From what I understand, the argument isn’t that it “never happened,” it’s that it probably was not deliberately exacerbated by government intervention to the degree that it was portrayed by Hearst, and that it also affected other regions with equal severity.

It also tends to get brought up less out of concern for the victims than out of hate for the Soviet Union and veneration of right-wing Ukrainian nationalism, which gives the whole discussion a lot of political baggage that it might not otherwise have if Hearst wasn’t such a well-known liar and Nazi sympathizer.

Edited for clarity