AZ legislature hosts new COVID hearing full of misinformation

For the third time in less than a year, Arizona Republican lawmakers listened intently and offered no pushback during a special hearing at the state Senate that was billed as examining the state’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic but was instead rife with conspiracy theories, misinformation and fear-mongering about vaccines and public health. “As a frontline caregiver who worked in the ICU during the height of the pandemic, I was very disappointed today during the Novel COVID South Western Intergovernmental Committee that there was a palpable lack of celebration or even gratitude for the folks who comforted loved ones and held their hands during a frightening time of uncertainty,” Brandi Giles, a registered nurse and Director of Preventable Diseases for the Arizona Families for Vaccines, said in a statement to the Arizona Mirror. “The spike protein was intentionally engineered in a Chinese security lab in Wuhan China,” McCoullough said, adding that the United States worked alongside China and claimed that Dr. Anthony Faucci, who led the federal government’s work to combat COVID-19, was part of it. He previously has stated that he believed the pandemic was “planned” and has promoted the QAnon conspiracy film “Plandemic.” McCoullough has become a darling to those in both QAnon and the broader conspiracy world, appearing regularly on shows like the one hosted by antisemite Stew Peters, who said the COVID vaccine is a “bioweapon.” Peters also was behind multiple QAnon conspiracy documentaries that made dubious claims about the vaccine, including that it included snake venom. The committee also heard from Prescott-area Dr. Stephen Hale, who, before speaking, said his employer, the Veterans Administration, were making him read a statement saying the views and opinions are his own and do not reflect the views of the VA. “There is no reason for anyone at all to get a COVID vaccine,” Hale told the committee, adding that a paper published by The Lancet on the ineffectiveness of hydroxychloroquine at treating the virus was a “hit piece” and “totally bogus.” McCoullough and others also advocated for a regimen that includes hydroxychloroquine and other drugs that have not been proven to adequately treat COVID.