Dr. Marty Makary debunks COVID experts' most popular myths
Dr. Marty Makary joins 'Fox & Friends' to debunk five myths told by COVID experts.
After The Wall Street Journal's bombshell report from Sunday detailed the Energy Department's admission that COVID-19 "most likely" leaked from a Wuhan, China lab, many are wondering – what else have the experts gotten wrong?
Fox News medical contributor Dr. Marty Makary joined Brian Kilmeade Thursday on "Fox & Friends" to debunk five of the most common myths, telling viewers that top health officials "gave us bad guidance from the start."
First on his list was the myth that natural immunity offered little protection compared to vaccines.
"160 studies have shown that natural immunity is as good or more effective, and the ultimate review was just published, so now it is a settled science."
Members of the World Health Organization team tasked with investigating the origins of the coronavirus disease (REUTERS/Thomas Peter)
The John Hopkins University professor and surgeon said public health officials assumed most Americans were "too stupid" to understand they did not need the COVID vaccine if they had natural immunity from contracting the virus.
"They wanted one simple message that everyone could understand," he said.
Second on Makary's list was the long-touted efficacy of masks which experts claimed prevented the virus' transmission.
"We had a Cochrane Review – that is the ultimate authority of evidence in medicine. They reviewed all the studies, they found it had no impact on transmission probably because it's so highly contagious and, when you have a mask on, the size of the virus is smaller than the size of the mask, and you breathe around the mask, so the virus is inevitable regardless."
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Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO), removes his protective face mask prior to speaking to the media at the World Health Organization (WHO) headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, on Dec. 20, 2021. ((Salvatore Di Nolfi/Keystone via AP, File))
Claims that school closures reduced transmission and that myocarditis from the vaccine was less common than from the virus were next on Makary's debunked claims list.
He pointed to European studies on infection and hospitalization among children in Spain and Sweden – where schools remained open.
"Child infection rates and hospitalization rates were no different whatsoever," he said.
He added that the risk-benefit of young athletes getting the jab was not positive for young athletes, pointing to a study from JAMA Cardiology finding that people were four to 28 times more likely to get myocarditis from the vaccine than from the virus itself.
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Coming off the heels of The Wall Street Journal's Sunday report, Makary added experts' dismissal of the COVID lab leak theory as a "conspiracy theory" as his final debunked claim.
"The epicenter of the world was five miles from one of the few labs, the records were destroyed, the doctors were arrested, there was a lab leak in China in 1977. the data are overwhelming, and U.S. virologists told that to Dr. Fauci in January of 2020, but they changed their tune after a meeting subsequently.
"The only reason there's not a 100% consensus on this in the U.S. is that it's embarrassing that we were funding that lab."
Makary said the data is becoming "overwhelming" on the CDC and other agencies' incorrect claims, arguing it was "inexplicable" that he and others who questioned the guidance were dismissed. Makary told Tucker Carlson Tuesday that the biggest purveyor of misinformation about COVID turned out to be the U.S. government.
"The data has caught up with all the lies," he said.
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