1. Dr. Peter McCullough and the Controversy surrounding him and COVID-19

When researching the controversy on Dr. McCullough I was immediately met with a lawsuit on  https://www.medpagetoday.com/special-reports/exclusives/93936 in which Baylor Scott and White Health sued Dr. McCullough for allegedly affiliating himself with its facilities while promoting controversial views about COVID-19. These organizations claim McCullough deliberately used misleading former professional titles in media interviews while spreading his opinions about the pandemic. They claim that McCullough used this technique in “dozens if not hundreds of interviews” to allegedly spread misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines and treatments. Some of these so called misleading claims state that there is no scientific reason for healthy people under 50 an those who have recovered from COVID to get the vaccine. I would argue that this is not misinformation but somewhat scientifically proven according to our class analysis and discussions concerning country response and COVID-19 mortality rates in which we saw trends against the common narrative that vaccine and lockdowns promote longevity. Furthermore, McCullough promoted the use of hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19 which this source as well as (Hennekens, C.H. et al., 2021 and others) have found to be incorrect. I, myself cannot come to a conclusion around the use of this drug as many doctors have been censored covering their use of it despite observing positive and life saving effects. Controlled McCulloughs attorney said that the lawsuit is driven by the current political climate as the lawsuit was announced the same day Baylor announced it was mandating COVID-19 vaccines for employees. I agree that this lawsuit unfortunately likely plays into the current political climate as many censorships we have discussed in class resulted from similar political motivations. Furthermore McCullough’s attorney claims he never explicitly state that he was employed or affiliated with Baylor but media sources affiliated him with them. However, plaintiffs filed a motion for a restraining order against McCullough stating they do not want to silence him but want to clarify that his opinions are his own. Based off of what we have previously seen in regards to COVID-19 I believe that this lawsuit is an attempt to silence McCullough as he strays from the common narrative

McCullough’s statements within https://web.archive.org/web/20230317191350/https://petermcculloughmd.substack.com/p/dissolution-of-spike-protein-by-nattokinase (his substack post) appear to be suggestive and of concern. He mentions, “The synthetic mRNA carried on lipid nanoparticles appears to be resistant to breakdown by human ribonucleases by design so the product would be long-lasting and produce the protein product of interest for a considerable time period.” and then introduces goals on how to help the vaccine injured through the dissolution of Spike protein. He believes that the pathogenesis of vaccine injury syndromes is believed to be driven by accumulation of Spike protein in cells, tissues, and organs. He emphasizes hope that nattokinase (an enzyme produced by fermenting soybeans with the bacteria Bacillus subtilis var.natto) and related peptides hold the greatest promise for patients at this time. I looked into nattokinase and its associations within previous studies particularly in pertinence to cardiovascular benefits. According to reputable studies within pubmed, conflicting results have been produced. One such study over a three year period of randomized treatment indicated that there was no significant effect of nattokinase supplementation on blood pressure or any laboratory determination. Furthermore, Nattokinase has not been seen to affect progressive artery disease or aid patients with cardiovascular disease (Hodis, Howard. et al., 2021). Another study indicated that the combination of NK (nattokinase)-heparin benefited their overall thrombolytic and anticoagulant activity in patients with chronic kidney disease. (Wu, H. et al., 2019). Overall scientific research points towards positive effects resulting in the use of nattokinase especially in association with neurodegenerative disease ( Qiao, Y. et al., 2022) and that it does produce measurable differences in human blood (Ero, M.P. et al., 2013). McCullough introduces scientific support for his conclusions indicating that studies have shown nattokinase degradative effect on S protein on cell surfaces (Tanikawa T, et at., 2022). Overall, there does not appear to be enough research on Nattokinase and all the effects that it could have on cardiovascular health and S protein removal. However, McCulloughs statements are well backed and call for more research rather than immediate implementation. However, https://healthfeedback.org/claimreview/no-scientific-evidence-for-claim-nattokinase-treat-long-covid-detox-covid19-vaccines/ argues that the persistence of Spike protein is not an issue and that it is perfectly safe and that that spike protein was virtually undetectable in the blood of most of the 13 individuals one week after the first dose of vaccine (Ogata et al., 2021). These conflicting studies lead me to believe that more research needs to be done and outright dismissing McCulloughs claims will only detriment the general public. From the media’s lens, Dr. McCullough is portrayed mainly as a harm causing and unreputable source. Within https://abcnews.go.com/US/group-physicians-combats-misinformation-unproven-covid-19-treatments/story?id=83097330, certain physicians claim that Dr. McCullough were attempting to spread unproven treatments like ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine while discouraging vaccines. Dr. McCullough states that it doesn’t necessarily have to be ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine, it could also be Paxlovid. However, his issue occurs when no drugs are administered to the patient. Within the article, they discuss how several studies concerning ivermectin and its benefits for Covid-19 have been flawed and others have shown no benefit. They state that no large-scale studies have actually shown any benefit of ivermectin on these patients. Given these results, ivermectin has not been recommended as a treatment. In the article, they state though that after discussing this with Dr. McCullough, he stated that the vaccine should be stopped instead of ivermectin treatments. However, ABC decsribed how people are 14 times more likely to die from Covid-19 if unvaccinated. Overall, this article seems to push one-side of the discussion as they end the article with a personal story of someone who died from Covid-19 and was unvaccinated. For the most part, an emphasis on getting the vaccine is felt as many pieces of data that are used highlight the dangers we could face if unvaccinated. Along this perspective, Dr. McCullough’s interview with Joe Rogan https://healthfeedback.org/claimreview/joe-rogan-interview-with-peter-mccullough-contains-multiple-false-and-unsubstantiated-claims-about-the-covid-19-pandemic-and-vaccines/ is judged to have many unsubstantiated and false claims and his overall argument is deemed inaccurate and unsupported. In terms of his claims, they offer multiple and highlight almost all of them as false or inaccurate. For example, Dr. McCullough makes a claim about antiviral monoclonal antibodies and how they have not been used before except now during Covid-19. However, this article refutes this as inaccurate and supplies a 2015 review (https://www.cell.com/trends/microbiology/fulltext/S0966-842X(15)00154-7) to illustrate that this method actually has been utilized before. Another claim is that both the CDC and the FDA didn’t employ a safety review. This article refutes this as false and supplies the information that the clinical trials were reviewed by doctors and scientists. A third claim of his is that during testing of a vaccine in Australia, everyone became HIV positive as a result of the trial. The article states that this is misleading and imprecise since the vaccine just made people have false-positive HIV tests. This is due to there being a small portion of HIV in the test vaccine to stabilize the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein. However, they state that once this occurred, all of the development was stopped. A final example claim is that Dr. McCullough stated that the pandemic was planned to instill fear and promote mass vaccinations. The article refutes that by stating that he supplied no evidence for this claim, and, therefore, this claim is very unsupported. As is the case with this and the other numerous claims that this article outlines, the authors seem to be just peddling one side of the story. I did however find that on an interview on Fox,  https://www.foxnews.com/video/6292908589001 that supports Dr. McCullough and addresses the way medical bureaucracy controls the American public. They used McCullough and how individuals are not allowed to go against the socially accepted narratives surrounding Covid.  This segment is relatively short compared to the longer segments within unsupportive news sources. 

Given that we don’t know the full context behind most or all of these claims, it’s hard to establish what is actually true and what’s taken out of context to support their points. Also, Dr. McCullough doesn’t have a chance to refute any of these allegations of falsehood and misinformation. Therefore, this website can push their own opinion without any recourse or rebuttal, allowing them to emphasize just one side of the story. 

Questions: 

1. How has the media’s portrayal of you, your claims, and your research impacted your career and reputability?
2. What do you think the overarching takeaways surrounding Covid and the government/institutions should be?
3. In retrospect, would you change anything about what you said during any interviews in order to avoid the backlash?

2. My News Sources and how they play into Media Preference Bias 

Five sources that I regularly consult are the New York Times, the WSJ, Fox, CNN, and MSNBC . These five charts are objectively charted using  https://adfontesmedia.com/interactive-media-bias-chart

New York Times

Wall Street Journal

FOX

CNN

MSNBC

https://adfontesmedia.com/interactive-media-bias-chart  For part b) objectively chart these five sites on the bias chart they provide by using this interactive feature. I have provided an example below for my use of Wall Street Journal and Epoch Times:

As you can see from this analysis of 5 sources I would tend to show a skew 6-18 to the left of the center and weight in 24-48 on a scale of 64 on factual reliability. Therefore, for my news sources, often they range from high variation of reliability due to opinionated news to mixing fact and analysis when reporting. In terms of my skew, for 4 of my 5 sources, I lean to the left, but to account for counter-narratives, I also use Fox News, which drastically skews to the right, and Wall Street Journal, which slightly skews to the right. While it may not be entirely possible to be completely neutral, I do try to balance my skews by understanding both sides of the news and not limiting myself to just the Democratic or Republican sides. In terms of consuming fake news, I was surprised to learn that there is a large spread of how the news is reported. While all of the sources do seem to have original fact reporting at times, the large clusters of points highlight that these sources stray away from factual reporting and often times lead to opinionated pieces that may not tell the full or accurate story. To counteract this, I will need to do research into which sources are primarily factual reporting because even though I may be more balanced in terms of the political sides, the reporting as a whole seems to be more crucial. Due to this, I often am somewhat biased in my views given that I don’t know the whole story. Even though my intention is never to accept biased or incomplete news, it was shocking to learn that I often do. After looking at the methodology behind their bias analysis, it was interesting to see that they use three analysts who seem to be from all 3 parts of the political spectrum. Also, they focus on individual articles and episodes and highlight the bias within them. Therefore, there might be some bias within this process since people are often not fully to the left, to the right, or in the middle. Given that these analysts most likely have biases within their own views and understandings, I’m more reluctant to accept this bias analysis as completely objective and accurate. Also, given that the ratings are changed by conversation, that could also lead there to be some biased skew due to the analysts convincing each other to follow their opinion. So, to answer the broader question, it’s understandable that the media is highly distrustful right now given the analysis I just did. Even before doing so, I still was wary about trusting just one source of information since it’s well known that reporter’s opinions bleed into their reporting. So, it’s necessary to hear both sides of the story no matter what my personal views are. Given the direction that the media is going, it doesn’t seem like these sources will become more trustworthy on their own. Rather, major changes must be made in terms of biases and factual reporting so that the audience doesn’t have to worry about accounting for the media’s bias. If people continue to have this distrust, more misinformation and disbelief in facts will continue since it will be very difficult to differentiate what’s fact from fiction. 

3. The Science of Fake News- a summary and takeaways from Proceedings of the National Academy of Science

One major distinction to take into account is defining misinformed versus uninformed. Misinformed has often been believed to be holding inaccurate views and faulty views about the scientific processes. However, through lacking information about these scientific processes, they can have unique results which allow them to stay close-minded about their beliefs. Being uninformed also works hand-in-hand with being misinformed, and so, the authors aim to identify the knowledge surrounding individual-level misinformation and unawareness. Another major highlight is that many Americans have trouble discerning between good and bad scientific studies and describing scientific experiments. Even among Americans, the majority believe that it is a problem that people don’t understand the science within the news and whether certain studies are good or bad. Despite scientific facts being publicly available, many Americans will hold beliefs that do not align with the science. Even if they know the science, they will not choose the policy that matches along with it as their beliefs seem to hold more water than the actual facts. For example, those who believe in conspiracy theories are reluctant to change their beliefs despite evidence that they are wrong, highlighting a stubbornness for change among some Americans. A third highlight is how misinformation is originally produced and spread. Given that many Americans are not well educated on media literacy, it’s easy for misinformation to spread. To prevent this at the individual level, each person must become more educated while also having discussion about these topics to help each other learn. However, in the meantime, large tech companies such as Google and Facebook are trying to create solutions that isolate the fake news and flag them for the readers. One major issue that stands in the way though is that Americans like to read about what they believe in. As it makes the news more enjoyable, this leads to educating about the issues in a non-biased way more difficult. Even if the news source isn’t considered overtly biased, different audiences can perceive the writing to be aligning with their own beliefs, causing misinformation to still occur. To exacerbate this, those in emotional states like anger can cause them to believe more in the misinformation and spread the falsities to others. One interesting solution to this is by enforcing a challenge aspect to the audience as it has been shown that when people’s views are challenged, they are more open to understanding multiple perspectives. When discussing group misinformation, it’s very easy for inaccurate information to spread as people become more familiar and open to it as they hear it more often. Like within social media, the larger scale rumors and beliefs can spread very easily within a collective group, leading to misinformation spreading quickly. One takeaway though is that given how strong the group dynamic is, within social media, people could possibly diversify their views if they are encouraged to spread outside of their small collective. One of the major overarching pieces of the article though was how communication and misinformation spreads in society as a whole. Given that news and other sources don’t aim to be objective but rather supply to America what will allow them to survive, misinformation is sometimes spread for a larger gain, whether it be economic, social, or otherwise. Debate on this topic shows that on one side, people don’t automatically change their news source if it contradicts their beliefs. However, on the other side, commercialization of the news seems to be a definite and ever-growing trend. To understand the full picture, the collateral factors were also taken into account. These factors like the media, the scientists, and the uncivil and negative commenters on the science all illustrate how misinformation is spread in the eyes of the American people. Almost half of Americans think it’s somewhat of a problem that scientists exaggerate the implications of their work and almost all Americans are not trusting or have trouble with how the news is covered. When looking at scientific news, people are often biased by the negativity in the comments, which leads to misinformation. All of these influences highlight America’s reluctance to trust news and media, which can often lead to misinformation being spread. Interestingly, further research is needed within different socioeconomic levels as the spread of misinformation is less understood within those in lower groups than those in higher. As a result, for misinformation to cease spreading, it’s necessary for all groups of Americans to have equal access to media and education in order to fully understand the information at hand.