WaPo claims Doctors spreading Covid ‘misinformation’ are rarely punished

Written by Meryl Nass MD on August 3, 2023. Posted in Current News

Clearly important to gain control of the narrative because of the plans for more pandemics-coming-soon-and as a hit against RFK, Jr. I bolded the section discussing me and added 3 screenshots

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2023/07/26/covid-misinformation-doctor-discipline/

July 26, 2023 at 6:00 a.m. EDT—entire article included below due to WaPo’s paywall.

Think about that word misinformation—it means info the USG does not like, not the Merriam Webster definition: incorrect or misleading information

A Wisconsin doctor in 2021 prescribed ivermectin, typically used to treat parasitic infections, to two covid-19 patients who later died of the disease. He was fined less than $4,000 — and was free to continue practicing.

A Massachusetts doctor has continued practicing without restriction despite being under investigation for more than a year over allegations of “disseminating misinformation” and prescribing unapproved covid treatments, including ivermectin, to a patient who died in 2022, according to medical board records.

And in Idaho, a pathologist who falsely promoted the effectiveness of ivermectin over coronavirus vaccines on social media has not been disciplined despite complaints from fellow physicians that his “dangerous and troubling” statements and actions “significantly threatened the public health.”

Across the country, doctors who jeopardized patients’ lives by pushing medical misinformation during the pandemic and its aftermath have faced few repercussions, according to a Washington Post analysis of disciplinary records from medical boards in all 50 states.

State medical boards charged with protecting the American public often failed to stop doctors who went against medical consensus and prescribed unapproved treatments for covid or misled patients about vaccines and masks, the Post investigation found.

At least 20 doctors nationally were penalized for complaints related to covid misinformation between January 2020 and June 2023, according to board documents, which The Post obtained by filing requests with state medical boards and reviewing public records.

Five of those doctors lost their medical licenses — one had his revoked, while four surrendered theirs. Discipline is typically connected to patient care, not just what doctors say.

It is impossible to know how many doctors were spreading misinformation because most states do not monitor or divulge those complaints. But The Post’s requests to the boards yielded at least 480 covid-misinformation-related complaints in the last three years — meaning only a tiny fraction of those led to disciplinary action.

The Post investigation, which included a review of more than 2,500 medical board documents, lawsuits and news stories as well as interviews with more than 130 current and former medical board staffers, physicians, patients, health officials and experts, is the most comprehensive national accounting of the consequences for doctors spreading medical misinformation related to the pandemic.

Many of the complaints relate to doctors promoting ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine, which have been disproved as effective covid treatments and are not recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or authorized by the Food and Drug Administration for covid.

Health authorities caution that these treatments, which President Donald Trump and his allies frequently touted when he was in office, not only can have dangerous side effects but also may delay patients from seeking proper medical care.

The political polarization fueled by the pandemic spawned a torrent of medical misinformation and exposed the nation’s fragmented system of monitoring the more than 1 million physicians licensed in the United States.

State medical boards — the professional licensing agencies composed mostly of doctors — are supposed to investigate complaints and discipline physicians who endanger public health.

But they are barely able to keep up with the more mundane task of issuing licenses, doctors say, let alone monitor social media, where many of the false claims proliferate. Critics say the system is not up to the task of overseeing the medical industry, and was particularly unable amid the explosion of misinformation that accompanied the pandemic.

“We allow the profession to police themselves. And when they fail to do that, even in the most egregious cases, what they are abetting is the erosion of trust and respect for doctors,” said Wendy Parmet, director of Northeastern University’s Center for Health Policy and Law, who has written about the harms of covid misinformation.

No organization monitors how many physicians have been penalized for spreading covid misinformation.

In addition to the doctors who have been disciplined, board documents show that as of June, at least 12 are under investigation for actions linked to the spread of misinformation, a costly and opaque legal process that can drag on for years.

State medical boards flagged at least three other doctors on their websites, signaling that they had done something that regulators disagreed with but that didn’t warrant discipline.

Some of the doctors cited in the misinformation-related complaints have defended their actions by saying they adhered to covid-treatment guidelines recommended by organizations that promote alternative therapies — guidelines rejected by major medical societies and government agencies.

They said patients died of covid — not because of misinformation or the therapies they provided.

Doctors don’t normally face discipline for promoting treatments that go against medical consensus because state boards are loath to tread on physicians’ medical judgment and First Amendment rights, according to doctors and members of medical boards.

Physicians commonly prescribe drugs for conditions other than those they were approved for, a practice known as “off-label” use that boards do not want to curtail.

“State boards can only do limited things,” said Humayun Chaudhry, president of the Federation of State Medical Boards, a nonprofit that represents the licensing agencies. “The most common refrain I hear from state licensing boards is they would like to have more resources — meaning more individuals who can investigate complaints, more attorneys, more people who can process these complaints sooner — to do their job better.”

Instead, the opposite is happening: The boards face new efforts, largely by Republican state legislators and attorneys general, to rein in their authority in ways that are “potentially dangerous and harmful to patient care,” Chaudhry said.

Florida legislators passed a law in May that effectively prevents professional boards from punishing doctors accused of spreading covid misinformation online.

Six other states have limited the power of medical boards to discipline physicians for prescribing ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine.

Ryan Stanton, an emergency room doctor in Lexington, Ky., said he has struggled to treat patients who took as gospel the ineffective treatments some doctors tout on social and right-wing media.

One couple in their 60s with covid symptoms wanted only ivermectin in 2021, he recalled. He instead recommended approved treatments, such as steroids, monoclonal antibodies and the antiviral Remdesivir. The couple refused, ending up on respirators and dying of covid days later, he said.

“We can’t have physicians out there using their medical degrees to profess their own beliefs that are just wildly outside the accepted practice of medicine,” Stanton said. “Millions of people latched on to them tightly.”

Death by misinformation

Some doctors who provided patients with ivermectin have said they were following treatment protocols recommended by the Front Line Covid-19 Critical Care Alliance, a group of doctors promoting ivermectin as a covid panacea.

In Wisconsin, Edward Hagen prescribed ivermectin to a covid patient in his 50s during a virtual visit in October 2021, after the FDA and CDC had warned against prescribing the drug for covid. The patient, identified only as “G.N.,” died four days later of “probable COVID-19 infection,” according to state disciplinary records.

Hagen prescribed ivermectin to another patient, identified as “J.R.” in state records, who died of covid complications in 2022.

Hagen told The Post he could not force people to go to the hospital when they became sicker. “They didn’t pass away from ivermectin,” he said. “They passed away from covid.”

The Wisconsin medical board reprimanded Hagen in February 2023 for “failing to conform to the standard of minimally competent medical practice which creates an unacceptable risk of harm to a patient or the public,” according to the records.

The board suspended his medical license, but the suspension was immediately set aside because Hagen had agreed to complete nine hours of education and pay $3,943 to cover the costs of the board investigation.

Hagen said he would still prescribe ivermectin today because he believes in its effectiveness, despite multiple scientific studies disputing that claim.

“It’s not uncommon to use things off-label,” he said. “It’s not illegal to use things off-label.”

Hagen stressed that he told patients he followed treatment guidelines promoted by the Front Line Covid-19 Critical Care Alliance. Unlike doctors, the alliance does not answer to state medical boards, which license only individuals.

Massachusetts physician John Diggs is under investigation for prescribing ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine to a patient with covid symptoms who died in 2022 after being intubated, according to state medical board documents and the board’s executive director.

The board alleged that Diggs prescribed the medications despite “clear evidence for the lack of any clinical benefit of hydroxychloroquine” and the fact that “ivermectin has been proven ineffective.”

The medical board accused Diggs of providing treatment to two patients that fell “below the standard of care.” It also accused him of “disseminating misinformation” on a Worcester, Mass., radio program in December 2020 when he promoted unproven coronavirus treatments touted by the alliance.

At least two physicians lodged complaints in 2021 accusing him of “physician misconduct related to egregious COVID-19 misinformation and medical care well outside of the standard of care” and alleging “significant risk of patient harm,” board records show.

“We fear that other patients may be at risk because of similar actions and ask the Board to investigate and act decisively,” wrote the physicians, whose identities were redacted by the board.

But Diggs’s patients would not know about the complaints, let alone that he has been under investigation since 2022, even if they knew to check the state database for disciplinary action. The Massachusetts medical board, like those in many states, discloses only final outcomes on its website — not complaints against doctors under investigation.

The Post obtained the information after asking the state medical board for records pertaining to all covid misinformation investigations.

Diggs declined to comment after consulting with his lawyer, who did not respond to questions about the case.

In documents detailing his response to board charges, Diggs denied disseminating misinformation on the radio program but admitted to prescribing ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine and advocating for treatment of covid based on “studies from recognized medical professional organizations.”

His lawyer, in the documents, accused the board of violating Diggs’s free-speech rights by “attempting to inhibit the expression of his medical opinions.”

Paul Marik, co-founder and chief scientific officer of the Front Line Covid-19 Critical Care Alliance, declined to comment on Hagen’s or Diggs’s cases.

“We are not familiar with the case in Wisconsin or the investigation in Massachusetts and unable to comment on any specifics of either,” Marik said in a statement. He pointed to the “scientific and clinical evidence” cited by the alliance in its treatment protocol.

Major scientific studies have disproved the effectiveness of ivermectin in treating covid.

Public trust in science and the expertise and authority of government health officials eroded during the pandemic as basic tools to prevent disease became politicized, allowing falsehoods about the virus to fill the void, said Richard Baron, chief executive of the American Board of Internal Medicine.

The decline in trust is especially apparent among Republicans, according to polling by KFF, a nonprofit focused on national health issues, and Pew Research Center.

Much of the mistrust can be traced to confusing guidance about masks released by the CDC throughout the pandemic, according to clinicians and health officials. Politicization of the pandemic further undermined public confidence.

Trump frequently promoted the benefits of unproven treatments from the White House podium despite the lack of evidence that they worked for covid. Doctors who espoused such treatments were given platforms on Fox News and invited by Republican legislators to testify in statehouses. A Fox News spokeswoman declined to comment.

U.S. Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy and FDA Commissioner Robert M. Califf have singled out misinformation as an urgent threat to public health given the lives that could have been saved by coronavirus vaccines and antivirals.

Califf frequently refers to misinformation as a leading cause of preventable death.

“In many people we lost the ideological battle, and they died completely unnecessarily,” Califf said during an appearance at the Aspen Ideas Festival in June.

This is taken from a long document. Read the rest here substack.com

Please Donate Below To Support Our Ongoing Work To Expose The Lies About Covid 19

PRINCIPIA SCIENTIFIC INTERNATIONAL, legally registered in the UK as a company incorporated for charitable purposes. Head Office: 27 Old Gloucester Street, London WC1N 3AX. 

Trackback from your site.