Chris Cuomo Makes Ivermectin About-Face After Denouncing Its Use for COVID: ‘I Am Now Taking a Regular Dose’
Chris Cuomo’s stance on Ivermectin as a theraputic drug for COVID-19 has done a complete 180, as the news anchor who once said on CNN that anyone promoting it should be “shamed” now says he’s “taking a regular dose” to deal with his own struggles with long-term effects of an infection.
Cuomo shared in January that he’s suffering from “long COVID,” or the long-term lingering effects of a previous infection. This week on the PBD Podcast, a current-events show hosted by Patrick Bet-David, the NewsNation personality said he’s using the antiviral to help with an ongoing inflammatory response and “brain fog.”
“I’ll tell you something else that’s gonna get you a lot of hits,” Cuomo said. “I am taking … a regular dose of Ivermectin. Ivermectin was a boogeyman during COVID. That was wrong. We were given bad information about Ivermectin. The real question is, why?”
When COVID-19 was peaking in 2020 and 2021, Ivermectin emerged as a fringe remedy, and was instantly denounced as a “horse dewormer” – including a segment that mocked podcaster Joe Rogan for announcing that he had success taking the antiviral drug. Though it was first used in the 1970s as an antiparasitic primarily for animals, Ivermectin’s use in humans had become widespread in later decades, as a malaria prophylaxis and treatment in particular, and is considered very safe.
“Everyone’s going to say ‘Joe Rogan was right,'” Cuomo continued. “No, Joe Rogan was saying – yeah, he was right – that’s not what matters. What matters is, the entire medical community knew that Ivermectin couldn’t hurt you. They knew it … I know they knew it. How do I know? Because now I’m doing nothing but talking to these clinicians, who at the time were overwhelmed by COVID, and they weren’t saying anything!”
When Cuomo was still a CNN anchor, he and colleague Don Lemon ridiculed its use after Rogan’s disclosure:
“People who are getting, injecting, drugs for animals,” Lemon said at the time, “and horse – .”
“And people telling them to!” Cuomo interjected at the time. “What person – you know you talk about cancel culture and who to shame – Ivermectin? A de-wormer? Really? … they need to be shamed. They need to be called out and shamed, brother.”
On the PBD podcast, Cuomo walked that back – way back – suggesting that part of the reason Ivermectin was so vehemently rejected was that there was no profit in a drug that was already inexpensive and widely distributed.
“It’s cheap, it’s not owned by anybody, and it’s used as an anti-microbial, antiviral and has been for all these different ways, and has been for a long time,” Cuomo said. “My doctor was using it during COVID on her family and on her patients, and it was working for them. So. They were wrong to play scared on that. Didn’t know that at the time. Know it now, admit it now, reporting on it now.”
Watch both of Cuomo’s takes on Ivermectin in the video embed above.
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