A video featuring a group of doctors making dubious claims regarding COVID-19 has been removed by social media giants after the footage went viral - with a little help from US President Donald Trump.
Published by the far-right current affairs and commentary website Breitbart News, the video showed a number of doctors congregated in Washington, DC at an apparent press event, wearing lab coats emblazoned with 'America's Frontline Doctors'. One of the doctors, identified by the Washington Post as Stella Immanuel, spoke in favour of treating COVID-19 patients with the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine and dismissed the effectiveness of masks.
On Monday night (local time), President Trump retweeted multiple versions of the video to his 84 million Twitter followers, despite the questionable claims in the footage contradicting his administration's own public health experts.
In the video, Immanuel - who received a medical license in November, according to state records - claims "you don't need a mask" to prevent the spread of the virus. Masks, a topic of contention and political divide in the US, were long dismissed as unnecessary by the President - despite numerous health officials and medical experts recommending the use of face coverings amid the pandemic.
She went on to claim that recent studies proving hydroxychloroquine is ineffective against COVID-19 are "fake science", sponsored by "fake pharma companies". Earlier in the pandemic, President Trump came under fire for actively promoting the possibility that hydroxychloroquine could be a miracle cure for COVID-19.
"This virus has a cure, it's called hydroxychloroquine, zinc and Zithromax," Immanuel claimed. "You don't need masks, there is a cure."
The statement contradicts multiple studies disputing claims that hydroxychloroquine can treat or prevent the virus. As reported by the Washington Post, the FDA revoked an emergency approval in June that allowed doctors to prescribe the antimalarial drug to COVID-19 patients, despite the treatment being untested.
The video of the doctors quickly went viral on Facebook, becoming one of the platform's top-performing posts with more than 14 million views.
In a statement to CNN, a Facebook spokesperson confirmed the video had been removed for promoting misinformation about COVID-19.
Fellow social media giant Twitter wiped the video from its platform after Trump retweeted multiple versions of the clip, which subsequently amassed hundreds of thousands of views.
Twitter also took action on the President's eldest child, temporarily limiting Donald Trump Jr's account for 12 hours after he directly shared a version of the video. A spokesperson told local media the video's content violated the platform's COVID-19 misinformation policy.
YouTube also took down the video, which had amassed more than 40,000 views on the platform, after the content was deemed as a violation of YouTube's community guidelines.
According to the Washington Post, the website for America's Frontline Doctors - the organisation the assembly of doctors claim to belong to - is less than two weeks old. The group appears to be led by Simone Gold - a Los Angeles-based doctor and known supporter of Trump - who previously appeared on Fox News to promote the view that stay-at-home orders can do more harm than good.
In May, Dr Gold told the Associated Press she wanted to speak out against the common public health protocol - implemented by New Zealand in March under the alert level 4 lockdown - as there was "no scientific basis that the average American should be concerned" about the virus.
America's Frontline Doctors claims to comprise several health professionals who appear to be licensed in California, Georgia and Texas, the Washington Post reports.
According to Johns Hopkins University's latest data, the virus has infected more than 4.3 million people in the US and has killed almost 150,000.
