Vice President Mike Pence met with two doctors who were in a viral video giving false and dubious information regarding coronavirus at a press conference.
What We Know:
- Dr. Simone Gold and Dr. James Todaro met with VP Mike Pence to discuss doctors’ abilities to prescribe hydroxychloroquine without any interference. The two doctors are physicians and members of America’s Frontline Doctors with Gold being the head of the group.
- “We have just met with Vice President Mike Pence to request the administration’s assistance in empowering doctors to prescribe hydroxychloroquine without political obstruction,” Gold tweeted. “We also discussed the recent censorship of doctors on social media platforms.” Todaro and Jenny Beth Martin, the co-founder of Tea Party Patriots, a group that organized the press conference, both confirmed the meeting on Twitter.
- The meeting occurred after Monday’s viral video showing the two doctors in front of the Supreme Court building, claiming that masks are unnecessary in preventing the spread of COVID-19 and that hydroxychloroquine was the cure, along with zinc and Zithromax. Another doctor in the video, Stella Immanuel, a licensed physician in Texas, said that alien DNA was used in treatments and how gynecological issues like endometriosis are caused by people having sex with demons and witches in their dreams.
- The video that was live-streamed by the Right-wing site Breitbart news was taken down from various social media platforms like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. President Donald Trump retweeted parts of Monday’s video, which was also removed from Twitter.
- Trump has been vocal about his support for the use of hydroxychloroquine to “cure” the virus and how, in the past, he’s used it himself in May after some of the White House staff tested positive, even though trusted sources have repeated that there’s no known cure for the virus. Back in June, the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) revoked the use of hydroxychloroquine.
Pence has not commented on anything about the meeting he had with the two viral doctors.
