Viral Rolling Stone Story About Ivermectin Patients 'Overwhelming Hospitals' Was 'Made Up'

Chris Menahan
InformationLiberation
Sep. 05, 2021

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Rolling Stone magazine was forced to issue an "update" to a super-viral false article claiming Oklahoma hospitals were "overwhelmed" with patients "overdosing" on ivermectin.

🧵THREAD🧵

We’ve got to talk about the Rolling Stone invermectin article. Turns out the story about rural hospitals so flooded with ODs that they couldn’t treat other patients was made up, entirely invented.

A lot of people took the bait, and I’ve got the screenshots.⤵️
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) September 5, 2021

Dr. Jason McElyea, the only source for the story, "is not an employee of NHS Sequoyah," "has not worked at our Sallisaw location in over 2 months" and "NHS Sequoyah has not treated any patients due to complications related to taking ivermectin," the hospital said in a statement over the weekend.

McElyea "is affiliated with a medical staffing group that provides coverage for our emergency room."

First, for context, here’s the original piece from @RollingStone and the follow up from the actual hospital saying the story was BS and that the one (one!) person the story quotes doesn’t work at that hospital anymore (and hasn’t in months). pic.twitter.com/6k4FjaQWD3
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) September 5, 2021

But it wasn’t just a single story out in the ether. Plenty of other places picked up the story, too, with no additional sourcing or research.

Here’s @BusinessInsider (@thecherylt) parroting the scoop that wasn’t true to begin with. pic.twitter.com/ygO8ezliTA
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) September 5, 2021

That @briantylercohen pushed a baseless lie on a show called “No Lie” is really just a little too on the nose. @NoLieWithBTC pic.twitter.com/IRiL28ba1f
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) September 5, 2021

For some reason British outlets went all-in on this one, too.

Will we get any apologies from @guardian or @DailyMailUK? pic.twitter.com/BRFxNwocbf
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) September 5, 2021

Needless to say, a certain variety of Twitter bluecheck couldn’t help themselves on this story. Here’s @shannonrwatts of Moms Demand Action. pic.twitter.com/ZJ9aCKyIUi
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) September 5, 2021

@DrJasonJohnson took the conspiracy theory a step further, suggesting that Senator Inhofe was somehow profiting (?) from the situation that wasn’t actually taking place.

Dr. Johnson, I think you owe @JimInhofe an apology. pic.twitter.com/Ak6jYZvegk
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) September 5, 2021

He’s got me blocked but @joncoopertweets continues to be one of the worst, most dishonest people on this platform. pic.twitter.com/YTBw5MhigP
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) September 5, 2021

I won’t pretend I expected much from either @dailykos or @OccupyDemocrats but both of these are pretty egregious. pic.twitter.com/HieAh0Ofsz
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) September 5, 2021

There were simply too many people to break each of them out as their own tweet.

Here we’ve got:@justinbaragona @PoliticusSarah @georgehahn (again with the narrative)@timmarchman pic.twitter.com/zHsB4aCVMp
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) September 5, 2021

I’m running out of space and patience but one last four-box:@rolandsmartin @lanaveenker @cruickshank @johnpavlovitz pic.twitter.com/zma89MwEjO
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) September 5, 2021

And the same people who purport to be concerned about misinformation and how it spreads on platforms like Twitter will surely be silent on this.

Where’s the nashing of teeth from the “disinformation” reporters? Where are the Twitter content warnings? Where’s the outrage?
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) September 5, 2021

You won’t hear any. Because this is the acceptable type of political lie.

And none of these people or outlets will learn anything. They’ll keep doing this.

Because they care more about scoring cheap dunks on their opponents than getting the truth.
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) September 5, 2021

Rolling Stone issued an "update" to the article with the hospital's statement debunking their story.

The only reason Rolling Stone is calling this an "UPDATE" as opposed to what it so plainly is -- a RETRACTION -- is because liberal outlets know that their readers don't care at all if they publish fake news as long as it's done with the right political motives and goals. https://t.co/2nRaD5EbXk
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) September 5, 2021

A similar incident happened last month where Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City had to issue a statement pushing back against the media's false narrative that their hospital had "hit capacity" due to child covid cases by pointing out that most of their child patients have respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), not covid, and they have "plenty of capacity" to see kids in outpatient settings.

The purpose of our ruling oligarchs' war on "misinformation" is to silence people telling the truth and exposing the media's lies and disinformation.

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