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The daughter of an unvaccinated man who died of COVID-19 says Tucker Carlson and misinformation 'played a role' in his vaccine hesitancy

Katie and Evan Lane speaking to CNN's "New Day."
Katie and Evan Lane speaking to CNN's "New Day." CNN
  • The daughter of an unvaccinated man who died of COVID-19 spoke to CNN about her father.

  • Katie Lane said her father "watched some Tucker Carlson videos on YouTube" concerning vaccines.

  • She said her 45-year-old father wasn't opposed to all vaccines, but was influenced by misinformation.

  • See more stories on Insider's business page.

The daughter of an unvaccinated man who died of COVID-19 told CNN's "New Day" on Monday she believes Fox News host Tucker Carlson and misinformation "played a role" in her father's vaccine hesitancy.

Katie and Evan Lane spoke to "New Day" about their father, 45-year-old Patrick Lane, who recently died from the virus.

"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," Katie Lane said. "He was going to wait for FDA approval, but by the time that Pfizer had been approved, it was already too late."

Anchor John Berman later said Katie Lane had said "one media source in particular" impacted her father's vaccine hesitancy, and asked 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 said.

Both Katie and Evan are vaccinated, and Katie said that her father said he "wished he was vaccinated" during his final call with his wife.

"His final words to my step-mom on a Facetime call was that he wished that he was vaccinated," she said.

Carlson, a right-wing commentator and the country's most-watched cable news host, has for months spread false and misleading information about the COVID-19 vaccines and has refused to reveal whether he's been vaccinated.

He has repeatedly baselessly suggested that the COVID-10 vaccines "don't work," hosted guests on his airwaves to undermine faith in the vaccines and other public health measures, and has called the Biden administration's door-to-door vaccination efforts "the greatest scandal in my lifetime, by far."

Carlson has also advocated against college students getting COVID-19 vaccinations and aggressively condemned vaccine mandates and passports. Several other prominent Fox hosts have also promoted vaccine skepticism and misinformation.

Fox's role in promoting false and misleading information about the vaccines is particularly dangerous as its audience is disproportionately older and at higher risk of serious illness and death from COVID-19.

A Fox News spokeswoman declined to comment on the record for this story.

Read the original article on Business Insider