Daughter Blames Tucker Carlson’s Misinformation for Unvaxxed Dad’s Death
“I believe that that played a role” in her dad's vaccine hesitancy, Katie Lane said of the Carlson videos her father watched.
The daughter of an unvaccinated man who recently died from COVID-19 told CNN on Monday that she believes her father was a victim of misinformation, specifically saying Fox News star Tucker Carlson “played a role” in the vaccine hesitancy that led to his death.
Patrick Lane, a Boeing designer for 20 years, died from COVID-19 just days before Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine received full federal approval. While healthy with no underlying conditions, Lane quickly deteriorated following his diagnosis and was soon placed on a ventilator. Since his death, Lane’s family has issued a public plea for people to get vaccinated.
His two children, Katie and Evan Lane, told CNN’s New Day on Monday that while their dad wasn’t an “anti-vaxxer” and was planning on getting the shot after the Food and Drug Administration fully approved the vaccinations, his hesitancy was fed by the media he consumed.
“There’s multiple reasons, I think,” Katie Lane responded when asked why her father had not gotten vaccinated. “One of which was some of the media that he ingested. He wasn’t by any means far-right. He was right in the middle, and he consumed media from both sides, and just some of the misinformation on one of those sides made him hesitant.”
She added: “So he was going to wait for FDA approval, but by the time that Pfizer had been approved, it was already too late.”
Evan Lane reiterated that his father “wasn’t anti-vaccine” but was instead “just hesitant,” adding that his dad wouldn’t have any issues with telling people now to get vaccinated. In fact, according to Evan, his father’s final words to their stepmother were that he “wished that he was vaccinated.”
Referencing remarks she had made to a local Washington news station, CNN anchor John Berman noted Katie had said “one media source in particular” had fed her father vaccine misinformation, asking her to clarify.
“He watched some Tucker Carlson videos on YouTube, and some of those videos involved some misinformation about vaccines, and I believe that that played a role,” she declared.
The Fox News star has spent months relentlessly questioning the efficacy and safety of the coronavirus vaccines on his top-rated show. While insisting he is “pro-vaccine” and that he believes “vaccines are great” and “not dangerous,” he has simultaneously (and falsely) suggested that the highly effective COVID-19 shots don’t work and have caused thousands of deaths.
And even though the vast majority of coronavirus hospitalizations and deaths are occurring among the unvaccinated, Carlson has raged against vaccine requirements—despite his own employer boasting about its vaccine policy— while claiming there’s a “mixed picture” between the jab’s effectiveness and deadly side effects.