John Berman

You may have heard about the story that my colleague Brad Slager covered about a man who died in Arizona, his wife is in the hospital and the media, being the pariahs that they can be, are trying to blame President Donald Trump for the incident for talking about potential drugs that might cure the Wuhan coronavirus.

What happened? The couple allegedly found some fish tank cleaner that they had that had “chloroquine phosphate” in it and ingested it, they did not take any actual drugs prescribed by a doctor. They took fish tank cleaner not what was being talked about by Trump as a possible cure.

From the NY Times

The woman told NBC News on Monday that she had heard Mr. Trump make repeated mentions of chloroquine during recent White House briefings on the coronavirus and that she used chloroquine phosphate to treat her koi fish.

“I saw it sitting on the back shelf and thought, ‘Hey, isn’t that the stuff they’re talking about on TV,’ ” said the woman, who was not named by NBC.

So how did CNN’s John Berman describe what happened?

He left out something critically important – that they didn’t ingest the drug nor was it prescribed, they ingested toxic aquarium cleaner.

This is not accurate @JohnBerman. It was aquarium cleaner pic.twitter.com/IBXjxcILVm

— Greg Pollowitz (@GPollowitz) March 24, 2020

An Arizona man is dead and his wife is under critical care after the two took chloroquine phosphate in an apparent attempt to self-medicate for the novel coronavirus, according to hospital system Banner Health.https://t.co/yZOgVumFeu pic.twitter.com/UGRxBRTYH6

— New Day (@NewDay) March 24, 2020

Notice what you didn’t hear? You heard a lot of attacks on the drug, even citing the WHO director who has come under a lot of questions because of repeating Chinese lies and his connections to China. But what you didn’t hear was that it wasn’t the drug that was taken — it was a fish tank cleaner.

Here’s a sample of what that fish tank cleaner looks like.

Hey @CNN And they are calling for the daily briefings not to be broadcast becuase he lies. 🤦🏻‍♂️ pic.twitter.com/BWJWCNzCZ9

— Doug Jones (@DOUG__JONES) March 24, 2020

As Twitchy notes, it’s clear that CNN knew that the couple didn’t take the drug and took the aquarium cleaner because they are citing Banner Health’s statement on the case in their tweet and the Banner Health’s statement made that clear.

A man has died and his wife is under critical care after the couple, both in their 60s, ingested chloroquine phosphate, an additive commonly used at aquariums to clean fish tanks. Within thirty minutes of ingestion, the couple experienced immediate effects requiring admittance to a nearby Banner Health hospital.

There’s a big difference between a correctly prescribed drug and a toxic fish tank cleaner. It would seem a pretty important point to make and not to leave out.

It’s nonsensical to blame Trump for something like this. But the fact that the media not only suggests that he’s at fault, but attacks the drug legitimate things that he did say and leaves out that the people didn’t even take the drug is just inexcusable.

Media has the temerity to talk about responsibility and honesty when they are constantly doing things like this.

Meanwhile, let’s note the following and how this completely blows up the claims of the media. Yes, the FDA is getting the drugs in question to the hardest-hit area – New York. Yes, New York is now starting trials on the drugs. As he notes there is a good basis based on far more info than CNN mentioned. Obviously, only taking as a doctor would prescribe after approved.

https://twitter.com/alx/status/1241748984756162560

So where are the media’s attacks on Cuomo? I’ll wait….