Mainstream media censorship of COVID-19 treatments
Analysis of media coverage for the 206 treatments we cover using
Altmetric, showing that the media favored negative results for low-cost treatments, and positive results for high-profit treatments.
For all papers with a DOI, we retrieved the Altmetric "cited_by_msm_count" which records the number of ~12,000 tracked news outlets that covered the paper1. Papers are considered to have received significant media coverage if they were covered by at least 0.5% of the tracked news outlets.
Why were low-cost treatments censored by the media?
A combination of factors may have led to the media's suppression of low-cost treatments:•
Politicization
led to a media environment where coverage was often framed to support a political
narrative rather than to provide objective scientific information. As Scott Alexander
said: "if you say anything in favor of ivermectin you will be cast out
of civilization and thrown into the circle of social hell reserved for Klan members and
1/6 insurrectionists. All the health officials in the world will shout 'horse dewormer!'
at you and compare you to Josef Mengele."
There was strong social pressure to
discredit low-cost treatments.•
Censorship
of
information conflicting with selected authorities. For example, individuals and
organizations presenting conflicting science were often banned on Twitter and
YouTube.•
FDA requires "no
adequate, approved, and available alternatives"
in order to grant an EUA for
novel high-profit interventions, creating a strong incentive for authorities to ignore or
downplay existing low-cost treatments.•
Regulatory
capture
biases authorities towards high-profit interventions.•
Authorities ignored
most evidence for low-cost treatments
, for example the NIH references only 2% of
studies in delayed, rarely-updated, biased commentaries with no quantitive analysis.•
Media coverage of
science is often not very accurate
, e.g., misunderstanding confounding issues. For
example the media widely considered the RECOVERY HCQ RCT to be conclusive on efficacy, but
very late treatment of late stage patients (mostly on oxygen already) with an excessive
toxic dose (shown dangerous in a dose comparison RCT) provides no information on the
recommended early/prophylactic treatment. With difficulting in understanding basic
confounders like treatment delay and dose, the media may favor deferring to authorities.
Many studies for low-cost treatments require greater expertise to analyze. Relatively few
journalists have a strong ability to analyze clinical trials and are outnumbered by the
rest.•
Substantial funding
from pharmaceutical advertising
biases editorial decisions towards high-profit
interventions.•
PR power
-
companies/teams with strong PR presence are favored in the media, which correlates with
high-profit and high conflict of interest studies.•
The media was very
negative in general
, inflating risk, fear, and anxieties. A negative bias may
improve ratings and revenue, increasing motivation to continue watching coverage. A
combination of low-cost treatments greatly reducing risk conflicts with the negative
narrative.
c19early.org
Low-cost existing treatments
Can reduce risk
Known safety profile
More widely available
Available immediately
Can be distributed in advance for immediate treatment
High-profit novel treatments
Can reduce risk
Inherently risky—long-term and rare side effects unknown
High cost limits use
Limited production
High profit incentivizes unethical behavior
Substantial delay for development and testing
Delayed treatment due to access barriers
References