The Associated Press Has Quietly Come Around on a Drug It Once Used to Scorch Ron DeSantis – Opinion

It seems that the Associated Press would report on this event after taking a tough line against it promotion.

This winter’s Omicron strain has caused a new side effect. You may have experienced dizziness, confusion, or bouts of speechlessness – not from this COVID strain, but from the radical 180-degree shift experienced in the press. We suddenly see journalists saying things which were months ago grounds for deplatforming or being taken into state custody like Down Under.

Seemingly overnight – and barely a week since Twitter forbade such discourse – members of the press were freely commentingHow people can they were double-vaxxedAnd even increased could contract COVID. We then saw Brian Stelter of all people come out. push for kids to go back to school by saying things such as, “Shouldn’t we be doing more to protect children by letting them live normal lives? Or, to pose the Q another way, are we really going to close schools again and let kids suffer even more?” Ron DeSantis was essentially called a child killer last summer, when he repeated the exact same thing.

And on the subject of Florida’s governor, the Associated Press had a curious report about the Omicron surge. The report outlines what might lie ahead. The news syndicate indicated The new strain may render existing therapies ineffective against the virus. Omicron could be used to sideline COVID-19’s most powerful drugs. The headline is bold. That word “leading” is what jumps out here, considering the drugs being covered. This is the next quote.

Since early COVID-19 was diagnosed, antibodies from Eli Lilly (Regeneron) and Eli Lilly have been the most popular treatments. This is due to their ability not only to prevent serious disease but also to keep patients out hospital.

This…is a deeply curious development. This is because this news outlet was founded four months back. Had taken Governor Ron DeSantis to court for his promotion of RegeneronCOVID as a treatment. The article revealed that the principal reason why he was pressing so hard was that a hedge funds with large investments in the drugmaker had been a donor to his campaign. This was the report that got wheels turning quickly.

One of the biggest flaws in this reporting was that Citadel owned a tiny stake in Regeneron via an investment fund with many holdings. DeSantis was allegedly steering people away form vaccines so that they could get Moderna. There was also the matter of the fact that these dosages were already purchased by the federal governments the previous year, meaning there wasn’t any profit to be made.

Oh wait — I said The federal government there, didn’t I? The Regeneron treatment wasn’t a new, mystical invention by Florida Governor; it had been long known to be a feasible way to treat COVID symptoms. Joe Biden and many other journalists were promoting Regeneron around the time this report was published. Either the writer didn’t do enough research, or the reporter omitted many details in order paint Governor Romney as semi-corrupt. Neither looks great on the Associated Press.

AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis

In the wake of that report, a feud of words developed between the news syndicate and the governor’s office, with DeSantis press secretary Christina Pushaw being accused of attacking their reporter. The AP corrected minor errors in its report, but it didn’t address the underlying problem. Pushaw asked me if she had ever spoken to the AP again, or made any necessary adjustments. “They doubled down, and they refuse to rectify their headline which, falsely, implies that there is a conflict between interest, where none has ever existed..” 

The AP has just published a new article that essentially proves the earlier article to be incorrect. Not only is it recognizing Regeneron as an important option for COVID-positive patients (the AP now refers to it as a “go-to treatment”), but the tell is that it states that the use of this has been well known for over a year. It was August this year that DeSantis got into a tussle with him. 

It means that they were able defy the guidelines of their employer on reporting about pandemics. How did the Associated Press reporter bypass what their employer recognizes as a proven effective treatment? By following the media narrative and not following what the media tells everyone else to follow – the science.

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