Laura Ingraham’s anti-COVID vaccine campaign reaches a new low: “Should it even be available to people at this point?”
Written by Jane Lee & Alicia Sadowski
Published
During the February 17 broadcast of The Ingraham Angle, Fox News host Laura Ingraham hosted controversial physician Dr. Michael Huang to validate her ongoing attack on the COVID-19 vaccines.
In the segment, Ingraham said that Huang reports “hundreds” of his patients had experienced vaccine-related injuries, including chest pain, cancer, menstrual irregularity, and pregnancy loss. Huang said that, according to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, there were 180 vaccine-related deaths reported in the first month after the COVID-19 vaccine was released. Ingraham finished up the interview by asking Huang, “Should it even be available to people at this point?” Huang responded, “Absolutely not.”
In reality, the benefits of the COVID-19 vaccine far outweigh the minimal risk of vaccine-related injuries. A Centers for Disease Control study found that while cardiac complications can be a side effect of the COVID-19 vaccines, the risk of such complications is “significantly higher” after a COVID-19 infection. The American Cancer Society succinctly dismissed the claim that the vaccine causes cancer and recommended the vaccine for cancer patients and survivors. Studies show that the vaccine can delay a person’s next period, “but the changes are small and fleeting” and do not affect fertility. Research also shows no increased risk for miscarriage with the vaccine. In addition, the vaccine is recommended for pregnant people by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine.
Fox has repeatedly used the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System to spread vaccine misinformation. VAERS is an open system intended to collect data on the after-effects of vaccines, meaning the submitted reports can include “any health effects that occur after a vaccination … whether or not those effects are believed to be caused by the vaccine.” The reports are clearly unverified and not meant to determine if a vaccine causes a negative effect, yet Fox News has yet again used it to interpret the data to support vaccine misinformation.
Pushing COVID-19 misinformation is just another day at the office for Ingraham. But using widely disproven misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccine to argue that it should no longer be available is a dangerous new low for both Ingraham and Fox News.