CNN host John Berman argued today for nearly an entire interview with a Yale epidemiologist who argues in support of the effectiveness of HCQ in high risk statements. I say ‘nearly’ because I couldn’t find the full interview. But here’s what I did find and the contempt Berman has for Dr. Harvey Risch couldn’t be more apparent:
(UPDATED WITH FULL INTERVIEW)
I encourage you to watch the video to the end because Risch does make interesting arguments. For instance, he argues that these randomized placebo controlled trials that Dr. Fauci and others are touting as having NO efficacy for HCQ are actually testing the wrong people:
“The problem with those randomized control trials is they were trials done on the wrong people. They were trials done on low-risk people who have very low risks of hospitalization and mortality. You don’t do a study to prevent prostate cancer in women because nobody’s going to get the outcome. And that’s what those studies did…they were all on very low risk people who are not going to get hospitalized or die by in large. We don’t treat those people, we treat high risk people.”
That sounds to me like a valid argument to me. But instead of discussing it with Risch, Berman immediately accuses him of changing his argument from a Newsweek article that he wrote. When Risch objects to correct him, Berman just talks over top of him and proceeds to question him about something else. The entire questioning of Risch by Berman in the video above is hostile. Not in the combative sense per se, but it was that Berman was trying to discredit Risch’s arguments instead discussing them as though they have merit.
It was a little combative though, as Risch interjects at one point telling Berman “don’t speak for me!”
There’s more in the video above, including Reich’s argument that this so-called gold standard of randomized placebo controlled trials has never been the gold standard in the real world. And you can read his full Newsweek article here.