Sen. Johnson suspended from YouTube for videos about Hydroxychloroquine
Wisconsin Republican reacts on 'The Ingraham Angle' to being censored for discussion prescription pharmaceutical.
Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., sounded off Monday on "The Ingraham Angle" after Google-owned YouTube handed down a suspension of his account because he posted a video that contained information about Hydroxychloroquine, a relatively cheap prescription medication used to fight malaria and lupus.
Johnson said he was simply echoing statistics and information echoed by renowned New Jersey epidemiologist Dr. Stephen Smith about the potential that it would have worked well as an interim treatment for coronavirus infection while Americans were waiting for vaccines to be developed.
Host Laura Ingraham reported that YouTube will label any positive takes on the quinine medication "medical misinformation" – whether or not certified medical professionals like Smith were consulted.
Johnson said that early in the pandemic, the second "pillar" of pandemic response – early treatment – was ignored by the so-called experts.
"I'm not sure why, but the fact of the matter is because we didn't have early treatment, I don't know how many thousands of lives, tens of thousands of lives lost that didn't need to be lost but it is a tragedy and blunder on the part of the health agencies," he said.
Ingraham noted that the leader of one of those agencies, Dr. Anthony Fauci, was pushing remdesivir, an exponentially more expensive medication, to which Ingraham noted made for a much higher profit margin for Big Pharma – as she also noted the publicly-subsidized vaccine has been.
She asked Johnson whether such vested interests may have had an effect on the establishment's early and continued condemnation of Hydroxychloroquine.
"There is a possibility. Hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin treatments cost less than $50 per patient and Remdesivir costs $3,000," he said, adding that he has heard reports of liver toxicity side effects from the latter.
Johnson added that if there were to have been an effective, easily-accessible early treatment, it greatly decreases the likelihood of emergency use authorizations for vaccines – which the current jabs are classified under while they await formal approval.
"I have no idea but I've been beating my head over the wall for a year and labeled as the ‘snake oil salesman of the Senate’," said Johnson.
Johnson added that he has requested the National Institutes of Health, led by Dr. Francis Collins, to provide his office with some of the redactions made to Fauci's emails that were recently released under a FOIA request from Buzzfeed.
Ingraham later added that President Biden's former COVID adviser, Andy Slavitt, wrote a book about the situation – with reportedly a controversial comment from ex-Trump adviser Dr. Deborah Birx.
The Lancaster, Pa.,-native immunologist reportedly looked at Slavitt one day and told him "I hope the election turns out a certain way – I had the most important information."
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To that point, Ingraham said it was obvious for much of the pandemic that neither Birx nor Fauci were fans of his, adding that while they might be liberal, they should not have so much authority over medical decisions as "unelected Democrats in a Republican administration."
"Not if they're not paying attention to real science," she said.
Johnson replied that Trump's entire tenure in office was indeed plagued by "deep state" bureaucrats trying to stymie and push back on a conservative president's agenda.
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