Chris Cuomo Backtracks on Vaccine Injury Suggestion, Touts Ivermectin

CNN anchor Chris Cuomo attends the 12th annual CNN Heroes tribute in New York on Dec. 8, 2018. Evan Agostini/Invision/AP

Chris Cuomo has backtracked after suggesting he was injured by a COVID-19 vaccine, saying he actually has so-called long COVID.

“I did not say I was vaccine injured. I have #LongCovid I am told. I had symptoms before I even had the vaccine,” Mr. Cuomo wrote on the social media platform X on May 7.

During an episode of his NewsNation program this month, Mr. Cuomo interviewed nurse Shaun Barcavage, who described what he said were symptoms from a vaccine injury.

“We know that vaccines can have unintended consequences, AKA side effects, but nobody’s really talking about it because they’re too afraid of blame, and they just want it to go away,” Mr. Cuomo said on the show. “But the problem is people like Shaun—and me—and millions of others who still have weird stuff with their bloodwork and their lives and their feelings—you know, physically—are not going away.”

After the clip circulated widely, Mr. Cuomo said that he received a vaccine but that his symptoms started beforehand.

“Could the vaccine have had an influence on me? Possible, given the spike protein found in my blood, which is present in both the virus and the vaccine,” he wrote on X.

Dr. Robin Foreman Rose, Mr. Cuomo’s doctor, previously told The Epoch Times that many patients with problems from COVID-19 experience a decline after receiving a vaccine.

There are few differences between people with long COVID, or lingering symptoms after COVID-19, and people with symptoms that appear after vaccination, Dr. Rose said. She said that “the line between long COVID and vaccine injury is starting to blur.”

Dr. Rose did not respond to a request for comment. Mr. Cuomo has not returned inquiries.

In a video posted to Mr. Cuomo’s Substack, Mr. Cuomo said his symptoms are similar to those among people with mast cell activation syndrome, including sensitive skin that reacts when touched.

He said Dr. Rose placed him on a specific diet that features foods to combat his symptoms and remove the spike protein from his cells.

Tests found spike protein in Mr. Cuomo, and he tested positive for the COVID-19 nucleocapsid protein, which points to Mr. Cuomo suffering from long COVID, Dr. Rose has said. While some of the biomarkers identified in the testing can be caused by non-COVID issues, the fact that the symptoms developed during the pandemic point to the virus as a cause, she said in the new video.

“I’m sick because I had my symptoms that they’re calling long COVID now before I get vaccinated, so I don’t know that it’s the vaccine,” Mr. Cuomo said in a recent appearance on the PBD Podcast.

He denigrated people who questioned the vaccines shortly after they were introduced in late 2020, claiming that “we didn’t have a reason to be suspicious” of the products. He said he would maintain the same promotion of the vaccines that he offered around that time, but acknowledged that issues have since arose, including a refusal by government officials to answer certain questions pertaining to possible side effects. Mr. Cuomo promoted vaccination earlier in the pandemic, including telling Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) that people who aren’t vaccinated “could get other people sick,” even though the clinical trials for the shots didn’t measure efficacy against transmission.

Ivermectin Comments

Also on the podcast, Mr. Cuomo said that “we were given bad information about ivermectin,” a drug approved in the United States as an antimalaria medicine and used by some doctors off-label against COVID-19.

“What matters is the entire clinical community knew that ivermectin couldn’t hurt you. They knew it. How do I know? Because now I’m doing nothing but talking to these clinicians, who at the time, were overwhelmed by COVID. And they weren’t saying anything,” Mr. Cuomo said.

Ivermectin has been repeatedly described as ineffective against COVID-19 and even dangerous by some doctors and U.S. health authorities, such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

The FDA in April under a legal settlement removed social media posts warning against the usage of ivermectin against COVID-19 but maintains people should not use it as a COVID-19 treatment, even though some of the studies it cites found a benefit for using the drug.

Mr. Cuomo said that Dr. Rose was advising her family and patients to use ivermectin as a treatment throughout the pandemic “and it was working for them.

“So they were wrong to play scared on that,” he said.

Mr. Cuomo said in one CNN appearance in 2020: “Ivermectin, a dewormer? Really?”

Other CNN employees also called ivermectin a “horse dewormer” while criticizing podcast host Joe Rogan for taking it as a COVID-19 treatment. While the drug is available for animals, Mr. Rogan took the human form.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, who still works at CNN, later said the network should not have called ivermectin a horse dewormer.

“Was CNN fair in its ivermectin coverage? No, it was not fair, in my opinion; other people would disagree,” Mr. Cuomo said this week. “And that should have been part of our common practice to see if it could help or not.”

Jack Phillips and Patricia Tolson contributed to this report.