News

Jun 05, 2023

Garlic kills COVID?

But now let’s leave the courtroom and go to another sensational media story of

But now let's leave the courtroom and go to another sensational media story of the week, also involving the folks at Nine:

Australian garlic kills COVID-19, says Doherty Institute

- The Australian Financial Review, 31 May, 2023

Yep, garlic doesn't just keep vampires away, it also kills COVID, The Australian Financial Review told us.

And having been stuck at home all week with the virus I was riveted by this so-called world-first research which was producing headlines right across the media, telling us Australian garlic could ‘ward off COVID-19’ or limit the ‘spread of COVID and influenza A’.

And nowhere was it bigger than on Nine's TV news which was first with the story:

PETER OVERTON: … the rare super garlic scientifically proven to ward off flu and COVID. A Nine News exclusive tonight at six.

- Nine News promo (Sydney), 30 May, 2023

Yes. Why bother with those fancy mRNA vaccines when a bulb of garlic can save us all? Let's all rely instead on Nine's medical marvel:

PETER OVERTON: A tiny Australian farming town has uncovered a type of garlic so potent scientists have used it to stop COVID in its tracks. Lab testing revealed three particular types of the vegetable can stave off both influenza A and the COVID Delta strain …

- Nine News (Sydney), 30 May, 2023

And that's not just Nine or the garlic growers telling us, it is the Doherty Institute so it must be for real.

With reporter Laura Turner explaining:

LAURA TURNER: The reason they got the Doherty Institute on board was because they wanted to prove the garlic supplement they were developing wasn't a gimmick …

- Nine News (Sydney), 30 May, 2023

Based in Melbourne, the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity is named after an Australian Nobel Prize winner. And it is a serious outfit.

So, if they’ve tested this garlic extract, you can bet it's good.

And Doherty's Dr Julie McAuley was on Nine to tell us they had:

DR JULIE McAULEY: And yeah we did lots and lots of tests, of lots of different products, and we found one of their products really, really was quite active.

- Nine News (Sydney), 30 May, 2023

And next day Dr McAuley was all over the radio explaining how this COVID killer would work:

DR JULIE McAULEY: What the garlic extract can do is combine with the virus and prevent it from infecting the cells in our digestive tract …

… it'll help keep that virus load down there so that our immune system can actually go on and attack the virus where it mainly infects in our respiratory tract.

- Victorian Statewide Mornings, ABC Radio, 31 May, 2023

Dr McAuley also told listeners who get COVID:

DR JULIE McAULEY: … if you’ve got it, take these dietary supplements along with whatever your doctor prescribes …

- Breakfast with Ross and Russel, 3AW, 31 May, 2023

Now the research has not yet been published or peer reviewed.

But this special garlic is 99.9 per cent effective in killing the viruses that cause COVID and the flu.

And who tells us? Ah, the press release which is issued by Australian Garlic who paid for the Doherty Institute research.

Oh dear, I hear you say.

Yes the research was paid for by the people flogging the remedy which is something that Nine News and many others did not make clear.

And another little fact often lost in the hype was that, quote:

This new research … involved in-vitro testing …

- Press release, Australian Garlic, 31 May, 2023

Which means research was not done on humans, but in a test tube.

So there is no actual evidence that the extract will kill COVID when it gets into your gut.

As one expert in pharmacology told us with a sigh:

… many things kill viruses in dishes, including extract of old shoes …

Garlic extract has excellent antiviral properties in tissue culture, but these things rarely survive the digestive tract to reach a useful concentration in the body.

- Email, Dr Ian Musgrave, Senior Lecturer in Pharmacology, University of Adelaide, 1 June, 2023

Oh dear again. And there's another even bigger problem which is that COVID is famously a respiratory infection, as I discovered this week.

So would it really help if garlic did kill the virus in the gut? That's unlikely, according to Dr Ian Musgrave, who told us:

The major issue and really serious effects is the virus binding in the lungs (and the effects on circulation and the heart), so affecting the GI tract is not likely to have a significant impact on the course of COVID.

- Email, Dr Ian Musgrave, Senior Lecturer in Pharmacology, University of Adelaide, 1 June, 2023

Oh dear again. And in any case, as epidemiologist Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz told the Science Media Centre:

"We won't know if this product helps with COVID-19 or influenza until we run clinical trials in real people, rather than petri dishes in a lab."

- Science Media Exchange, 1 June, 2023

None of this was highlighted by the media or the Doherty Institute in the rash of stories.

Leaving the door open to anti-COVID vaxxers like former MP Craig Kelly, to tweet:

GARLIC

How stupid must the world feel today having wasted hundreds of billions of dollars on useless [vaccines] … when its now discovered that garlic kills Covid.

- Twitter, @CKellyUAP, 31 May, 2023

And how stupid must the media feel for swallowing all that garlic PR?

But why was Dr McAuley so upbeat about the vegetable's effects? And was the Doherty Institute concerned about unsupported claims? They told us:

The Doherty Institute apologises for causing any confusion … Garlic is not a treatment for COVID-19 nor influenza A. Further development and formal clinical trials are required to determine if our findings, observed in the laboratory, will translate to clinical benefit in people.

- Email, Doherty Institute, 5 June, 2023

A crushing blow for garlic lovers. The full backdown.

In this episode