Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent

Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.

CNN interviews grieving daughter who says Tucker Carlson ‘played a role’ in dad’s vaccine hesitancy before Covid death

The healthy 45-year-old was awaiting full FDA approval before taking the vaccine

Justin Vallejo
New York
Tuesday 21 September 2021 02:26 EDT
Comments
Daughter says Tucker Carlson’s vaccine 'misinformation' 'played a role' in her father's death

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

The daughter of a man who died with Covid-19 was interviewed by CNN after she said her dad was waiting for FDA approval before getting the vaccine due to "misinformation" from Tucker Carlson.

Katie Lane told CNN’s New Day that her father, Patrick Lane, was not an “anti-vaxxer” but he consumed media across the political spectrum and “misinformation” from one side, in particular, made him hesitant.

“So he was going to wait for FDA approval, but by the time that Pfizer had been approved, it was already too late,” Ms Lane said.

Ms Lane said there were “multiple reasons” why her father hadn’t gotten the vaccine, including “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.

CNN anchor John Berman prompted Ms Lane to identify the “one media source in particular” that made her father vaccine-hesitant, referencing claims she had made in local media a week earlier.

“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,” Ms Lane replied.

Ms Lane, 20, first made the claim in an interview with an NBC News affiliate in Washington, saying he was diagnosed with Covid-19 just days before the Pfizer vaccine was fully approved by the US Food and Drug Administration.

Despite being healthy and having no underlying conditions, Ms Lane told the broadcaster that her father began deteriorating quickly and died two weeks later. He was 45 years old.

“It honestly kind of felt like a sick joke,” Ms Lane said. “When he was placed on the ventilator, I was told there was still hope, but part of me knew that was the beginning of the end.”

Evan Lane, appearing with his sister on CNN, said their father was not anti-vaccine and wouldn’t have had issues with recommending people take the shot “now that Pfizer is FDA approved”.

Since appearing on CNN, the siblings’ claims against Carlson have been boosted by The Daily Beast, which said the Fox star has spent months questioning the efficacy and safety of the Covid vaccine, while also saying he is pro-vaccine.

Fox News did not respond to a request for comment at the time of publication.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in