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FULL INTERVIEW: Houston-area doctor in viral video touting hydroxychloroquine as virus cure doubles down on claims

HOUSTON – The Houston-area doctor featured in a controversial, viral video claiming an anti-malarial drug is a cure for COVID-19 shared her side of the story with KPRC 2.

Dr. Stella Immanuel touted hydroxychloroquine as the cure for coronavirus in a press conference in front of the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday. The video of her press conference was shared by President Donald Trump and one of his sons before Twitter and Facebook took it down for violating their misinformation policy.

She spoke to KPRC 2′s Joel Eisenbaum Thursday. Here’s what she said:

Joel: You’re an old hat at this already. I mean you had such an impassioned, on Monday that was pretty incredible how impassioned you were. Did you practice that speech?

Answer: No I’m upset. I’m upset. This is not, I’m not acting up, I’m not putting this up, people are dying. Do you understand? People are dying. Like we just had news that Herman Cain died. He didn’t have to die. People saying he should’ve worn a mask. Yes, he should have if he did haven’t hydroxychloroquine. But she should’ve worn a mask.

Joel: You’re saying Herman Cain died, he just died. He didn’t need to.

Answer: If someone would’ve given him hydroxychloroquine it’s most likely he wouldn’t have died. Just like every other people, just like every other person that has died from coronavirus did not have to die.

Joel: But, you understand the world health organization, the FDA they don’t agree with you?

Answer: Of course they don’t agree with me.

Joel: They think you’re dangerous?

Answer: Of course they think I’m dangerous because I’m speaking the truth. I said it many times. Number one: Ask Dr. Anthony Fauci, when was the last time he saw a patient?

When is the last time he put a stethoscope on a patient’s [inaudible] and I’m willing to ask him that. Number two: I’m still waiting for him to come and give me a pee sample to find out if whether he’s on hydroxychloroquine to treat himself. The studies that we did on hydroxychloroquine were done without Anthony Fauci.

This is craziness, I have treated right now, over 400 patients. This is Houston. My patients are going to speak up. You’re going to talk to them. You can, you can interview. Put something on the news and call and tell people that have been treated to call. We’ve treated diabetic patients, we’ve treated pregnant women, we’ve treated old people, 87 years old.

This is craziness. I don’t know what they are doing and somebody needs to tell me FDA, Anthony Fauci, WHO — why are you... why do you want people to die?

Joel: They think it has side effects. The efficacy there was that thing in the New England Journal of Medicine that came out today, that says it didn’t work.

Answer: Okay.

Joel: Yet another study says this doesn’t work.

Answer: There are many studies that say it works. There are many studies that say it works. People, I just had something on Facebook, that somebody, ‘Dr. Stella, we badly want to see your data.’ I say, ‘no you don’t. You don’t want to see my data.'

Joel: Why not?

Answer: There are over 50, there are over 100 papers that have been published over the world. In India, in Turkey, in France. Each time these papers come out (that) this thing works, they do a smear campaign, because if they’re not... Do you know how much hydroxychloroquine costs? $20. By taking hydroxychloroquine, Zinc, Vitamin C and Z-pak, tops, maybe $50-$ 60. You have a whole treatment for COVID.

Joel: You called it more than a treatment. You called it a cure.

Answer: It is a cure! What is, okay, what is a cure?

Joel: A cure means it’s eradicated.

Answer: YES! It eradicates the symptoms, it eradicates the virus... We see patients, day one, we put them on hydroxychloroquine. They come back day seven, day 10 and they’re negative. It eradicates the virus. It is a cure. I don’t know why people are getting crazy about this.

Joel: Well that’s a minority view on whether or not it’s a cure.

Answer: Okay, let me tell you something. When you have some 300-400 patients and none of them has died, it is not a minority view... I say this all the time. The doctors are saying this thing don’t work. They, most of them, don’t see patients. They’re, you know, dermatologists, or... listen I’m not knocking their specialties. They don’t see patients. And they’re like well, she’s a pediatrician. I’m a pediatrician and I worked in the emergency room. I’ve done that for years. When I trained in Africa, we train as general practitioners we don’t train as pediatricians or orthopedics or whatever. We train as general practitioners.

When I came here, I did a residency in pediatrics because that is what, that was the specialty, the Residency I got into. But once I finished residency, I got done with residency, I work in pediatrics, I’m working in emergency rooms see adults, intubating people I’ve done that for years.

Joel: Why not to silence your critics, publish your data?

Answer: And what would that do? I have the data, I’m going to publish it, but what would that do? How about Dr. (Didier) Raoult’s data? Dr. Raoult, a renowned virologist published the data for over 4,000 patients and they vilified him. Although I hear... France now has agreed for patients to see for people to use hydroxychloroquine. Recently... there is a doctor at Yale, that published data —

Joel: I saw that. It was in Newsweek.

Answer: So there is enough data. The minute one of those comes down then [inaudible] few doctors —

Joel: Then why is everybody not on-board with you?

Answer: They can’t be on-board with me because of Big Pharma. I can tell you, exactly what is going on. There are different layers here. There are people that are just opportunistic. They figured out if this virus drives people crazy and everybody is afraid and schools are lockdown they lose, somebody will lose the election. Somebody will win the election. That’s stupid.

Because the virus doesn’t care Republican or Democrat. Those are the opportunistic people. Then there are people that don’t have no clue. Doctors that are scared of this medication because they hear this narrative. They’ve never taken hydroxychloroquine. They don’t know it. I keep saying, dermatologists speak up. You put patients on this, 15 years, they take this twice a day for 15 years and nothing happens. Speak up. They’ve never taken patients off hydroxychloroquine because they had some kind of issue. Speak up. You know what I’m saying? They know that... I’m comfortable with this medication because I took, [inaudible] flavoquin, [inaudible] we took it growing up.

Joel: you’re taking it right now? Aren’t you?

Answer: Yes! I take two pills twice, every twice a month. I see, you saw our clinic. Are we social distanced in this clinic? We can’t.

You know something? I work with a surgical mask. This is my mask that I work with. I wear this mask so my patients can be comfortable.

Joel: You don’t buy the whole mask thing?

Answer: Listen, no. If you’re not on prophylactic, wear a mask. Do you understand what I’m saying? I’m not one of those anti-mask... I’m not anti-vaxxer... I’m not anti all those things. I’m just saying all this vaccine, mask and everything, if they put everyone on hydroxychloroquine, schools would open back up. If they put the vulnerable.

Joel: Like preventatively?

Answer: Yes sir.

Joel: You don’t even have to be diagnosed?

Answer: You don’t even have to be diagnosed.

Joel: You’re going to run afoul your medical license if you start doing that aren’t you?

Answer: My medical license?

Joel: Yeah?

Answer: So you think I should defend my medical license over people dying? Over people dying?

Joel: Aren’t you worried about losing it?

Anwser: Medical license?

Joel: Your medical license, yeah.

Answer: Really. Let TMB come after me. I should let people die because I’m scared of TMB. Or I should let people die because I’m scared of Anthony Fauci? I should let people die because I’m scared of the WHO? I’m not scared of any of them. I’m not going to let people die. And if they come after me, it’s going to be on! I’m not going to let people die. They can take my license, then do it. I don’t even have a license to defend. It’s going to be on. If they come after my license because I did something wrong that would be one thing. If they come after my license because I saved people... because every patient I have seen has lived. There are doctors out there talking smack. And I’ll tell these doctors say go see your patients. I had a young man drive almost 2-3 hours to get here. Because he went to the ER, he had COVID, he had pneumonia in the chest and they refused to give him hydroxychloroquine. He asked for it, and they refused. My question is that everybody has a right to try. If I want to try a ‘dangerous’ drug, let me try it.

Joel: You think?

Answer: Of course. There is a right to try it in America, it’s the law.

Joel: But I can’t walk into a doctor’s office and say I want to try this drug.

Answer: No. There actually is a right to try this drug. Do you know the right to try experimental drugs, is the law of America? You can actually try experimental drugs. Well hydroxy --

Joel: But the FDA has barred this though.

Answer: No. See, the FDA did not bar hydroxychloroquine. That’s a lie.

Joel: No. No. No. The off-label usage for this.

Answer: He did not, they did not bar it. What? Did they do that?

Joel: Shortly after, shortly before those two studies were retracted.

Answer: That’s not true. That’s not what the FDA said.

Joel: What (did) they say?

Answer: FDA said they have withdrawn the emergency use for using that medication in the hospital because it was not effective. I don’t think you should wait to use hydroxychloroquine when somebody is admitted in the hospital [inaudible] You should use it early. If the FDA had blocked doctors from using this medication, nobody would be able to prescribe it. The FDA didn’t do that. And the FDA can’t do that for a medication that is used off-label. You can’t do that. They have to draft (a) whole new law about off-label. Do you understand what I’m saying? The FDA can’t do that. They did not do that. The FDA said, “We’re taking off the emergency use.” When they took off the emergency use then they released the stockpile into the nation. So, the FDA did not do that, that’s number one. Even (the) Texas pharmacy board, initially, had put some restrictions on how much you should give. That restriction expired, I think, on the 17th or so. They never renewed the restriction. So, there actually (is) no legal restrictions for a doctor prescribing a medication. Except (for) Ohio that the governor, who is not a doctor, has barred it, there is none. There are pharmacies right now that are taking it upon themselves --

Joel: Well, Dr. Urso is dealing with a complaint that was made against him to the Texas Medical Board.

Answer: Yup, many doctors have. They’ve made complaints against a lot of people.

Joel: You’ve had complaints against you, haven’t you.?

Answer: I don’t know about it yet. If they make a complaint --

Joel: You’re not worried about it?

Answer: No! I’m not. What would I have done wrong that I would be worried about a complaint?

Joel: I get it.

Answer: You understand what I’m saying? I’m supposed to, kind of like, committed some crime that I worry about a complaint right? I’m taking care of patients. So any, see this is the thing with Texas Medical Board. Any complaint that they make about any physician about anything, has to be investigated. They have an obligation to do that. So I’m not knocking Texas Medical Board about that. I don’t think Texas will come and arrest any physician or taking their license because of that. If someone lodges a complaint they’re going to investigate it. So, that is what they have to do. They cannot say they’re not going to do it because they have to do it.

Joel: Let’s move along. Let me ask you this. I really do understand your point, but do you feel like you’ve been vilified since you were in Washington? I mean people brought up these videos, these sermons they made you out to -- how do you look at it?

Answer: I would really like to, I know [inaudible]. I don’t even have one. Let me put it this way. I don’t even have one bone in my body that feels vilified. Really. I’m one of those. I’m like a totally like thick-skinned. Number one. Number two, I’m like, I’m not sensitive about stuff. I don’t have a sensitive bone in my body. So I don’t care.

Joel: When people bring (up) your religious beliefs does that bother you?

Answer: Bother me? You kidding me? Let me tell you something. I had this video I had of Incubus Succubus spirit, which is like demonic spirits sleeping with people at night.

Joel: To some people, that’s a far-out concept.

Answer: Yes, sure, sure, sure. Whatever. Listen, that video before CNN started promoting it, it had had maybe about 175,000 views. Do you know how many views it’s had now?

Joel: How many?

Answer: 600 and something thousand views. CNN has been the greatest promoter of my ministry. Let me tell you something, I’m God’s battle-ax. My ministry has fire. If you watch that video it’s going to hit you like, it (is) going to hit you like fire.

Joel: But you’re not concerned that people are using this video to undermine your position, medically?

Answer: How does that undermine my position, medically?

Joel: Well it’s just not --

Answer: Do you know many people --

Joel: It’s off the beaten path to say demons are sleeping with you.

Answer: But demons are sleeping with people.

Joel: Are they?

Answer: Yes! People call me from all over the world for it. They just exposed it. Do you know how many people are suffering from this? That are like texting me, “Doctor, I watched your video and I [inaudible] CNN just exposed it.” CNN has done like the greatest job of like promoting my ministry. You kidding me? I worry about them. Also, somebody’s like demons are not going to, what? Demons exist. What are you, in fact the people talking about this probably are demons possessed. I’d like to cast a few demons out of them. Okay, let me see CNN broadcast, lets sit in the same room, one hour any of them, lets if they can stand me, sitting in the room while praying. They’ll probably be on the floor squiggling and wiggling on the floor like snakes.

Joel: Just out of curiosity, now I’m curious, about demons, are they physically bodied demons?

Answer: What? Why would they be called demons if they’re physically bodied?

Joel: I don’t know.

Answer: Demons are spirits. They are dismembered spirits. Let me tell you, you want to find the origin of demons? I can tell you.

Joel: I need the short version.

Answer: Okay, the short version is that in the Bible, in the book of Genesis when the world was flooded, these creatures with their spirits dismembered. That means their bodies were flooded and their spirits floating around and those are demons. The others are coming from fallen angels when Lucifer was cast out of heaven. He was cast out, and these are demons. And the mention of the name of Jesus, [inaudible]. I’m a demon buster. I would cast it out of them CNN and oh, Jesus I would love to be in the room with them. They would be on the floor squiggling and wiggling. I’m telling you that. Lizards would come out of that and it would be squiggling on the floor like eek!

Joel: That’s hilarious.

Joel: Okay.

Answer: Don’t talk about my ministry --

Joel: It’s a boon to --

Answer: Jesus, people are calling me, people are texting me. People are, “Dr. Immanuel got delivered. When are you doing deliverance next?” CNN has been a boom to the ministry. God has a way of making the devil bless you. Oh Jesus. That is so amazing. God has a way of making the devil bless you. All this news, people are calling me from everywhere who want to come and see me. You kidding me?

Joel: So what are your immediate plans?

Answer: My immediate plan is to see patients. My immediate plan is to screaming to the [inaudible], “Stop letting Americans die.” And I’m not going to stop, I’m not going to be silenced. My immediate plans is to pray onto this powers, this diabolical powers. I want to destroy. [inaudible] and it’s going to be war. Do you understand me? I’m a warrior. I’m a sniper in the kingdom of God. It’s on.


About the Authors
Debbie Strauss headshot

Award-winning broadcast journalist covering local, regional, national and international stories. Recognized in the industry for subject matter expertise including: Legal/Court Research, the Space Industry, Education, Environmental Issues, Underserved Populations and Data Visualization.

Joel Eisenbaum headshot

Emmy-Winning Storyteller & Investigator

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