Andrew Bolt: Left trying to muzzle Kelly for speaking the truth

The co-ordinated campaign to silence Craig Kelly is the most dangerous example of cancel culture yet, writes Andrew Bolt.

Craig Kelly. Picture: AAP

The campaign by Labor and journalists to silence Liberal MP Craig Kelly is the most stupid and dangerous example I’ve yet seen of the cancel culture.

And shame on Prime Minister Scott Morrison for telling his MP on Wednesday to keep his mouth shut.

Beware Labor, too. Its new health spokesman, Mark Butler, calls Kelly a “dangerous menace” for actually telling the truth about drugs that could stop you from dying.

Kelly has argued, correctly, that many studies now say that two common drugs seem to stop many people from getting very sick with the coronavirus, if taken early and with zinc.

One is ivermectin, a lice treatment. The other is hydroxychloroquine, an antimalarial used safely for decades.

But the problem is Donald Trump as president recommended hydroxychloroquine, too.

Much of the media didn’t want to believe Trump could be right, so demonised the drug and anyone backing it.

And our regulators, relying on flawed or atypical and dated studies, then recommended against ivermectin and banned hydroxychloroquine.

This is bizarre. The ban on hydroxychloroquine, for instance, is largely based on one British study that treated very sick patients in the late stages of the disease — too late — and with a mysteriously big overdose of the drug.

Craig Kelly and Tanya Plibersek had a discussion in the halls of Parliament. Picture: Getty

But since then, multiple studies have confirmed both drugs are effective if taken early.

What’s more, they’re backed by some of the best Australian experts in the field.

Prof Thomas Borody, a brilliant pioneer of a treatment for peptic ulcers, is now pushing for a local trial of ivermectin, which he says makes the coronavirus “very easy to kill”.

And Emeritus Professor Robert Clancy, made a Member of the Order of Australia for his breakthrough work in immunology, says the case for using both drugs, in combination with zinc, is now “irrefutable”, with 27 studies showing hydroxychloroquine did work.

On Wednesday, with Kelly’s career now threatened and his colleagues treating him like dog droppings, Clancy told a Nine journalist Kelly was “absolutely right” on both drugs: “Early treatment is highly effective.”

Yet all yesterday I watched journalists on TV jeer that Kelly was a dill, not a doctor. He should shut up and listen to “the experts”.

In fact, experts back what Kelly says. But this is the cancel culture — and Kelly now must wear a muzzle. And you still can’t get these drugs.