ipca Labs and Zycus.
Presently India produces 20 crore tablets of HCQ per month to meet domestic and global demand, and production capacity could be ramped up if needed. As per a report by Business Today, the pharmaceutical companies shall increase the production capacity to 5-6 times in the coming months to make hundreds of crores of tablets per month. Of these, 10 crore tablets would be kept for Indian use while the rest would be exported to the United States and other neighboring countries.
