Ben Carson Pushes Hydroxychloroquine to a Skeptical Neil Cavuto on Fox News: ‘The Evidence is There’

Former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson pushed for the use of hydroxychloroquine in Covid-19 patients — earning some skepticism from Fox Business anchor Neil Cavuto.

Cavuto asked Carson about the coronavirus vaccine, noting warnings surrounding the Johnson & Johnson shot and questioning how that will impact the rollout plan, especially considering people are already hesitant to get vaccinated.

“We’ve made enormous progress on the vaccine front,” said the former neurosurgeon. “However, because we’ve allowed politics to be injected into it, I think a lot of people are skeptical about what they hear from the NIH, from the CDC, from various — quote — authorities.”

“It’s hurting us as a nation,” he continued. “We as a nation, for instance, wanted to be focused only on one thing: vaccinations. There were people telling us, you know, there are other kinds of things that work. Hydroxychloroquine. You know, you look at the Western African countries along the coast. When you go there, you know, you have to take hydroxychloroquine or other antimalarials. Interestingly enough, their instance of Covid-19 is tremendously less than ours. Is that a coincidence? I don’t think so.”

Yes, Carson is still pushing hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for Covid-19, even as legitimate vaccines are clearly working to fight the virus.

Cavuto quickly refuted Carson’s claim on the drug — citing studies into its effectiveness.

“Medical experts have looked at that, doctor, as you know, and poo-pooed that connection,” Cavuto pushed back before trying to shift the focus back to the coronavirus vaccine.

The anchor, however, failed to deter the doctor, who later doubled down on his support of the drug.

“You just said a bunch of people have poo-pooed the hydroxychloroquine,” Carson objected. “But the evidence is there. What they haven’t done is investigated it. You know, and that’s part of the problem. And that’s why people don’t have confidence in our system.”

Cavuto continued to challenge Carson, noting that the experts recommended against using hydroxychloroquine, specifically for those with heart issues or other underlying conditions.

“Wasn’t the evidence — the issue on that, doctor, for those with heart or other issues, it would not be a good idea — period — thinking that this was a magic or silver bullet to deal with the virus?” he said. “Wasn’t that the issue?”

Carson continued to disagree with the anchor, stressing that American’s should have the freedom to choose.

“The issue is that we should put everything on the table,” he said. “We shouldn’t just pick one thing and say, ‘You have to do this.’ We should say, let’s look at this whole variety, this whole plethora or possibilities that we have and let’s develop them all and let’s be objective about it instead of trying to steer them down one pathway.”

“At the time, we were driven by comments out of the National Institutes of Health and the FDA, that they did not recommend this,” Cavuto responded. “That’s the best we had to go on at the time. Some of that has changed since but the issue at heart here and the push for vaccines was mistaking this one for that, wasn’t it?”

Carson continued to advocate for honesty, questioning if experts are “being truthful,” adding that giving people the right to choose is “what America is all about.” (But only sometimes).

Watch above, via Fox Business.