ABC admit Dr Norman Swan breached editorial standards: Shane Warne and Kimberley Kitching
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The ABC has warned Dr Norman Swan for his ‘disrespectful’ comments linking the deaths of Shane Warne and Kimberley Kitching from heart attack to the Covid.
The taxpayer-funded broadcaster said it breached its editorial standards on Wednesday after apologizing to ABC News Breakfast.
Dr. Swan had told Daily Mail Australia it was “too much of a coincidence” that the senator and cricketing legend had died aged 50 from “sudden cardiac arrest” after contracting the virus.
He suffered a backlash when it was revealed that Mrs. Kitching had not contracted the virus before her death.
The ABC said in a statement: “Dr. Swan has spoken to ABC management about the comments. He understands that the comments did not meet ABC editorial standards.”
Warne’s former manager, James Erskine, put some of the blame on the ABC, saying the “totally disrespectful” and “nonsensical” comments should never have made it to the air.
The ABC said in a statement: “Dr. Swan has spoken to ABC management about the comments. He understands that the comments did not meet ABC editorial standards.”
The ABC said it breached its editorial standards on Wednesday and comes after the embattled TV star apologized for the comments on ABC News Breakfast
“Why should anyone pay attention to what this man has to say? What on earth would he know about Shane’s health?,” Mr Erskine told The Australian.
“Maybe he (Dr. Swan) can tell us who really killed JFK.”
Warne died on March 4, aged just 52, of a sudden heart attack while on holiday in Thailand, a few weeks after suffering from a mild case of Covid.
Senator Kitching also succumbed to a suspected heart attack six days later, at the same age, but had not contracted covid or tested positive before her death.
2GB radio presenter Ben Fordham launched a fiery attack on the former doctor and broadcaster on Wednesday, claiming Dr Swan ‘should be ashamed’.
He said the medico was “no better than the anti-vaxxers who claim that every famous person who has died in the past two years died from the jab.”
Dr. Swan has since issued a rude apology for “speculating” about the two high-profile deaths.
“I have personally apologized to Andrew, her husband,” Dr Swan said news.com.au.
“Obviously I made a mistake that I deeply regret. I remember such reports and checked with others who did, but that doesn’t excuse me for upsetting the family.’
The backflip comes after the medico said he wouldn’t have aired his theories about the deaths on live TV if he thought it would have hurt the families involved.
“I think it helps to have an explanation and this could be one, and it’s a message to other people that you have to be careful and not blasé to catch this,” he said.
Shane Warne
Dr. Swan had said it was ‘too much of a coincidence’ that Kitching and Warne had died of ‘sudden cardiac arrest’ after contracting Covid-19
Fordham on Wednesday accused Dr Swan of ‘speculating like a gossip columnist’ and called on the ABC to remove the health expert from the platform.
“For starters, he hasn’t practiced medicine since the 1980s — that’s how long it’s been since he’s treated a patient in the doctor’s room,” he claimed.
“The coronavirus put him in the right place at the right time and made him a bit of a superstar at the ABC.
“We’ve called his doomsday scenarios, tried to scare people’s lives when it comes to the coronavirus, always given the worst-case scenario… (but) he crossed the line in a major way.”
Fordham said the way Dr Swan had speculated about the two high-profile deaths was ‘dangerous’ and said it had been a ‘shameful use of his position’ as a medic.
“Stop using other people’s misery and heartbreak to push your agenda. And next time you’re asked to comment on something you know nothing about, please think twice.”
Dr. Nick Coatsworth, remembered as the face of Australia’s vaccine rollout, told the radio host on Wednesday: “I think Norman would be the first to agree that this wasn’t his best moment in the pandemic.”
“You can’t go wrong if you just avoid making assumptions and speculating about causes of death, especially when they were both so tragic,” he continued.
The former deputy chief media officer said speculation had no place in the current Covid discourse and questioned Dr Swan’s motivations.
“At this point in the pandemic, why would Dr Swan bring up a study that talks about increased clots in the arteries potentially linked to a heart attack that happened in 2020,” he asked.
“This was before the vaccine, before the micro wave, and before the amount of hybrid immunity we have in the community. It creates this concern with a study conducted in a different era of the pandemic.”