The saying “just because you read something on the internet doesn’t mean it’s true” really ought to be tailored down. It should be: “Just because you read something in the news doesn’t mean it’s true.”
There’s a reason the public’s trust in the media is as low as it is. Fake news has become increasingly common, which is to be expected when an entire industry of media professionals decides to act like activists instead of reporters. Too many journalists nowadays are choosing a narrative over the facts, and this results in stories such as the one Rolling Stone published last week, alleging that Oklahoma hospitals were so overwhelmed by rural patients sick from taking the drug ivermectin as a COVID-19 treatment that gunshot victims were being turned away.
The story, which has since been updated with a lengthy editor’s note, relied solely on the testimony of Dr. Jason McElyea, who has not been employed by a hospital in the area for the past several months and who has never treated an ivermectin overdose. He claimed that so many people were overdosing from ivermectin, an anti-parasitic drug that is used in both humans and animals for various purposes, including COVID-19 treatment, that Oklahoma’s emergency rooms were backed up to the point where “gunshot victims were having hard times getting to facilities where they can get definitive care and be treated.”
He offered no evidence to support this allegation, and the Rolling Stone reporter didn’t bother searching for any corroborating evidence either. But one quick phone call to the hospital system McElyea used to work for confirmed that none of what he said was true.
“Although Dr. Jason McElyea is not an employee of NHS Sequoyah, he is affiliated with a medical staffing group that provides coverage for our emergency room. With that said, Dr. McElyea has not worked at our Sallisaw location in over 2 months. NHS Sequoyah has not treated any patients due to complications related to taking ivermectin. This includes not treating any patients for ivermectin overdose,” the Northeastern Hospital System said in a statement, adding that “all patients who have visited our emergency rooms have received medical attention as appropriate.”
So, why did Rolling Stone publish such a thinly sourced and easily debunked story? At this point, do I really need to ask?
