Mainstream media censorship of COVID-19 treatments
c19 early .org August 2025 Media censorship for COVID-19 low-cost treatments Media censored positive studies, focusing on negative studies for low-cost treatments Data from Altmetric: studies receiving significant mainstream media coverage from 6,000+ studies for 175 treatments For low-cost treatments the media covered only 18 positive studies: fluvoxamine (3), HCQ (2), antiandrogens (2), budesonide (2), vitamin D, melatonin, probiotics, ivermectin, cannabidiol, famotidine, curcumin, resveratrol, UDCA 53 negative studies were covered: HCQ (15), ivermectin (7), lopinavir/r.. (5), vitamin D (5), azithromycin (4), zinc (2), vitamin C (2), metformin (2), fluvoxamine (2), indomethacin, colchicine, selenium probiotics, vitamin A, ibuprofen, antiandrogens, vitamin B9, cannabidiol 98% of studies showing significantly lower risk were censored (during a pandemic killing millions): 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024
c19 early .org August 2025 C19 media censorship Media censored positive studies Data from Altmetric: studies receiving significant media coverage from 6,000+ studies for 175 treatments For low-cost treatments media covered only 18 positive studies: fluvoxamine (3), HCQ (2), antiandrogens (2), budesonide (2), vitamin D, ... 53 negative studies were covered: HCQ (15), ivermectin (7), lopinavir/r.. (5), vitamin D (5), azithromycin (4), ... 98% of positive studies were censored: 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024
c19 early .org August 2025 Media coverage for COVID-19 high-profit treatments For high-profit treatments the media selectively covered positive studies Data from Altmetric: studies receiving significant mainstream media coverage from 6,000+ studies for 175 treatments For high-profit treatments the media covered 28 positive studies: tocilizumab (5), paxlovid (5), conv. plasma (4), casirivimab/i.. (3), molnupiravir (3), remdesivir (2), peg. lambda (2), sargramostim (2), sarilumab, tixagevimab/c.. 11 negative studies were covered: remdesivir (4), conv. plasma (2), molnupiravir, bebtelovimab, sotrovimab, bamlan../e.., paxlovid 96% of negative studies for high-profit treatments were not covered: 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024
c19 early .org COVID-19 media coverage High-profit treatments: bias for positive studies Data from Altmetric: studies receiving significant media coverage from 6,000+ studies for 175 treatments For high-profit treatments media covered 28 positive studies: tocilizumab (5), paxlovid (5), conv. plasma (4), casirivimab/i.. (3), ... 11 negative studies were covered: remdesivir (4), conv. plasma (2), molnupiravir, bebtelovimab, sotrovimab, ... 96% of negative studies were not covered: 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024
c19 early .org August 2025 Media censorship for COVID-19 ivermectin treatment Media censored positive studies, focusing on negative studies for ivermectin Data from Altmetric: studies receiving significant mainstream media coverage from 105 studies for ivermectin treatment For ivermectin the media covered only 1 positive study: 7 negative studies were covered: 98% of studies showing significantly lower risk were censored (during a pandemic killing millions): 2020 2021 2022 2023 2020 2021 2022 2023 2020 2021 2022 2023
c19 early .org August 2025 C19 media censorship for ivermectin Media censored positive studies Data from Altmetric: studies receiving significant media coverage from 105 studies for ivermectin treatment For ivermectin the media covered only 1 positive study: 7 negative studies were covered: 98% of positive studies were censored: 2020 2021 2022 2023 2020 2021 2022 2023 2020 2021 2022 2023
c19 early .org August 2025 Media censorship for COVID-19 HCQ treatment Media censored positive studies, focusing on negative studies for HCQ Data from Altmetric: studies receiving significant mainstream media coverage from 424 studies for hydroxychloroquine treatment For HCQ the media covered only 2 positive studies: 15 negative studies were covered: 99% of studies showing significantly lower risk were censored (during a pandemic killing millions): 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024
c19 early .org August 2025 C19 media censorship for HCQ Media censored positive studies Data from Altmetric: studies receiving significant media coverage from 424 studies for hydroxychloroquine treatment For HCQ the media covered only 2 positive studies: 15 negative studies were covered: 99% of positive studies were censored: 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024
c19 early .org August 2025 Media censorship for COVID-19 vitamin D treatment Media censored positive studies, focusing on negative studies for vitamin D Data from Altmetric: studies receiving significant mainstream media coverage from 126 studies for vitamin D treatment For vitamin D the media covered only 1 positive study: 5 negative studies were covered: 99% of studies showing significantly lower risk were censored (during a pandemic killing millions): 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024
c19 early .org August 2025 C19 media censorship for vitamin D Media censored positive studies Data from Altmetric: studies receiving significant media coverage from 126 studies for vitamin D treatment For vitamin D the media covered only 1 positive study: 5 negative studies were covered: 99% of positive studies were censored: 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024
Analysis of media coverage for the 178 treatments we cover using
Altmetric. For all papers with a DOI, we retrieve the Altmetric "cited_by_msm_count" which records the number of ~12,000 tracked news outlets that covered the paper
1 . Papers are considered to have received significant media coverage if they were covered by at least 0.5% of the tracked news outlets.
References
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