By: Daniel John Sobieski

No, I don’t know where Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg got his medical degree and license either, yet there he sits atop the social media food chain dictating who can say and know what about the Chinese Wuhan virus pandemic and its treatments and possible cures. He now says he knows more than board-certified medical doctors about the drug hydroxychloroquine, for example, and will deny you access to what they say, calling their judgments and pronouncement based on their studies and actual experience treating patients as “harmful misinformation. Dr. Zuckerberg has spoken and he will not let us hear a second opinion.

Zuckerberg, like most liberals, views the rest of us with contempt. He is to be the sole arbiter of truth and has no respect for constitutional rights like our freedom of speech. His defense is that Facebook is his sandbox and is free so it is not like we are talking on a phone that we pay for. Yet we do pay for Facebook no matter what he says. Our information is culled, mined, and sold. Ads are bought and placed on Facebook based on our being patrons of it. It is not free. Here is Zuckerberg telling ABC that Facebook won’t allow people to use the platform to organize to defend their constitutional rights to peacefully assemble and petition their leaders for a redress of grievances which include assaults on religious liberty and gun rights, both in the Constitution and to not be deprived of their livelihoods and use of their business property by executive order and not by legitimate due process of law:

FACEBOOK CEO MARK Zuckerberg said Monday that protests against stay-at-home orders organized on the social site qualify as “harmful misinformation’ and are removed from the platform.

“Good Morning America” anchor George Stephanopoulos asked the CEO how the social media giant is handling “the fact that Facebook is now being used to organize a lot of these protests to defy social distancing guidelines in the states.”

The anchor asked Zuckerberg “If somebody is trying to organize something like that, does that qualify as harmful misinformation?”

Zuckerberg said that if something states that social distancing isn’t effective to slow the spread of the coronavirus it is deemed misinformation and taken down.

However, he added, it is important that people can continue to debate policies and give their opinions, but “there is a line on this.”

Zuckerberg does not explain why BLM, Antifa, and other terrorist groups are free to organize and protest without social distancing… and why posts supporting these gatherings are not taken down. Zuckerberg does not explain that at the funeral of John Lewis there was no social distancing or that people that attended from other states were not self-quarantined for 14 days and won’t be isolated on their return. Did Zuckerberg take down posts promoting and celebrating this “harmful” gathering?

Trump rallies are dangerous but Democrat funerals are not. We can’t hold or attend the wakes and funerals of our loved ones due to social distancing but according to Dr. Zuckerberg people who want to protest these things are spreading “harmful misinformation.” Did Zuckerberg bar posts showing Dr. Fauci not wearing a mask and sitting elbow-to-elbow at a Washington Nationals baseball game?

Dr. Zuckerberg recently testified with other big tech tyrants like Twitter’s Jack Dorsey about how they are really performing a public service by pulling down any virus post that doesn’t conform to the accepted dogma that we should just shut up, sit down, and remain under house arrest until the experts who have jobs and regular incomes tell us when to jump and how high. He defended pulling down a video of a rally by a group of physicians calling themselves  “Frontline Doctors.” As commentary writer Eddie Scarry writes in the Washington Examiner:

Aren’t you excited to be told by Mark Zuckerberg what medical information is and isn’t acceptable for you to hear about?

That’s what happened this week when the techies at Facebook, Twitter, and Google-owned YouTube decided, almost all at once, to remove a video that showed several doctors lauding hydroxychloroquine as an effective treatment for patients infected with the coronavirus.

Twitter went so far as to lock up Donald Trump Jr.’s personal account after he shared the video, deleting the tweet and then freezing him from posting any further content for several hours. The video, according to Twitter, violated company policy against “spreading misleading and potentially harmful information related to COVID-19.”…

Outside of that video, other doctors have also testified to the drug’s efficacy in limited studies and with anecdotal evidence. Harvey Risch of Yale’s School of Public Health wrote in Newsweek just last week that the drug “has shown to be highly effective.”

In his Newsweek piece, Risch speaks to the war of hostility against hydroxychloroquine and I suspect one of the problems is that it is an old drug with little profit potential for Big Pharma and the salivating politicians they donate to. Risch notes he is not alone in his conclusions about hydroxychloroquine:

On May 27, I published an article in the American Journal of Epidemiology (AJE) entitled, “Early Outpatient Treatment of Symptomatic, High-Risk COVID-19 Patients that Should be Ramped-Up Immediately as Key to the Pandemic Crisis.” That article, published in the world’s leading epidemiology journal, analyzed five studies, demonstrating clear-cut and significant benefits to treated patients, plus other very large studies that showed the medication safety.

Physicians who have been using these medications in the face of widespread skepticism have been truly heroic. They have done what the science shows is best for their patients, often at great personal risk. I myself know of two doctors who have saved the lives of hundreds of patients with these medications, but are now fighting state medical boards to save their licenses and reputations. The cases against them are completely without scientific merit.

Since publication of my May 27 article, seven more studies have demonstrated similar benefit. In a lengthy follow-up letter, also published by AJE, I discuss these seven studies and renew my call for the immediate early use of hydroxychloroquine in high-risk patients. These seven studies include: an additional 400 high-risk patients treated by Dr. Vladimir Zelenko, with zero deaths; four studies totaling almost 500 high-risk patients treated in nursing homes and clinics across the U.S., with no deaths; a controlled trial of more than 700 high-risk patients in Brazil, with significantly reduced risk of hospitalization and two deaths among 334 patients treated with hydroxychloroquine; and another study of 398 matched patients in France, also with significantly reduced hospitalization risk. Since my letter was published, even more doctors have reported to me their completely successful use.

Hydroxychloroquine is not a cure or a vaccine and Dr. Ritsch and the “Frontline Doctors” do not claim it to be, but the drug which has been safely used over more than five decades has proven in the real world to be safe and useful in lessening the spread and impact of COVOD-19. As Fox News reports:

Dr. Harvey Risch, an epidemiology professor at Yale School of Public Health, said on Tuesday that he thinks hydroxychloroquine could save 75,000 to 100,000 lives if the drug is widely used to treat coronavirus.

“There are many doctors that I’ve gotten hostile remarks about saying that all the evidence is bad for it and, in fact, that is not true at all,” Risch told “Ingraham Angle,” adding that he believes the drug can be used as a “prophylactic” for front-line workers, as other countries like India have done.

Risch lamented that a “propaganda war” is being waged against the use of the drug for political purposes, not based on “medical facts.”

Researchers at the Henry Ford Health System in Southeast Michigan have found that early administration of hydroxychloroquine makes hospitalized patients substantially less likely to die.

The study, published in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases, determined that hydroxychloroquine provided a “66 percent hazard ratio reduction,” and hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin a 71 percent reduction, compared with neither treatment.

It is no cure or vaccine but it can save lives – lots of lives. The question then is how many lives have been lost and will be lost due to the actions of Zuckerberg, Dorsey, and others to deny us the helpful life-saving information we need.

I, for one, don’t want to live in a world where the likes of Mark Zuckerberg determine which constitutional rights I get to enjoy and then get to decide whether I live or die.

 * Daniel John Sobieski is a former editorial writer for Investor’s Business Daily and freelance writer whose pieces have appeared in Human Events, Reason Magazine, and the Chicago Sun-Times among other publications.