Those Doctors Calling for Spreaders of Covid Misinformation to be Punished Should be Careful What they Wish For
Many of their Claims – that the Vaccinated Couldn’t Infect Others, For Instance – Turned Out to be False
BY NIGEL WILSON | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | AUGUST 24, 2023
The Journal of the American Medical Association recently published a review of alleged ‘misinformation’ about COVID-19 that physicians were responsible for, either on social media and in other news sources.
In the paper, the corresponding author, Dr. Sarah L. Goff, MD PhD, defined misinformation. She surveyed social media platforms and news sources for anything written by other physicians that fits her selected examples of both. She then proposes that physicians guilty of writing what she judges to be misinformation should be “regulated and disciplined”.
Dr. Goff and her co-authors define misinformation as “false, inaccurate or misleading information according to the best evidence available at the time” and disinformation as “having an intentionally malicious purpose”.
Dr. Goff states: “We conservatively classified inaccurate information as misinformation rather than disinformation because the intent of the propagator cannot be objectively assessed.”
Dr. Goff identified four major themes of alleged misinformation. These included: (1) vaccines were unsafe and/or ineffective; (2) masks and/or social distancing did not decrease risk for contracting COVID-19; (3) other medications for prevention or treatment were effective despite not having completed clinical trials or having been FDA approved, and (4) other misinformation.
Dr. Goff includes a brief discussion of vaccine safety and effectiveness and mask effectiveness, but does not attempt to undertake a full review of the published evidence in these areas. Instead, she seems to assume that her readers will agree that any suggestion that vaccines or masks were ineffective or unsafe are self-evidently false.
Dr. Goff states that the American Medical Association has called for disciplinary action for physicians propagating COVID-19 misinformation. She laments the fact that “few physicians appear to have faced disciplinary action” for alleged sins against Covid orthodoxy.
I am not an expert in analysis of published medical research. I don’t work in a School of Public Health like Dr. Goff. I have worked as a licensed physician in England for over 40 years as a family doctor and an occupational physician and I have over 40 years’ experience reading the medical peer review literature. I retired from full time medical practice in 2017. I have a reasonable understanding of English, maths, logic and critical thinking. I don’t pretend to have read all the published research on masks or vaccinations. However, I continue to read leading medical journals on a regular basis.
I understand the concept of truth and how hard it is to establish an absolute truth in science. I understand the enlightenment principles that any ideas can be discussed, that nobody has a veto on ideas and that it is important to doubt and test all of our ideas continually. There is no indication from her writing that Dr. Goff understands how important it is to doubt, question and test the effectiveness and safety of interventions such as vaccines and masks.
From my reading of the peer review literature, for illustration purposes, I identified the following four publications as examples of publications which should raise concerns and questions about COVID-19 vaccines and masks.
In 2019, the World Health Organisation (WHO) published a report entitled ‘Non-pharmaceutical public health measures for mitigating the risk and impact of epidemic and pandemic influenza’. The WHO concluded: “There are a number of high-quality randomised controlled trials demonstrating that personal measures (e.g. hand hygiene and face masks) have at best a small effect on transmission.”
In February 2023 a Cochrane review into the effectiveness of masks concluded: “Compared with wearing no mask in the community studies only, wearing a mask may make little to no difference in how many people caught a flu-like illness/Covid-like illness.”
A study from the Department of Infectious Diseases in Cleveland, Ohio, in December 2022 found that “the bivalent COVID-19 vaccine only offered modest effectiveness”.
A study from the University of Queensland in September 2022 concluded: “Never in vaccine history have 57 leading scientists and policy experts released a report questioning the safety and efficacy of a vaccine. They not only questioned the safety of the current COVID-19 injections but were calling for an immediate end to all vaccination. Many doctors and scientists around the world have voiced similar misgivings and warned of consequences due to long-term side effects.”
These four publications are examples which give us a legitimate reason to question the use of masks and the Covid vaccines and to look further for evidence. Are we not allowed to raise questions about these issues without being threatened with disciplinary procedures? Not to ask any questions would be lacking in curiosity in the extreme, especially for practising physicians concerned about the safety of their patients and the integrity of their advice. These publications do not prove anything conclusively, but they should not be ignored. Expressing doubt and asking questions about the safety and effectiveness of vaccines and masks is not false, inaccurate or misleading, to use the definition adopted by Dr. Goff. If questions arise in my mind, why don’t similar questions arise in the minds of Dr. Goff and her co-authors? How did Dr. Goff reach such a degree of certainty about the effectiveness of masks and vaccines against COVID-19 that she can classify any statement to the contrary as misinformation worthy of disciplining a colleague? Why does she conclude that a colleague who disagrees with her does not have the right to be heard? Why would she seek to silence those who disagree with her?
Inaccurate information which is not deliberately intended to deceive is simply inaccurate. In science and medicine there are many inaccurate statements made in good faith by researchers who are presenting their data or their theories as accurately and honestly as possible. It is important that all theories and all research data can be published, even when the data or the theory are wrong. Disciplinary action for any statement which turns out to be inaccurate or false would surely suppress a large proportion of all scientific and medical discourse. Is this what Dr. Goff wants?
It could be argued that the examples of misinformation used by Dr. Goff are themselves misinformation. To suggest that anyone who states that the Covid vaccines were unsafe and/or ineffective is guilty of misinformation is to ignore significant evidence which raises questions about the vaccines. To suggest that anyone who states that masks did not decrease risk for contracting COVID-19 is guilty of misinformation is also to ignore evidence to support this view. It could be argued that Dr. Goff is using false, inaccurate or misleading examples of misinformation in her study in order to suppress dissenting views.
Dr. Goff appears to have very little humility. She does not appear to be in any doubt that she and her co-authors are infallible in relation to masks and vaccines. She seems to think she is the ultimate arbiter of truth, and that she is immune from being regulated or disciplined for her views in the way she promotes for others. I would not propose disciplining or applying regulatory sanctions to Dr. Goff or her colleagues if her publication includes false, inaccurate or misleading statements. Instead, I would propose respectful dialogue with her to debate her proposal, offering arguments to the contrary with a view to educating her and myself.
In England, medical doctors are obliged to respect colleagues’ skills and contributions, and to treat colleagues fairly. We must create a working environment in which it is safe to ask questions and raise concerns. I believe in these principles. Failure to adhere to these standards can lead to disciplinary action against medical doctors. I understand that similar professional obligations apply to medical doctors in the United States. Dr. Goff does not appear to respect the skills and contributions of colleagues who disagree with her. She seems to be promoting a working environment in which it is not safe for those who disagree with whatever the orthodoxy within the medical profession is at any one time to ask questions and raise concerns. Does she not realise that this may make it unsafe for her to raise concerns and ask questions in due course?
Dr. Goff acknowledges in her final sentence that “a coordinated response by federal and state governments and the profession that takes free speech carefully into account is needed”. This tiny nod towards free speech is somewhat undermined by her attempts to censor her colleagues’ right to disagree with her. Free speech is nothing if it is not accorded to those with whom we disagree.
Frederick Douglass, the American social reformer said: “To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker.” If Dr. Goff persuades those in power to regulate or discipline those who disagree with her, then their right to free speech is violated and our right to hear them is violated. Does Dr. Goff not have a glimmer of doubt about her omniscience? Does she not think there is even a faint possibility that physicians who disagree with her might have something useful to say?
Why do some physicians think that the best response when another physician disagrees with them is to censor their colleague? How could any physicians achieve such unshakeable certainty in their own omniscience? When did they forget the fundamental principles of the enlightenment, that all ideas can be discussed and that nobody has a veto on any ideas? How did the principles of treating colleagues with respect and upholding the free speech of those with whom we disagree become so degraded?
Dr. Goff and her co-authors should be careful what they wish for. They seek to discipline colleagues for daring to disagree with their orthodoxy. If they succeed, the cancel police may be coming for them next.
Dr. Nigel Wilson MRCGP FFOM is a retired consultant occupational physician.
CDC Now Refusing New COVID Vaccine Adverse Event Reports in Its V-Safe Program
By David Gortler | Brownstone Institute | August 24, 2023
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) V-safe website quietly stopped collecting adverse event reports with no reason or explanation. The V-safe website simply states: “Thank you for your participation. Data collection for COVID-19 vaccines concluded on June 30, 2023.” If you go there today, V-safe directs users to the FDA’s VAERS website for adverse event reporting, even though officials continually derided VAERS as “passive” and “unverified.”
VAERS and V-safe are mutually exclusive safety collection databases operated by the FDA and CDC, respectively. VAERS is an older way of collecting safety data where one can fill out a form online, or manually, or by calling a toll-free number, whereas V-safe is a device “app” which requires online registration. Both VAERS and V-safe collect personal information, lot numbers, dates and associated information, but V-safe was an active collection system geared towards a younger app-using demographic.
Does this mean that the CDC believes that the mRNA Covid-19 injections are so safe, there is no need to monitor adverse event reports any longer? What is the argument against continued monitoring, especially since the V-safe website was already up and paid for?
While CDC’s V-safe was stealthily and abruptly turned off, refusing to accept new safety reports, to this very day the CDC continues to urge everyone ages 6 months and older to stay up to date with COVID-19 vaccines and boosters.
As a drug safety expert, I personally can’t cite another example of any agency or manufacturer halting collection of safety data. It seems even worse because mRNA technology is relatively new with long-term manifestations unknown. On top of this, both manufacturers and the FDA refuse to share the list of ingredients, such as lipid nanoparticles, which could affect individuals differently and take a long time to manifest clinically.
Safety Data Collection Should Never Stop:
Now, contrast that with the fact that the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration (NHTSA) will still accept a safety report for a 30-year-old Ford Bronco II. Indeed, this is an oddly specific example, but only because I drove this exact vehicle as a family hand-me-down as a student, through my residency, fellowship, for my tenure as a Yale professor on the mean streets of New Haven and even during my years at the FDA as a medical officer /senior medical analyst.
Like mRNA shots, Bronco IIs are still available on the market and people are still using them up to this very day. My Bronco became an intermittent topic of conversation with friends and FDA colleagues. One day, I was informed by a patrolling security guard at the FDA that it was the oldest car on campus.
I didn’t know much about cars (or mRNA technology) back then, but when a fellow FDA-er informed me that my Bronco II had noteworthy safety problems and that the NHTSA still had their eye on this vehicle (rollover accidents were more common and more fatal) I addressed the problem: I got rid of the reliable relic, even though I really liked it. NHTSA Is still accepting safety reports three decades later.
CDC No longer accepting safety reports despite rapidly increasing safety findings:
Unlike my old Bronco, mRNA injections have only been on the market for about two years, and according to the FDA Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) database, mRNA “vaccines” have been named the primary suspect in over 1.5 million adverse event reports, of which there are >20,000 heart attacks and >27,000 cases of myocarditis and pericarditis just in the USA alone. Worldwide numbers would be greater. According to many references, including an FDA-funded study out of Harvard, VAERS reports represent fewer than 1 percent of vaccine adverse events that actually occur.
Interestingly, the NHTSA link above on my Ford Bronco II only shows: one parts recall, one investigation and 23 complaints, and still features a button in the upper right hand corner for submitting new complaints.
Wikipedia defines an humanitarian crisis or humanitarian disaster as a: “singular event or a series of events that are threatening in terms of health, safety or well-being of a community or large group of people.” Based on VAERS and previous V-safe findings, adverse events from mRNA shots in the USA alone could be considered a humanitarian crisis.
Despite those alarming clinical findings, the CDC has concluded that collecting new safety reports is somehow no longer in the interest of America’s public health. Existing data from the V-safe site showed around 6.5 million adverse events/health impacts out of 10.1 million users, with around 2 million of those people unable to conduct normal activities of daily living or needing medical care, according to a third-party rendering of its findings. In other words, despite mRNA shots still being widely available and the CDC promoting its continued use, it’s “case closed” with regards to collecting new safety reports, under today’s federal public health administration.
Will the CDC opine on the existing data or justify its halting of collecting new safety data? To the best of my knowledge, stopping the collection of public health information doesn’t have a clinical justification or scientific precedence — especially when it comes to an actively marketed product.
In George Orwell’s 1984, characters were told by The Party to “reject the evidence of your eyes and [your] ears.” Now, the CDC isn’t even allowing that evidence to be collected for viewing (and prospective rejecting). It’s a terrible idea for any product, let alone novel mRNA technologies.
Dr. David Gortler, a 2023 Brownstone Fellow, is a pharmacologist, pharmacist, research scientist and a former member of the FDA Senior Executive Leadership Team who served as senior advisor to the FDA Commissioner on matters of: FDA regulatory affairs, drug safety and FDA science policy. He is a former Yale University and Georgetown University didactic professor of pharmacology and biotechnology, with over a decade of academic pedagogy and bench research, as part of his nearly two decades of experience in drug development. He also serves as a scholar at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.
The American Board of Internal Medicine’s Longstanding War On Doctors Is Escalating
The ABIM’s history proves their present actions are political/financial and not scientific. They are making examples of us “dissenters” to scare the rest of the country’s docs to keep quiet.
BY PIERRE KORY, MD, MPA | AUGUST 23, 2023
The unholy alliance of industry captured high-impact medical journals, federal public health agencies, professional societies (ABIM, AMA, APHa etc), and most importantly, the state medical licensing boards directed by the Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB) are still going hard after us “dissenting” doctors. You know, those of us that very publicly called out the unscientific policies implemented by corrupted policymakers in a directed pursuit of profits and power. Their actions trying to silence us (and to scare other doctors from speaking out) are escalating.
Recently, what I call the “misinformation committee” of the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) voted to strip Professor Paul Marik and myself of our Board certifications. To best understand why they would do this, I think it is important to review what the ABIM is, how it operates, and then detail their absurd attempt to paint us as misinformationists by using disinformation.
Let’s trace my current relationship with the ABIM to today:
At the end of my training, I became Board Certified by the ABIM in three specialties (Internal Medicine, Pulmonary Diseases, and Critical Care Medicine).
What is the ABIM? Well, from this devastating article by Kurt Eichenwald, an accomplished corporate investigative journalist who did a devastating takedown of the ABIM and its officers in a Newsweek piece in 2015:
The ABIM is a purported nonprofit that certifies new physicians as meeting standards of practice. Beginning in the early 1990s, the ABIM ordered certified doctors to be recertified, again and again. Without the ABIM seal of approval, lots of internists and subspecialists can’t get jobs and can’t admit patients to hospitals. So by taking advantage of that monopolistic power, the ABIM has forced hundreds of thousands of physicians to follow recertification processes that doctors complain cost them tons of money (paid to the ABIM), require tons of time (taken from families and medical practices) and accomplish nothing.
In many doctor’s opinion, this cash grab of the ABIM by selling “certifications” is a corrupt farce. There is no evidence that certifying doctors in this highly costly way does anything to improve the quality of care delivered. The ABIM has not only refused to produce data showing the program improves patient care but also hasn’t conducted any studies on that matter. In fact, the ABIM and its related organizations are:
harming American medicine and diminishing the quality of scientific research, pushing physicians to close practices rather than wasting time on expensive and frustrating busywork, and forcing specialists to play a game of medical trivial pursuit. (Even Baron has admitted that he was tested for recertification on topics he never used in his practice.)
But it sure does generate cash for ABIM executives. Note that Board Certification used to simply be a sort of “honor” denoting that the member passed a more rigorous examination in their specialty. That “honor” comes at a price though:
Since I am (was?) Board certified in 3 specialties, lets do some math as this is what it costs me to re-certify every ten years:
$1,430 for Internal Medicine
$2,325 for Pulmonary Diseases
$2,325 for Critical Care Medicine
But wait, we are not done yet. These bastards were not making enough money with once-every-ten-year recertification exam fees, so they invented a new program of annual busywork education requirements which they called Maintenance of Certification (MOC) which costs you $220 every year for every certification (plus late fees if you forget). To wit, I went into my patient portal and discovered. I owe them $480 for each of my certifications!
And get this – that money essentially goes to ABIM executive salaries and pensions and other dubious private investments as described by Eichenwald where he details the insane lengths the ABIM goes to “hide” the compensation and pension data on its executives. What is worse is that ABIM certification has now been made a requirement of employment as a faculty member of academic medical centers and hospitals and is also a requirement to be on many insurance company panels (these actions further strengthen the control of doctor behavior).
Doctors have started publicly slamming the group in industry publications. “ABIM is imposing on us an onerous and ill-conceived tool, one that most physicians agree is irrelevant,” Dr. Karmela Chan wrote in Internal Medicine News. “I am glad this conversation is happening, because, frankly, the process was enough to make me want to quit being a doctor.” Further, in a recent poll of 2,211 physicians conducted on a doctors-only website called Sermo, 97 percent of the respondents criticized recertification.
Richard J. Baron, the ABIM CEO that sent letters threatening decertification to me and Paul, makes close to a million dollars a year, however that data is almost impossible to find due to the ABIM’s multiple attempts to obscure it as well as its spokespeople avoiding answering any inquiries on the topic. Here is a summary of Eichenwalds findings on the ABIM:
- In 2015, they were 5 months late in filing their publicly available financial report with the IRS (that several journalists were very interested in).
- The report is full of obfuscations and anomalies of reporting of not only the actual money earned by the executives, and particularly Baron, but his financial conflicts of interest are even better hidden.
- A big percentage of the ABIM’s millions was in the form of cash to one former employee.
- The ABIM in 2013 had 57 million against liabilities of 105 million – while Baron was going around saying that its assets are three times its liabilities (this was a 100% lie. When I get to the ABIM’s response to our defense letter, remember that what liars do is.. lie).
- It lost $4.8 million on $55.5 million in revenues, no small feat and almost entirely due to a bloated payroll.
- It also claims it spends no money on lobbying while it spent between 100K to 160K annually to lobby Congress on Medicare and Medicaid (another lie).
- The data on top officers compensation is so obscured and fragmented, Eichenwald reported that he had found it much easier to discover executive compensation at Enron, Worldcom and Adelphia – all famous for lying on tax filings. Again no small feat (to be one of the top corporate liars in the U.S).
- Officers “double dip” – former CEO Christine Cassel got $741K from ABIM and $247K from the ABIM “Foundation” (slush fund for ABIM officials) and also got $219K in “other compensation” – totaling $1.2 million for one year. (Nice gig if you can get it).
- But wait, we are not done. Cassel also got $504K in “deferred compensation” for a total of $1.71 million more that year (six times the median compensation for similar sized non-profits). Six times.
Then there is this doozy of an article which came out this week in The Defender by Children’s Health Defense, detailing the ABIM CEO Richard Baron’s conflicts of interest:
Some of the most disturbing reveals:
“The head of a national medical organization who publicly called for doctors to lose their licenses unless they supported government narratives on COVID-19 treatments and vaccines concealed his relationship with a public relations firm whose client list also included Pfizer, Moderna and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Dr. Richard Baron, president and CEO of the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) is a client of Weber Shandwick, investigative journalist Paul D. Thacker reported on Wednesday.
Note that I went after Weber Shandwick in my book, “The War on Ivermectin” where I argue (without proof, although I believe that is coming because I know of a subpoena coming their way) that they created and launched the “Horse Dewormer PR campaign,” highlights of which was the famous FDA tweet and absurd Rolling Stone article:
In late 2021, Baron publicly pushed for doctors who spread “misinformation” about COVID-19 and the vaccines to lose their license and certification.
Last year, Baron partnered with Weber Shandwick to propose a South by Southwest (SXSW) panel titled “When Doctors Prescribe Misinformation.” The proposal was subsequently accepted and the panel took place at SXSW in Austin, Texas, on March 13.
According to Thacker, “Weber Shandwick’s panel featuring Dr. Baron has been widely promoted by the PR firm’s employees,” including Sarah Mahoney, executive vice president, Healthcare Communications, Strategy & Planning for Weber Shandwick, who in a LinkedIn post, wrote she “can’t think of a more important topic right now.”
Although to the unawake the following may seem normal public health practice, but to those of us fighting agency capture by Big Pharma, it is absurd:
The CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (NCIRD) in September 2020 awarded Weber a $50 million contract “to promote the vaccination of children, pregnant women and those at risk for flu and increase the general acceptance and use of vaccines,” according to the PR firm’s website.
Thacker said he believes much of what is labeled “misinformation” in medicine and academic research “is really just corporate PR,” and that “Congress needs to take a harder look at funding for ‘misinformation research.’“
Speaking of taking a harder look at where the funding is coming from for “misinformation research” and the ABIM, it turns out that.. we can’t. Why? Check out this tweet showing a clause inserted into the ABIM’s by-laws in 1998:
But wait, it gets better, like way better. Also in their by-laws:
Information that is disclosed will be kept confidential except to the:
-
- President and Chair of the Board;
- The chairs of the relevant Subspecialty Boards, Test-Writing Committees, and other Committees of the Board, members who serve on the relevant Boards and Committees, and staff working with the respective committees;
- The Conflict of Interest Committee members and Conflict of Interest Committee staff,
except as required for the purposes of continuing medical education.
So, basically, they can take money from any corporate entity and do not have to disclose it to anyone. Again, nice gig if you can get it.
Back to the ABIM’s history: One of Eichenwalds more disturbing observations about the behavior of the ABIM:
I can attest to the ABIM’s pomposity. Starting with my first story about the ABIM, the organization usually has refused to acknowledge I even asked a question. The only other group to do that in my 30-year journalism career was a company that processed payments for child pornography websites. Plus, when I reported on the uprising by doctors, the ABIM ignored the facts and instead investigated me.
Now lets fast forward to Covid. On July 29, 2021, the FSMB (this entity controls the state medical licensing boards, not the ABIM – at least on paper) issued a policy statement that “Physicians who generate and spread COVID-19 vaccine misinformation or disinformation are risking disciplinary action by state medical boards, including the suspension or revocation of their medical license.”
What is interesting is how fast and how rigidly the ABIM followed the FSMB’s lead and enacted their own misinformation policy despite the fact that, as my colleague Meryl Nass has pointed out:
“suddenly claiming that using licensed drugs for COVID, criticizing federal policies for COVID or criticizing the value of COVID vaccines is unprofessional” gives the specialty board the right to revoke a certification—well, that was never part of its contract with me. So pulling my certification for issues that were never specified in the original contract is breach of contract.
I think it would only be a breach if contracts, like our Constitution and the practice of medical ethics, were still “a thing.”
The ABIM apparently liked the FSMB’s “misinformation policy” idea to attack dissenting doctors so much (or were told to like it) that 2 months later, they, along with their colleagues at the American Board of Pediatrics and the American Board of Family Medicine, issued a statement supporting the FSMB’s position, saying, “We all look to board certified physicians to provide outstanding care and guidance; providing misinformation about a lethal disease is unethical, unprofessional and dangerous.” (note that they seem particularly focused on Covid misinformation and not any other disease model or therapeutics. Do you think it could be because Covid vaccines and therapeutics opened immensely profitable markets to Pharma overnight?).
Again from Meryl Nass (please subscribe to her Substack):
Furthermore, the processes the ABIM is using, as described by CEO Richard Baron, MD in his podcast with the New England Journal of Medicine are procedurally unfair. Dr. Baron earns $1 million/year to threaten doctors for a crime that does not exist. Baron, notably, refused to specify where the line was between misinformation and genuine disagreement in that podcast, though he seems to have no difficulty at all drawing the line when it comes to licensees who speak publicly about how to manage COVID. In a truly Orwellian effort, the ABIM and the ABIM Foundation have dedicated the year to ‘building trust’ in medicine.”
In what I suspect was the ABIM’s first enforcement of their shiny new policy, they go after Peter McCullough, Paul Marik, and myself on the same day (May 26, 2022) with a letter quoting numerous public statements we made, implying that we needed to defend the substance of such statements with supporting data or risk losing our certifications.
“Game on” I thought, looking forward to the exercise of “debating” scientific data with the ABIM. However, our FLCCC lawyer, Alan Dumoff pointed out that the ABIM’s policy and procedures state that the process of accusing a member of misinformation requires that they first provide evidence to us that what we said was inaccurate. So, we wrote back, pointing out to the ABIM their brazen “error” (yeah right) in not complying with their own policy and procedures.
“Nonsense” they wrote back (in short). Their logic was truly shocking – they say that the fact they provided the substance and references to my public statements means they did their duty (rather than their providing references that would refute my statements which is what their policy states they need to do).
You can read their brazen, illegitimate, dismissive response here:
This letter above demonstrates the unchecked power they have – they alone determine whether they are following their own policy which they so clearly were not. What did I say about liars before?
Anyway, rebut them we did. We wrote a 76 page treatise with 175 references, 11 exhibits, and 22,000 words, marshaling and weaving numerous data sources to support all our public statements that they had a problem with. May it enter the historical record here (I think you Covid vaccine and ivermectin data geeks will find the letter impressive).
We sent that letter over 6 months ago… and finally got an answer a few weeks ago. To understand the misinformation committee’s response, note this statement from an editorial written by Baron where he tries to give examples of misinformation:
A whole range of statements with which many — or even most —physicians might disagree would therefore not trigger our disciplinary process. On the other hand, when someone certified by the ABIM says something like “the origin of all coronary heart disease is a clearly reversible arterial scurvy” or “children can’t spread Covid” or “vaccines don’t prevent Covid deaths or hospitalizations,” we are not dealing with valid professional disagreement; we are dealing with wrong answers.
That last sentence is critical as Baron literally is saying that the ABIM gets to determine what is a valid professional disagreement versus a “wrong answer.” Good to know, especially in regards to the fact that the narrative that “vaccines prevent Covid deaths or hospitalizations” was strongly refuted in our initial response letter.
This issue about drawing a line between misinformation and genuine disagreement is a critical one. From our letter of appeal written by our lawyer Alan Dumoff:
Threshold Issue: What Standard Distinguishes Legitimate Differences of Professional Opinion and Misinformation
We disagree with the Committee’ s interpretation of the data, which we address below, but the initial question is by what standard the American Board of Internal Medicine (“ABIM” or “Board”) evaluates evidence to determine that disagreement with consensus generally, and regarding controversial matters around COVID-19 policy specifically, rise to the level of actionable misinformation. The Board’s policy recognizes the right to legitimate debate, which requires it not merely show evidence supporting a consensus view but that it demonstrate that these professional disagreements are not legitimate but outright misinformation.
If not grounded in an articulated standard, at the very least, the Board must demonstrate that the views at issue are false by citing the fallacies in the actual substance of the evidence provided, not simply by critiquing a few isolated studies divorced from the totality of evidence. Resting solely upon citations to mainstream publications while substantially avoiding the evidence in our Submission, and our detailed critiques of these publications does not provide a basis for the Board to take action against my clients.
A diplomate’s medical positions must be plainly erroneous to merit sanction. Departure from consensus is hardly unusual and by itself insufficient. While the Sanctions Notice gives the appearance of having done so, the Committee did not directly engage the numerous imperfections in the mainstream approach Drs. Kory and Marik’s have pointed to in substantial detail. The Committee has not engaged the evidence submitted and demonstrated it is illegitimate, only that it departs from the consensus, that is insufficient to support a sanction.
The point is that the ABIM appears absurdly obsessed with getting doctors to spout only consensus opinions. This is literally unprecedented in science. From Michael Chrichton the author:
I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had. Let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus. There is no such thing as consensus science. If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus. Period.
I love that last line so much it bears repeating, “If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus. Period.”
Now, let’s look at their response to our 76 page letter teeming with supportive data for our statements. Can read their letter in its entirety here but I thought I would just pull the most illustrative sections:
… the CCC (i.e. misinformation committee) concluded that your statements about the purported dangers of, or lack of justification for, COVID-19 vaccines are false and inaccurate because they, too, are not supported by factual, scientifically grounded, and consensus driven scientific evidence. In fact, the overwhelming body of factual, scientifically grounded, and consensus-driven evidence – at and since the time you made those statements – shows that the COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective for children and for adults
I have heard of the term “evidence-based medicine (EBM)” which is what I practice, but not “consensus driven science” (completely new invention – pernicious indeed. I Actually adhere to the original definition and conceptual framework envisioned by the founders of evidence based medicine which was incredibly well detailed in a by my friend “A Midwestern Doctor” in his brilliant recent post “What Happens To Doctors Who Innovate”.
Anyway, they then listed a few published, peer-reviewed papers supporting their point, blissfully un-acknowledging of the fact that the high-impact journals have been systematically censoring pretty much all negative analyses of the vaccine campaign’s impacts while publishing nothing but positive reports with cherry-picked and/or fraudulent data – so there is no way for the truth about vaccines to win in scientific debates my friends.
The high-impact journal censoring of adverse vaccine data is identical to their censoring of dozens of positive trials of ivermectin, something I extensively detail in the chapter called “The Journal Rejections of Positive Ivermectin Studies” in my book.
It gets even better – they next argue against my claims of lack of safety of the vaccines by, get this, referencing proclamations by the WHO and CDC. They ignore all the immense data to the contrary that I submitted while of course being willfully oblivious to the fact that the CDC and WHO are fully Pharma captured agencies:
Moreover, the vaccine safety data overwhelmingly (overwhelmingly?) contradicts your statements about vaccine risks. See, e.g., Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Safety of COVID-19 Vaccines,” https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/safety/safety-of-vaccines.html (updated March 7, 2023) (reporting that “Adverse Events (Serious Safety Problems) Are Rare,” and that “[t]he benefits of COVID-19 vaccination outweigh the known and potential risks”); World Health Organization, “Safety of COVID-19 Vaccines,” https://www.who.int/news-room/feature-stories/detail/safety-of-covid-19-vaccines (March 31, 2021) (stating that “[b]illions of people have been safely vaccinated against COVID-19,” that “mRNA vaccines [for COVID-19] have been rigorously assessed for safety, and clinical trials have shown that they provide a long-lasting immune response”).
The paragraph above should enter the historical record… somewhere. That will NOT age well. The only thing more absurd to contemplate is whether they know they are lying in their letter or if they are simply referencing propaganda that they themselves swallowed whole? In a way, the former might be more acceptable to me at this point.
Their opinion on how I got ivermectin wrong was similarly brazen – they ignored all the meta-analyses (historically considered the strongest form of data, a fact they seem to have willfully avoided) in favor of listing a handful of trials where ivermectin was supposedly found ineffective, relying mostly on citing “the Big 6” (what I named the chapter describing the fraud behind the 6 largest, Pharma-conflicted and most publicized trials on ivermectin). This was 100% unsurprising.
Check it out:
First, the CCC concluded that your statements about the safety and efficacy of ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine as treatments for COVID-19 are false and inaccurate because they are not supported by factual, scientifically grounded, and consensus driven scientific evidence (there it is again).
Susanna Naggie, M.D., M.H.S., et al., “Effect of Ivermectin vs Placebo on Time to Sustained Recovery in Outpatients With Mild to Moderate COVID-19,” 328 JAMA 1721 (2022), https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmoa2115869 (finding in a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled study with 1,800 participants that “[a]mong outpatients with mild to moderate COVID-19, treatment with ivermectin, compared with placebo, did not significantly improve time to recovery,” and that “[t]hese findings do not support the use of ivermectin in patients with mild to moderate COVID-19”);
I laughed out loud when they led their argument with the Naggie trial funded by the NIH as it contained the most brazen fraud of the Big 6 Pharma Ivermectin trials. All you need to know about the trial is that they moved the primary comparison endpoint of the trial.. in the middle of the trial. They moved the main comparison from symptoms at Day 14 to Day 28. Note that changing endpoints in the middle of a trial is a supposed never event. Except the same trick was pulled in the Remdesivir trial.
Anyway, in a presentation by Naggie, in this secondary endpoint, you can see that ivermectin was superior at Day 14 to a high degree of Bayesian “statistical significance” but the “statistical significance” was not reached at Day 28 (I use quotes around statistical significance because it is an erroneous concept when doing Bayesian statistics but that is what they did anyway when they pre-specified a threshold of above 0.95 as “significant”). Can anyone tell me why they moved the endpoint to Day 28 in the middle of the trial:
With this brazen maneuver (and many others) it allowed Naggie et al to publish this conclusion: “these findings do not support the use of ivermectin in patients with mild to moderate COVID-19.” Not-so-fun fact: Naggie also sat on the NIH covid treatment guidelines committee where she voted to not recommend ivermectin right before she and her University received tens of millions.. to study ivermectin in Covid. You want more? She also owns stock in a competitor to ivermectin (monoclonal antibodies for Omicron) and has received money from numerous other Big Pharma companies including Gilead. Lets get back to the letter…
Rather, the CCC seeks to accomplish precisely what you assert ABIM should be doing: seeking to “further the professional integrity of medicine by encouraging evidence-based debate” (emphasis added).
Indeed, as set forth in ABIM’s False or Inaccurate Medical Information policy, physicians have an ethical and professional responsibility to provide factual, scientifically grounded, and consensus driven scientific evidence (there it is again). As discussed above, by touting the effectiveness of ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine as COVID-19 treatments and casting doubt on the efficacy and safety of COVID-19 vaccines with such seemingly authoritative statements, you have made statements that are inimical to ABIM’s ethics and professionalism standards for board certification.
In light of all the evidence and circumstances, the CCC determined to recommend that your board certification be revoked.
There is only one silver lining here. One – the impending loss of my certifications does not affect me materially because I have a private fee-based practice due to my need for complete autonomy and lack of restrictions in empirically treating the vaccine injured with various repurposed and alternative therapeutics. I thus cannot and will not accept insurance, and secondly, my academic career is over – no longer will I ever enter back into the system of medicine.
About the only opportunity this whole attack has created is one where I get to defend myself on appeal in a debate with three academic white coats of their choosing. Bring. It. On.
Although the outcome of the debate is assuredly pre-determined, I know it will satisfy a deep yearning many of us dissidents have had for going on 3 years now – to debate someone, anyone, anywhere. Crush them with data. Make ‘em look silly although I will be the only one who knows it happened. It will let me vent my disgust at how they have widely disseminated corrupted scientific evidence and policies while simultaneously ignoring the clinical observations and expertise of frontline doctors who have treated thousands of actual Covid patients.
I will then toss in a little lecture about how RCT’s have long ceased to be a credible means of proving anything in science given that in modern medicine only “Big RCT’s” count and that all “Big RCT’s” require such massive funding that the bias of the funders outweighs any objectivity such trials can profess to attain. I will also remind them that throughout modern medical history, the findings of RCT’s and retrospective observational trials are identical, yet academia has been taught to systematically ignore observational trials. Reason: only massively funded entities can conduct a “Big RCT” while any committed clinician willing to give up nights and weekends can conduct an observational trial. Pharma cannot allow research to be conducted that they have no control over – so they took over the journals and medical school curriculums which now literally teach that observational controlled trials can only be considered “hypothesis generating” and thus their results should not be acted on. Nonsense.
I will also remind them that they are violating international law and human, civil, and political rights as argued by Meryl Nass in another of her excellent posts regarding her own persecution by her state licensing Board:
International law is on our side. A total of 172 countries are parties to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights:
According to the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 19,
“Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”
According to the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,
“Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice.”
And the Nebraska Attorney General protected doctors and pharmacists in Nebraska from their Boards, explicitly allowing them to prescribe HCQ and IVM. His opinion is a tour de force, which goes into detail about why the CDC, FDA and NIH guidelines are contradictory, unscientific and should not be followed. It should be cited in every case.
I also plan on reminding them that the FDA got its ass handed to them in court last week during a hearing of Paul Marik, Mary Tally Bowden and Robert Apter’s suit against the FDA. From an Epoch Times article on the hearing:
“FDA explicitly recognizes that doctors do have the authority to prescribe ivermectin to treat COVID,” Ashley Cheung Honold, a Department of Justice lawyer representing the FDA, said during oral arguments on Aug. 8 in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit.
The statements “don’t prohibit doctors from prescribing ivermectin to treat COVID or for any other purpose” Ms. Honold said.
“FDA is clearly acknowledging that doctors have the authority to prescribe human ivermectin to treat COVID. So they are not interfering with the authority of doctors to prescribe drugs or to practice medicine,” she said.
So, if the FDA recognizes we have the authority to prescribe ivermectin, then assuredly we are allowed to have the opinion that it is a valid therapy. However, the ABIM will not allow an ABIM certified physician to publicly express this opinion or recommend this practice. Maybe the ABIM should have a little chat with the FDA?
The nonsense doesn’t end with the ABIM, as they are only one prong of this campaign. How is this for some comic relief, published last week in one of the top journals in the world where they found that almost all the Covid misinformation in the U.S on social media can be traced to 52 doctors.
I was honored to discover that yours truly made the list! In their quoted examples of misinformation in Table 4, I have taken the liberty of owning up to the posts attributed to me, all of which I stand by to this day:
I think I will finish with this excerpt from a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed touching on the Missouri vs. Biden case where the administration is being sued for its systematic censoring of U.S citizens on social media by every intelligence and health agency in our Federal government :
This is where the decision of U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty sheds light. His detailed recounting shows a Washington energetic in protecting Americans from Covid opinions, expertise and claims that conflicted with its own, at a time when it served politicians to show they were trying to save Americans from encountering a virus that couldn’t be avoided. When government has a message to deliver, especially when the political stakes are high, it won’t be content just to push its own message, it will try to silence others. Fighting back will always be necessary. The only surprise in our age is how thoroughly the “liberal” position has become the pro-censorship position (that last line is a doozy).
Eris vaccine marketing hits Germany, complete with panic about a nonexistent August “Covid wave”
eugyppius: a plague chronicle | August 20, 2023
We will not be free of the virus until we are free of the vaccinators.
The leftist taz newspaper on 17 August: New German Wave: The new Covid variant Eris has arrived in Germany. Concerns about a new wave are growing – but the country is not well prepared.
The pandemic is over, but the virus is still dangerous: Reports of the new variant EG.5.1. seem to confirm this analysis. EG.5.1. (Eris) has been considered a “variant of interest” since 9 August. According to the WHO, the phenotype does not differ fundamentally from other Omicron lineages and does not require special public health measures …
With the announced end of the pandemic, virtually all mandated protective measures have been lifted in Germany. The most important instrument in the fight against Covid-19 is thus the immunisation of the population through infection or vaccination.
Das Erste, state media, on 19 August: Covid Variant “Eris”: How Dangerous is the New Mutation EG.5?
The World Health Organisation WHO has upgraded the new Covid mutationEG.5. This variant, called “Eris,” now belongs to the “variants of interest.” …
As WHO Covid expert Maria Van Kerkhove explained in Geneva on Wednesday, more severe outcomes have not been observed with Eris, but vaccination confers less protection than with other virus variants. …
Even though the new variant is unlikely to cause severe disease, the [German vaccine regulatory authority] STIKO still recommends getting vaccinated – above all to avoid possible long-term consequences of SARS-CoV-2 infection and to protect employees in medical and nursing care.
n-tv, a subsidiary broadcaster of RTL, on 18 August: The Number of Coivd-19-Cases Continues to Rise.
The pharmaceutical company Moderna has announced that its updated Covid vaccine according to an initial study is effective against the Eris sub-variant. The company now expects to launch the new vaccine in time for the autumn vaccination season. Approval from vaccine regulators however is still pending.
Moderna, like vaccine manufacturers Novavax and Pfizer, has developed versions of its vaccines with Biontech SE that target Eris subvariants. Shortly before, the pharmaceutical company Pfizer had reported that its revised vaccine had been effective against Eris in a study with mice. …
Most recently, it was suspected that the cinema hype surrounding the feel-good film “Barbie” and the gloomy biopic “Oppenheimer” may have caused many infections. At the same time, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) recorded an increase in the number of reported Covid infections. Experts, however, see no reason for concern so far.
Frankfurter Rundschau, a regional Frankfurt paper, on 17 August: Covid comeback with “Eris”: First experts demand return to masking.
Is Covid on the attack again? There are indications that the virus is once on the rise once more. …
British doctors are already calling for a return to masking. [Relentless virus charlatan and deranged hypermasker] Trisha Greenhalgh suggests that, “in view of the spread of new variants,” masking in high-risk situations should be considered.
The [virus surveillance] of the Federal Ministry of Health shows that the numbers are also on the rise in Germany. … “Eris” is already responsible for every fourth corona infection, according to new figures from the RKI. “The number of Covid-19 cases reported to the RKI .. seems to be related to the increasing circulation of this ‘variant of interest’,” the Robert Koch Institute says.
The increase in the case numbers – at least in Great Britain – coincides with the opening of the blockbusters “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” in British cinemas, which has given rise to talk of the “Barbenheimer” phenomenon. It is well known that larger crowds in enclosed indoor spaces are associated with an increased risk of corona infection. So is it time for a mask renaissance?
In the USA, more and more voices calling for one. [Relentless virus pest] Eric Feigl-Ding … used the hashtag #MaskUp on Twitter to call once again for protecting oneself from Covid infections with masks. Health Minister Karl Lauterbach shared the post, warning that the latest Covid data from New York is “worrying.” …
“There is still a risk that a more dangerous variant will emerge, which could lead to a sudden increase in cases and deaths,” emphasises WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. Not only adapted vaccines that take the new variants into account, but also wearing a mask would then help to protect oneself and others, Frankfurt virologist Martin Stürmer told Spiegel.
tagesschau, state media, on 17 August: Covid Case Numbers are Rising Again.
The number of laboratory-confirmed Corona cases in Germany is rising again – but at a relatively low level. This development has been ongoing for around a month, reports the Influenza Working Group at the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) … According to the report, about 2,400 confirmed cases of Covid-19 were reported nationwide last week. This is more than double the number reported in the week ending 9 July, when there were about 1,000. …
According to the RKI report, the activity of acute respiratory diseases in general in the population was “at a low summer level.” … “Anyone with symptoms of an acute respiratory infection should stay at home for three to five days and until the symptoms have clearly improved,” advises the RKI. …
Despite all of this obnoxious verbiage, absolutely nothing of virological note is happening in Germany. Official Covid testing has been all but abolished here, forcing our journaloids to unearth statistics from RKI influenza surveillance – something they refused to do during the pandemic itself, because the flu people routinely posted data that undermined their panic narrative. Here, I’ve circled in red the scary rise in infections from the latest RKI report that we’re meant to be worried about:
This microscopic uptick is dwarfed by the February/March wave that peaked between weeks 8 and 13. Our media luminaries took next to no notice of this frightening late-winter surge, and as I type this, Covid diagnoses have not even re-achieved their June levels. The difference between the state of things now and the state of things in February is not the unremarkable Eris variant. XBB was also debuting across Europe early this year, driving the post-February case peak, and nobody cared. The only thing that is different now, is the proximity of the autumnal vaccination liturgy and the prospect of new, updated vaccines from Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna and Novavax. That is why we are hearing about variants and masks and Long Covid all over again. It is also why many of these articles contain buried within them somewhere the advice to line up for the shiny new anti-Covid juice this Fall. This whole thing is, very plainly, a psy-op, if a very low-effort one.
There are several patterns in the German reporting that are worth noting. First of all, the latest hysteria was unleashed on 17 August, prompted by a report on Eris from the German news agency Deutsche Presse-Agentur. Particularly in the realm of routine reporting, the news agencies are a powerful coordinating force, and their influence here means that the full media panic machine is not engaged. We’re looking instead at pieces thrown together by low-level staff desperate to fill column inches. Second, all the German stories are firmly downstream from Anglophone sources, going so far as to recycle from British tabloids the improbable theory of a “Barbenheimer” wave (it is painful even to type this stupid word). Third, at least German health authorities – Karl Lauterbach excepted – resolutely refuse to provide virus doom quotes. Thus the Frankfurter Rundschau had to appropriate the tweets of Anglosphere mask hysterics like Greenhalgh and Feigl-Ding to make Eris sound scary.
I know there are rumours that American authorities are planning to bring back mask mandates and other restrictions in the coming months, and I’ll be honest: We should be so lucky. If the pandemicists try to kick up another round of non-pharmaceutical interventions this fall, they’ll be flirting with self destruction. There are important prerequisites for virus panic: You need a plausibly novel pathogen, the risk of which can be exaggerated. You need a prevailing sense of stability, with nothing else much going on, because the public health interventions themselves have to seem new. Risk, excitement and the prospect of a break from routine are important enticements. That’s all gone now. Covid is not a new scary virus anymore; nearly everyone has had personal experience with it. Solid majorities everywhere have learned to hate lockdowns, despise masking and avoid the mRNA vaccines. The pandemicists need a plausibly new virus to reopen the circus, and they need a lot of people to forget about what a misery the last pandemic response was. They’ll have another chance in ten or fifteen years, I’d guess. Then, it’ll be time to worry.
Medical Board Chief who wanted Doctors delicensed for ‘misinformation’ in bed with PR firm tied to CDC, Pfizer, Moderna
By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | August 18, 2023
The head of a national medical organization who publicly called for doctors to lose their licenses unless they supported government narratives on COVID-19 treatments and vaccines concealed his relationship with a public relations firm whose client list also included Pfizer, Moderna and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Dr. Richard Baron, president and CEO of the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) is a client of Weber Shandwick, investigative journalist Paul D. Thacker reported on Wednesday.
In late 2021, Baron publicly pushed for doctors who spread “misinformation” about COVID-19 and the vaccines to lose their license and certification. Baron said then that “putting out flagrant misinformation is unethical and dangerous during a pandemic.”
Weber, the world’s second-largest PR firm, has branded its team as “misinformation and disinformation” experts and says it provides clients with services to help manage any perceived threats posed by spreaders of such information.
The firm has organized conference panels on “medical misinformation” in which Baron participated.
Last year, Baron partnered with Weber Shandwick to propose a South by Southwest (SXSW) panel titled “When Doctors Prescribe Misinformation.” The proposal was subsequently accepted and the panel took place at SXSW in Austin, Texas, on March 13.
According to Thacker, “Weber Shandwick’s panel featuring Dr. Baron has been widely promoted by the PR firm’s employees,” including Sarah Mahoney, executive vice president, Healthcare Communications, Strategy & Planning for Weber Shandwick, who in a LinkedIn post, wrote she “can’t think of a more important topic right now.”
The CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (NCIRD) in September 2020 awarded Weber a $50 million contract “to promote the vaccination of children, pregnant women and those at risk for flu and increase the general acceptance and use of vaccines,” according to the PR firm’s website.
Under the contract, Weber employees were embedded in the NCIRD to “communicate the risks and recommended actions for outbreaks and convey vaccine recommendations to healthcare providers,” according to Thacker.
Medicine has always been ‘in bed with Big Pharma’
Several doctors have faced disciplinary action by state medical boards for allegedly spreading “misinformation.” One of them is internist and biological warfare epidemiologist Dr. Meryl Nass, a member of Children Health Defense’s scientific advisory committee.
Nass on Thursday sued the Maine Board of Licensure, which suspended her license in January 2022.
The board’s suspension arose from its adoption of a position statement promulgated by the Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB) threatening physicians “who generate and spread COVID-19 vaccine misinformation” with suspension or revocation of their medical license.
In 2021, ABIM and FSMB collaborated to create the statement used to discipline Nass.
Nass told The Defender that in order to get certified by organizations like ABIM, there are several requirements, primarily related to demonstrating competence in one’s field of specialization, including completing a residency, being certified by the residency director, and paying for and passing the board examinations.
Nass told The Defender that in order to get certified by organizations like ABIM, there are several requirements. She explained:
“You complete a medical residency in your field of specialization. Your residency director certifies your competence and moral character, and you must pay for and pass your board examination to demonstrate your command of your specialty.
“When you’ve paid them for board certification and successfully completed all the requirements, how can they change the rules 20 or 50 years later and say, ‘we’re going to decertify you now because we don’t like your viewpoint?’
“There was nothing in any documentation from the Board of Internal Medicine about misinformation, or any other standards that the board can impose apart from competency to practice when it issued certifications.”
Dr. Richard Eggleston, a retired ophthalmologist in Clarkston, Washington, also faces disciplinary action — by the Washington Medical Commission — arising from articles he published in a local newspaper in 2021, questioning the official narrative and medical advice related to COVID-19.
Doctors aren’t being targeted exclusively for spreading “misinformation” — some, like Dr. Mary Kelly Sutton, an integrative physician, were targeted for their less-than-100% support for COVID-19 vaccines.
Last month, the Massachusetts medical board revoked Sutton’s medical license, claiming she improperly exempted eight children from required school vaccinations. This came a year after California also revoked Sutton’s medical license.
Sutton told The Defender, “The voice of medicine today is determined by the marketing wisdom of Madison Avenue, not by what is sound information from scientific research.”
Sutton said the whole practice of medicine rests on sharing and providing information necessary for informed decisions and consent. When specialty boards issue vague accusations, they engage in “harassment,” and an “egregious overreach of power” and are obstructing the practice of medicine.
A California law aimed at punishing doctors for providing “misinformation” to their patients is now in “legal limbo” following conflicting rulings in state courts earlier this year, which could affect Sutton’s and other California doctors’ cases going through the courts.
This trail of evidence demonstrates medical boards are not simply acting on their own authority but in collusion with state governments, federal agencies and private companies.
“There’s no one who is a ‘misinformation’ or ‘disinformation’ expert whose opinion does not align with the government and with the corporations,” Thacker told The Defender. “That’s what makes them an ‘expert.’”
“What’s always been true is that medicine has been in bed with Big Pharma,” he added. “It’s now becoming a lot more transparent. These relationships are much more transparent.”
‘A very political attempt to shut down people from having alternative viewpoints’
According to Thacker, Baron began his “crusade for the biopharmaceutical industry” in September 2021. In a post for ABIM’s blog, Baron said, “I want to state unequivocally that ABIM can and does take action, independent of state licensing boards, to remove certification from physicians for unprofessional and unethical behavior.”
For Thacker, Baron’s concern about “misinformation” was first triggered when physicians spoke out against COVID-19 vaccine safety, efficacy and side effects. “These are the same concerns held by Weber Shandwick, who Pfizer and Moderna are paying big buck[s] to promote their vaccines,” he said.
“Baron’s relationship with Weber Shandwick was not disclosed” by JAMA, Thacker said, “nor in an accompanying viewpoint Baron wrote for JAMA.”
After an inquiry by Thacker, JAMA’s editor-in-chief, Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, said, “We initiated our internal investigation earlier this week, in accordance with our standard processes for allegations of non-disclosure of conflicts.”
“It is notable that Baron has done his best to mislead the public and other physicians about what he is doing,” Nass said. “He claims the ABIM is trying to ‘protect the legitimacy of medical expertise’ rather than censoring viewpoints it does not like.”
Nass said Baron “conjures up examples of what the board might censure.” She pointed to a Feb. 23, 2023, New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) article Baron co-authored with attorney Carl J. Coleman, which stated:
“When a licensed physician insists that viruses don’t cause disease or that COVID-19 vaccines magnetize people or connect them to cell towers, professional bodies must be able to take action in support of fact and evidence based practice.”
“Yet this is a fabrication,” Nass said, adding:
“Instead, Dr. Baron, who earns about $1.2 million yearly from the ABIM and the ABIM Foundation, has decertified Drs. Peter McCullough, Paul Marik and Pierre Kory — all highly celebrated, published and esteemed doctors in their fields.
“None of them have uttered any mumbo-jumbo about cell towers, magnetism or a non-viral etiology for COVID-19. All have had their board certifications revoked for the viewpoints they expressed — viewpoints that are supported by a preponderance of the medical literature.”
In a January 2022 article for Health Affairs, Coleman wrote, “Licensing boards are state agencies subject to the First Amendment, and as such they are limited in their ability to penalize physicians based on the content of their speech.”
Yet, a 2022 NEJM article co-authored by Baron argued that while “Differences of opinion in medicine are necessary for progress … there are some opinions that have been so thoroughly repudiated by existing evidence as to be considered definitively wrong.”
‘All this money is sloshing around now for misinformation research’
According to Thacker, “PR firms are now moving into the ‘disinformation’ space after decades of deceit on behalf of multiple industries,” with Weber Shandwick having “expanded into the disinformation space in late 2021,” promoting tactics that help “brands combat misinformation and disinformation that may implicate them.”
Speaking to Thacker, Dr. Aaron Kheriaty, director of bioethics at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, said, “The ABIM is clearly part of this ‘medical misinformation’ push, which is orchestrated by pharmaceutical companies and their PR allies” and which serves “the interests of Big Pharma.”
Remarking on the presence of a “medical misinformation” panel at SXSW, long known as a music, film and technology festival, Thacker told The Defender, “Anyone and everyone is getting involved in ‘misinformation’ and ‘disinformation.’”
“Baron has given a TED Talk, for instance. Why is TED Talks involved in this?” he asked.
In 2019 Baron delivered a talk at TEDx Chicago titled, “Please Don’t Confuse Your Google Search with My Medical Degree.”
For Thacker, the answer relates to financial interests. “All this money is sloshing around now for ‘misinformation’ research. Anyone can hop up and down saying ‘I’m an expert on misinformation and disinformation, get me a grant, get me on a panel,’” he said.
Weber embedded staffers within the CDC while representing Pfizer, Moderna
Thacker wrote that prior to discovering Baron’s ties to Weber Shandwick, he had confirmed the PR firm’s ties to COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers Pfizer and Moderna.
These ties did not prevent the CDC from awarding the $50 million contract to Weber Shandwick in September 2020 to push vaccines. The Daily Mail subsequently reported Thacker’s findings.
Medical Marketing and Media reported “Weber’s duties include providing 10 on-site health communications staffers, seven health comms specialists, two health research specialists and one social media specialist” to NCIRD, as well as “generating story ideas, distributing articles and conducting outreach to news, media and entertainment organizations.”
In October 2020, a blog post by Stacy Montejo, senior vice president at Weber Shandwick, disclosed that Pfizer is one of the firm’s clients. A month later, with Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine awaiting Emergency Use Authorization, the company hired Weber Shandwick to handle the vaccine’s publicity, according to PR Week.
Such relationships have continued to the present. In June, Moderna announced a new communications strategy “to further educate the world about Moderna’s mRNA technology and its promise to transform the future of human health.”
The effort is led by Laura Schoen, “who is sometimes titled president of global healthcare at Weber Shandwick, and other times chief healthcare officer at IPG DXTRA, Weber Shandwick’s parent company,” Thacker wrote.
Lucy Rieck, a Weber Shandwick employee, previously publicly tweeted support for a panel Moderna proposed for this year’s SXSW, titled “COVID, Monkeypox, Disease X, What’s Next?” That proposal does not appear to have been accepted for presentation.
Conflicts of interest between Weber Shandwick, the CDC and NCIRD, and Pfizer and Moderna do not appear to have been disclosed.
In October 2022, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) sent a letter to the CDC inquiring about its relationship with Weber Shandwick and requesting “information regarding the nature of Weber’s work for the NCIRD.” It’s unclear whether the CDC complied with the request.
Todd S. Richardson, one of the attorneys representing Eggleston, told The Defender “While it is certainly understandable that governmental agencies will hire PR firms to help them get their message out … it becomes of real concern to me when those agencies, or people working within the agencies, try to silence those who disagree.”
According to Thacker, the web of relationships between Weber Shandwick doesn’t just extend to Big Pharma companies, the CDC and its agencies, or to doctors such as Baron. Academics such as Brown University’s Claire Wardle, Ph.D., a key figure in the “misinformation research” space, have participated in some of the firm’s events.
Wardle, a professor of the practice of Health Services, Policy and Practice at Brown University who has no scientific or medical credentials, participated in an online meeting organized by Weber Shandwick in October 2020 to discuss “election misinformation.”
Subsequently, Wardle played a key advisory role in the Biden administration, federal agencies, social media platforms and Ivy League institutions as they sought to censor content that ran counter to the government’s COVID-19 narrative.
According to Thacker, she “helped organize many of today’s campus disinformation groups … with funding from Google” and later sent Twitter a report aimed at countering the “growing threat of disinformation to trust in COVID-19 vaccines.”
Thacker said the biopharmaceutical industry is “the smartest at putting out disinformation. What other industry has bought off the medical community and the science community?” he asked. “They bought off the researchers, the government, the academic journals.”
Thacker said he believes much of what is labeled “misinformation” in medicine and academic research “is really just corporate PR,” and that “Congress needs to take a harder look at funding for ‘misinformation research.’“
Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D., based in Athens, Greece, is a senior reporter for The Defender and part of the rotation of hosts for CHD.TV’s “Good Morning CHD.”
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
Dr. Meryl Nass sues Maine Medical Board over suspension, alleges Board violated her first amendment rights
By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D. | The Defender | August 17, 2023
Dr. Meryl Nass today filed suit against the Maine Board of Licensure in Medicine and its individual members, alleging the board violated her First Amendment rights and her rights under the Maine Constitution.
The complaint alleges the board engaged in retaliatory conduct against Nass, a practicing internal medicine physician and member of the Children’s Health Defense (CHD) scientific advisory board, when the board suspended her medical license for publicly expressing her dissenting views on official COVID-19 policies, the COVID-19 vaccine and alternative treatments.
“Because she was outspoken, the board targeted Dr. Nass as someone to silence,” her attorney, Gene Libby told The Defender.
In fall 2021, the board issued a position statement, quoted in the complaint, stating that licensees could face disciplinary action if they “generate and spread COVID-19 vaccine misinformation or disinformation.”
In October 2021, soon after the statement was issued, the board received a complaint alleging Nass was spreading misinformation online and soon after launched an investigation.
The board suspended Nass’ medical license on Jan. 12, 2022, without a hearing, accusing her of engaging in “unprofessional conduct” by spreading “misinformation about COVID-19.”
It also accused her of improperly prescribing hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin for three patients for off-label uses of those drugs.
The board suspended Nass’ license and ordered a neuropsychological evaluation, implying she was mentally impaired or a substance abuser and incompetent to practice medicine.
“There were no grounds to order a mental health examination,” Libby said. “That was simply a means to communicate to the public that there was something wrong with Dr. Nass, to discredit her and tarnish her reputation.”
After Nass moved to have the board dismiss its complaint against her, alleging First Amendment violations, the board on Sept. 26, 2022, withdrew its accusations of “misinformation”, just prior to her first hearing date, Oct. 11, 2022.
The board’s case now rests on Nass’ alleged non-adherence to the medical “standard of care” as it pertained to ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine for treating COVID-19 and on the alleged “record-keeping” issues.
Nass told The Defender :
“The two primary complaints against me were that my statements were misleading and that I was prescribing drugs off-label. My speech — which I should note, was not simply opinion, it was an educated opinion developed after consulting the medical literature — is protected by the First Amendment.
“And prescribing drugs off-label is a perfectly legal thing to do, as explicitly stated on the FDA [U.S. Food and Drug Administration] website. Somewhere between 20-50% of drugs are prescribed off-label. The lawyers on the board staff know all of this. It’s their job to know the law with respect to medicine.
“They didn’t do this because they thought I had committed some kind of violation. They did it because they thought I’m older and I wouldn’t have the money to challenge them and so they could get away with it — they thought they could turn me into a poster child to scare all the doctors in the country.
“It is part of this broader attempt by the U.S. government and governments across the world to criminalize dissent by criminalizing so-called ‘misinformation.’”
Libby said the remaining allegations against Dr. Nass “are simply a pretext to discipline her. Because now, from an institutional standpoint, the board has to do something. She’s been under suspension for 19 months, which is the longest suspension that I’m aware of for any physician in the state.”
The board refused to schedule hearings on Nass’ suspension on consecutive days. Instead, it has held one day of hearings every other month. There have been six days of hearings so far over 10 months — and Nass’ license has been suspended the entire time.
“This is fundamentally unfair to Dr. Nass, but she’s within the grip of an institution that doesn’t want her speaking out,” Libby said.
In her lawsuit, Nass alleges the board and its members used their power to “crush dissenting views and chill disfavored speech.”
Nass is asking the court for declaratory relief, for an injunction to stop the board from continuing to retaliate against her and for monetary damages and legal fees.
CHD is providing financial and legal resources to Nass’ Maine-based legal team.
CHD President Mary Holland told The Defender :
“CHD is proud to support Dr. Nass’ lawsuit against the Maine medical board and its individual members.
“The board and its members have deprived Dr. Nass of her license and livelihood for over a year with no basis whatsoever. This kind of censorship, intimidation and punishment of doctors of conscience must stop.
“People need independent, thoughtful, caring physicians like Dr. Nass to be honored, not hounded as the board has done.
“I am pleased to see this case move forward in the courts in the interests of justice, for Dr. Nass, her patients and the broader society.”
Board provided resources to ‘combat spread of vaccine misinformation’
The Maine board’s Fall 2021 position statement expressed its support for a statement by the Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB) — a private organization with no regulatory authority — which threatened physicians “who generate and spread COVID-19 vaccine misinformation” with suspension or revocation of their medical license.
According to the statement, physicians have a high degree of public trust and therefore a responsibility to “share information that is factual, scientifically grounded and consensus-driven for the betterment of public health.”
The Maine board’s statement endorsed the FSMB statement, encouraged physicians to address misinformation when encountered, directed physicians to use circulated materials from the American Medical Association (AMA) and said that questioning the COVID-19 vaccine qualifies as “misinformation,” according to the complaint.
The AMA materials provide scripts, talking points and strategies for “combating the spread of vaccine misinformation.”
The Maine board’s chair, Dr. Maroulla Gleaton, is also an FSMB director.
Nass is a widely recognized expert on the anthrax vaccine and biological warfare. She testified before Congress six times and was quoted in major media outlets including The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune.
She has also been a prominent critic of governmental handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, the suppression of effective treatments such as ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine and the safety and risks of the vaccine — all topics she has discussed in her Substack, on the radio, in interviews and elsewhere.
But, the complaint notes, her positions have been in conflict with those asserted in the position statement and the resources it highlights as “supporting the fight against COVID-19 misinformation.”
This was merely an attempt by the board to justify its decision to immediately suspend Nass and to intimidate her, the complaint alleges.
Board’s only concern was ‘silencing’ Nass and ‘branding her as crazy’
When Nass questioned the board’s authority to investigate a complaint unrelated to the practice of medicine and instead “focused entirely on a statement made in her private life,” the board responded, on Oct. 14, 2021, that she was engaged in “alleged unprofessional conduct” by provisioning “misleading and/or inaccurate” information.
In the January board meeting where the board decided to suspend her license, the conversation focused on Nass’ “unprofessional conduct due to the spreading of misinformation about COVID-19.”
The board also cited three matters related to treating patients, alleging Nass improperly diagnosed a patient “over the phone,” that she had provided misinformation to a pharmacist about why she was prescribing ivermectin for a patient, and that she had improperly issued another prescription.
On Sept. 7, 2022, Nass moved to dismiss the complaint, alleging the board was violating her First Amendment rights.
The board responded by withdrawing all charges based on her speech, retaining only the charges related to the treatment of three patients.
Libby told The Defender that through the entire investigation and hearings, the board never even spoke to the three patients. It did not inform them their medical records had been subpoenaed, or ask them about their treatment by Dr. Nass.
“Yet the remaining disciplinary charges are all predicated on Dr. Nass’ consultation with and advice to these patients.”
Libby called the patients to testify in Nass’ hearings. They all made “glowing comments” about her availability, her medical advice and her handling of their cases and expressed anger that Nass was being targeted by the board for their cases.
Libby said he interpreted this to indicate the board’s singular focus was not to ensure patient well-being, but rather “silencing Dr. Nass and attempting to brand her as crazy.”
According to the complaint, the board’s animus against Nass is also demonstrated by the fact that it is flouting its own rules for selecting and paying expert witnesses.
Board guidelines stipulate that witnesses can be paid a maximum of $125/hour for preparation and $175/hour for testimony and that the witnesses should have the same specialty as the practitioner in question and be licensed to practice in Maine.
But the board is paying Dr. Jeremy Faust, an emergency room physician from Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston, $500/hour to testify.
And board member Gleaton, who has conflicts of interest because of her position as FSMB director and has acted in openly mocking ways, has refused to recuse herself.
The next medical board hearing is set for mid-September.
But in the meantime, Libby said “The actions of the board are so outrageous, they need to be acted on legally.”
Brenda Baletti Ph.D. is a reporter for The Defender. She wrote and taught about capitalism and politics for 10 years in the writing program at Duke University. She holds a Ph.D. in human geography from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a master’s from the University of Texas at Austin.
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
‘A Fauci Clone’: New NIAID Director Oversaw Remdesivir Trials, Has Ties to Biosafety Lab Research
By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | August 15, 2023
When he retired in December 2022, Dr. Anthony Fauci, then-director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) was the highest-paid federal employee and the recipient of the largest federal retirement package in history.
Fauci’s successor, Dr. Jeanne M. Marrazzo, will soon take over leadership of the agency — and its $6.3 billion budget.
Fauci praised Marrazzo, telling CNN, “She’s very well-liked. She’s a really good person. I think she’s going to do a really good job.”
But some of her critics, including medical and public health experts interviewed by The Defender, questioned Marrazzo’s suitability for leading NIAID, citing her limited experience as a medical practitioner and her role in supervising clinical trials of remdesivir, a controversial drug used to treat hospitalized COVID-19 patients.
Critics also called out her steadfast support for strict restrictions and countermeasures during the pandemic, and her receipt, since 1997, of more than $20 million in grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and payments from Big Pharma — including from Gilead, the manufacturer of remdesivir.
And lastly, some pointed to Marrazzo’s key administrative role in a University of Alabama (UAB) institution which houses a BSL3 (biosafety level 3) laboratory that conducts gain-of-function research.
Before being named director of the NIAID, Marrazzo was director of the Division of Infectious Diseases at the UAB at Birmingham. She will replace Dr. Hugh Auchincloss, who has served as NIAID’s acting director following Fauci’s departure.
Commenting on the appointment, Brian Hooker, Ph.D., senior director of science and research for Children’s Health Defense (CHD), said:
“It looks like Dr. Marrazzo will give us more of the same, unfortunately. Her flip-flopping, penchant for Big Pharma, and support of draconian public health (control) measures mean that she’ll take a reactionary posture to any ‘pandemic threat’ and may be as gleeful as Fauci at the prospect of new pandemics.
“I have dim hopes that she may learn some lessons while the investigations into Fauci lying to Congress play out. However, these bureaucrats don’t really believe that the law applies to them.”
The NIAID is the second largest center at the NIH. According to CNN, it “supports research to advance the understanding, diagnosis and treatment of infectious, immunologic and allergic diseases,” as well as “research at universities and research organizations around the United States and across NIAID’s 21 laboratories.”
“Marrazzo fits the mold of every public health leader so far that has led the charge during the pandemic,” Dr. Kat Lindley, president of the Global Health Project and director of the Global COVID Summit, told The Defender.
Lindley added:
“My concern with Marrazzo is actually her Big Pharma ties, her lack of clinical experience with COVID-19 in particular, and her blatant ignorance on early treatment and support for unproven, scientifically debunked measures, in particular masking.
“Any scientist or physician should understand that masking has never proven to be effective and, in the case of children, even detrimental.”
Touted remdesivir as ‘silver bullet’ for treating COVID
During her tenure at UAB, the university served as one of the clinical trial sites for remdesivir, an antiviral originally developed by Gilead Sciences as a treatment for Hepatitis C and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).
According to the NIH, the trial was intended “to evaluate the safety and efficacy of the investigational antiviral remdesivir in hospitalized adults diagnosed with coronavirus disease 2019.” Marrazzo supervised the UAB trial site.
UAB has long served as a research site for remdesivir. A February 2021 UAB report states, “Gilead entered into collaboration with the UAB-led Antiviral Drug Development and Discovery Center … to study remdesivir against coronaviruses” in 2014.
“These earlier studies enabled remdesivir to more quickly be tested and approved for human use as a treatment for COVID-19 when the 2020 pandemic struck,” UAB stated.
The trial results, published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) in November 2020, found remdesivir shortened “the time to recovery in adults who were hospitalized with COVID-19 and had evidence of lower respiratory tract infection.”
Fauci later praised remdesivir as the “standard of care” for treating COVID-19.
However, according to investigative journalist Jordan Schachtel, studies “show that there are zero clinical benefits to injecting patients with remdesivir. Many studies show that remdesivir can severely injure vital organs such as the heart and kidneys.”
Yet, Marrazzo never disclosed a conflict of interest when publicly commenting on remdesivir, Schachtel said. She described it as a “silver bullet” in remarks shared with The Washington Post in July 2020, and in tweets praising the drug.
“Given the UAB-Gilead partnership, one would think that Dr. Marrazzo would refrain from commenting on issues through which she maintained a clear conflict of interest,” Schachtel wrote. “She did no such thing.”
According to the U.S. government’s Open Payments database, Marrazzo received seven payments from Gilead, totaling $2,474.93.
But as Marrazzo repeatedly praised remdesivir — and, according to Schachtel, has “never shown remorse” for this despite mounting evidence of the harm it has caused — she has repeatedly spoken out against hydroxychloroquine for treating COVID-19.
In June 2020, in reference to a study published in the NEJM claiming hydroxychloroquine is ineffective in protecting people from COVID-19, Marrazzo said these findings “should provide a very big nail in the coffin” for the use of this treatment.
The following month, Marrazzo called a video that went viral on social media describing hydroxychloroquine as a cure for COVID-19 “very irresponsible and despicable,” adding that she was “glad that video is hopefully not being shared very much.”
In October 2021, she said hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin hold “special appeal” to the unvaccinated.
Yet, in April 2020, prior to the conclusion of the remdesivir clinical trial, Marrazzo said, “We are using it [hydroxychloroquine] in our hospital … for a range of patients including when patients are beginning to deteriorate,” adding:
“And lots of media folks are asking what we think about hydroxychloroquine. And the reality is that we live and die by the evidence. And one issue is the argument about whether it’s even ethical to use these treatments when we don’t have the evidence.
“But I would get back to the compassionate use argument. When you have a patient who’s dying, you have to use what you can, what’s available.”
Cheerleader for COVID vaccines and Merck’s molnupiravir
Marrazzo has also praised COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics. In May 2020, she was “hopeful” about the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine clinical trial — despite its enrollment of only eight volunteers, saying “We don’t have the luxury of time here in this case.”
In August 2021, she called the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the Pfizer Comirnaty COVID-19 vaccine “great news,” saying, “Vaccines are our best weapon against this disease” and are “working incredibly well to prevent severe disease” and reduce hospitalizations.
In January 2022, Marrazzo said “Vaccination makes the biggest difference” in fighting COVID-19, adding that “boosters, of course, are going to augment that protection.”
And in October 2021, Marrazzo praised molnupiravir, Merck’s antiviral pill for COVID-19, stating it had “extraordinary potential.” Results of a preprint study later showed the drug may fuel the development of new and potentially deadly variants of COVID-19.
Marrazzo has received five payments from Merck, totaling $8,820.
Cardiologist Dr. Peter McCullough told The Defender Marrazzo “has been willfully blind to the failure of COVID-19 vaccines” and “appears incapable of mastering the four pillars of pandemic response to lead America through the next pandemic: 1) contagion control, 2) early treatment, 3) late treatment and 4) vaccination.”
A ‘slap in the face’ to vaccine, hospital protocol victims
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Marrazzo made frequent television appearances in which, according to a UAB statement, she “helped inform the world … sharing critical information and perspectives.” UAB touted Marrazzo as a COVID-19 expert during this period.
According to AL.com, Marrazzo was on Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey’s COVID-19 task force, supporting “emergency public health measures that closed business and mandated mask wearing.”
In March 2020, Marrazzo supported “flattening the curve,” calling on the public “to make personal sacrifices for the greater good.” In similar statements made on May 8, 2020, Marrazzo warned of a “backslide” if measures like social distancing were loosened.
In June 2020, she said masks can “change the trajectory of this epidemic.”
In a June 2020 YouTube video, “Why you should wear a mask,” Marrazzo said, “Masks have contributed to the control of this pandemic in other communities.” She called for masks for schoolchildren over age 6 and included mask-wearing in a list of “Three basic rules” along with hand washing and social distancing.
In an article she co-authored and in which she highlighted “the intersection of the COVID-19, HIV, and STI pandemics,” Marrazzo drew parallels between wearing masks and wearing condoms, writing:
“Condoms reduce transmission of HIV and bacterial STIs effectively, if used adequately and consistently, but lack of access to condoms or perhaps even personal preference limits their utility.
“As a correlate to barrier protection, masking has proven effective to reduce the expulsion of SARS-CoV-2 and other respiratory virus droplets.”
The paper also repeated claims regarding the “lack of benefit” of hydroxychloroquine, zinc and vitamins C and D in treating COVID-19. Conversely, referring to the COVID-19 vaccines, the authors stated, “There were few serious adverse events in either arm, and there were no deaths related to the vaccine.”
Blaming the unvaccinated
In May 2021, she criticized loosened Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommendations that the vaccinated do not need to wear masks, stating that because less than 50% were vaccinated in her community, she would still wear a mask indoors despite being fully vaccinated herself.
In July 2021 she warned of a “summer surge” that would be fueled by the unvaccinated.
In December 2021 Marrazzo again scolded the unvaccinated. “Your decision to get infected is unfortunately not just going to be affecting you,” she said. “It’s going to be serving a source of incredible infectiousness going forward.”
Dr. Scott Atlas, a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force during the Trump administration, told KUSI News San Diego that Marrazzo “was completely wrong about COVID … Pushing pseudoscience, pushing … her belief that vaccines stopped the spread of the infection, that children have high risk, and that masks were efficacious.”
“Marrazzo represents everything that was done wrong in the handling of COVID,” said Gail Seiler, Texas chairperson, Projects and Content, for the FormerFedsGroup Freedom Foundation and a survivor of the CDC’s COVID-19 hospital protocols, including administration of remdesivir.
Seiler told The Defender that Marrazzo advocated for no early treatment until the patient “worsened to the point of hospitalization,” and at that point to give remdesivir, “a drug that she profits from.”
Seiler added:
“Because of people like Marrazzo, patients in the hospital were given no hope of survival. Because of her ignoring the evidence, over a million people died who shouldn’t have.
“Her selection to the NIAID is a slap in the face to every family whose loved ones were killed by the protocols she profited from. And it exemplifies why the general public has lost trust in agencies such as the NIAID.”
Financial ties to Big Pharma
Marrazzo received a total of $20,405,337 in NIH grants for 67 studies between 1997 and 2023, according to NIH data. These grants ranged between $6,000 and $2.82 million and averaged over $304,000 per grant.
Open Payments data show Marrazzo has received $28,761,36 across 37 “general payments” and $152,208.42 across seven payments for “associated research funding,” including $18,636.59 in consulting fees, $4,500 in honorariums, and payments from companies such as Merck, GlaxoSmithKline, Gilead, Janssen and Abbott Laboratories.
In December 2018, Marrazzo participated in a panel titled “Role of the Genital Tract Microbiome in Sexual and Reproductive Health,” during the Keystone Symposia Conference in South Africa, which was “made possible with funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.”
Her employer, UAB, received at least two Gates Foundation grants pertaining to health-related research in recent years. This includes a June 2021 grant, “Modeling Impact of Service Delivery Redesign” totaling over $1.5 million, and a $124,921 grant in April 2020 for a project titled “COVID-19 CTA: HTS Core for screening compounds.”
UAB’s Division of Infectious Diseases boasts “an active research portfolio with approximately $39 million in external research funding.” Research specialties include “Pathogenesis of viral infections,” “Antiviral therapy,” “Travel medicine and international health” and “Host defenses and infectious diseases in immunocompromised patients.”
Big supporter of gain-of-function research
UAB also houses a BSL3 research laboratory, the Southeastern Biosafety Laboratory Alabama Birmingham (SEBLAB), funded in part by NIH. According to UAB, it is “one of a limited number of institutions,” adding that the university ranks “among the top 25 in funding from the National Institutes of Health.”
The university states that SEBLAB researchers are “able to bring their skills to bear on the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, and other issues directly relevant to biodefense and emerging infectious disease,” with a focus on NIAID “priority pathogens” and discovery of “new treatments to prevent or combat” diseases caused by infectious agents.
These projects have also included “Testing drugs on SARS-CoV-2,” a process involving growing the virus in SEBLAB. According to UAB researcher Kevin Harrod, Ph.D.,“We grow the viruses, measure them and provide them to the BARDA [the U.S. government’s Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority] contractor.”
BSL3 and BSL4 laboratories across the U.S. and the world have been associated with controversial gain-of-function research, which some have said is responsible for the development and subsequent alleged leak from one such facility, the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China, leading to prominent calls to end such research.
According to Independent Institute, “Marrazzo’s views on the origin of COVID-19 are hard to find,” as are her views on gain-of-function research.
Francis Boyle, J.D., Ph.D., a professor of international law at the University of Illinois who drafted the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989, told The Defender that Marrazzo’s selection signals that the NIH and NIAID have no intention of stopping gain-of-function research at BSL3 and BSL4 facilities.
Boyle said:
“They will have her in place to deal with the next pandemic that they know is coming out of their own BSL3 and BSL4 labs, just as Fauci dealt with the COVID-19 pandemic that came out of the Wuhan BSL4 and the University of North Carolina BSL3 and that Fauci and [former NIH Director] Francis Collins funded.
“Under her auspices NIAID will continue to research, develop, manufacture and stockpile every hideous type of Nazi biological warfare weapon known to humanity … There will be no end to it and to these death scientists like her … unless and until we stop them by criminal prosecutions.”
Boyle called Marrazzo a “Fauci clone, not an original and independent thinker,” adding, “The Bidenites and the globalists and Big Pharma behind them picked her to continue the Fauci/NIAID policies and programs across the board.”
Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D., based in Athens, Greece, is a senior reporter for The Defender and part of the rotation of hosts for CHD.TV’s “Good Morning CHD.”
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
YouTube Greatly Expands Its Medical “Misinformation” Policies
New rules, largely determined by the WHO
By Christina Maas | Reclaim The Net | August 16, 2023
YouTube, the titan of online video content, has expanded its Covid misinformation policy to cover what it calls all forms of medical misinformation.
YouTube has also declared its plan to delist videos promoting “cancer treatments proven to be harmful or ineffective,” effectively disallowing content creators from encouraging natural cures.
The platform pledges to implement its medical misinformation policies when a topic exhibits high public health risks, is supposedly prone to misinformation, and when official guidance from health authorities is accessible to the public.
The changes also see YouTube recommitting to groups such as the WHO and other health bodies on what information is deemed to be acceptable for people to talk about on the platform – despite these institutions having recently received major blows to their credibility.
According to the policy update, YouTube will no longer host content that:
- Misinforms about prevention techniques or contradicts current health authority guidelines, including inaccuracies regarding the safety or efficacy of approved vaccines.
- Promotes treatments that local health bodies or the WHO have neither approved nor recognized as safe and effective. Moreover, it bans content that advocates for harmful substances or practices that have been scientifically proven to be detrimental.
- Denies the existence of specific health conditions.
As stated in its blog post, YouTube intends to punish content promoting not only what it believes to be overtly harmful treatments but also unproven ones that are audaciously offered as replacements for recognized alternatives.
For instance, influencers suggesting vitamin C supplements or garlic for cancer may have their content removed, the post states.
This marks a substantial escalation in the Google-owned platform’s ongoing crusade against what it believes to be the dissemination of medical misinformation, heavily catalyzed by the controversial experience of battling narratives about themes such as COVID-19 and vaccines, something YouTube was heavily criticized for as truthful content ended up being censored on the platform.
YouTube had targeted vaccine “misinformation,” such as demonetizing and deleting vaccine skepticism, thereby refining their approach in response to the global pandemic situation.
New Book by Doctors for COVID Ethics Details Dangers of mRNA Vaccines
By Margot DesBois | The Defender | August 15, 2023
The Doctors for COVID Ethics (D4CE), an international group of physicians and scientists, last month released a new book, “mRNA Vaccine Toxicity,” an extensive assessment of the mechanisms and manifestations of mRNA vaccine technology harm, through the perspectives of immunology, pathology, pharmacokinetics, epidemiology and medical history.
The book is available to download free of charge or order in print.
D4CE, led by microbiologist and immunologist Dr. Sucharit Bhakdi, consists of more than 100 medical practitioners and researchers from 30 countries who “oppose the ongoing abuse of science and medicine for the destruction of peoples’ health, livelihoods, and even lives,” and believe “this abuse includes but is not limited to the ‘public health’ measures taken in the contrived COVID ‘pandemic.’”
In the months following the European Medicines Agency’s (EMA) issuance of emergency approval for the COVID-19 vaccines, D4CE wrote a series of open letters to the EMA warning of short-term and long-term health dangers from these experimental products and calling for their immediate withdrawal.
During the past two years, the group has conducted five online symposia and published numerous articles, letters, video presentations and other resources on current threats to health and freedom posed by the COVID-19 public health mandates.
Written and edited by D4CE founding signatory and biochemist Dr. Michael Palmer, “mRNA Vaccine Toxicity ” includes chapter contributions by Bhakdi; Brian Hooker, Ph.D., Children’s Health Defense (CHD) senior director of science and research; Margot DesBois, CHD science fellow; and biochemist David Rasnick, Ph.D.
In the book’s afterword, Catherine Austin Fitts, president of Solari, Inc., publisher of the Solari Report, provides insight into the broader implications of this scientific information and encourages readers to pass on this knowledge and resist the future deployment of harmful medical technologies.
The foreword by CHD President Mary Holland, reproduced in full below, previews the book’s contents:
Anyone alive today may be forgiven for experiencing PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) about all things COVID—the lockdowns, the fear-mongering, the masking, the testing, the censorship, the suppression of effective treatments, the coerced experimental gene-based shots, and the pervasive injuries and deaths. After three years of horror, it is only human to want to put this behind us and to forget.
Yet this book makes abundantly clear that we would do so at our own peril. This undeclared war against humanity is not over, and we must arm ourselves with knowledge.
The book’s purpose is to explain what the COVID-19 mRNA vaccine toxicity means for future mRNA vaccines. It outlines three potential mechanisms that likely account for what’s happened: (1) the toxicity of the lipid nanoparticles; (2) the toxicity of the vaccine-induced spike proteins; and (3) the immune system’s response to them.
It concludes that the immune system’s response to the spike proteins is the most significant toxic factor because it both corresponds to the autopsy findings of inflammation and immune system damage and jibes with the theoretical mechanisms of harm.
The book’s conclusion is bleak: “Every future mRNA vaccine will induce our cells to produce its own specific antigen, related to the particular microbe it targets. We must therefore expect each such vaccine to induce immunological damage on a similar scale as we have witnessed with those directed against COVID-19.”
Recognizing that myriad mRNA vaccines are in the pipeline or already on the market—against flu, RSV, HIV, malaria, cancer, allergies, heart disease, to name a few—this knowledge is as chilling as it is critical.
The book warns: “First and foremost, we must accept that we are indeed in our governments’ crosshairs. Instead of relying on their treacherous and malevolent guidance, we must therefore watch out for ourselves and our loved ones—do our own research and seek out honest health advice wherever it may be found, be it inside or outside the established venues of science and of medicine.”
You hold in your hands an indispensable primer. The book is comprehensive, drawing on a wide array of published scientific literature, reasonably short and highly readable—156 pages of text and 20 pages of citations—providing required reading on virology, immunology and toxicology. It has excellent citations, illustrations of viral and immune mechanisms, and stained tissue photographs of those who died from COVID-19 shots.
The chapter on the epidemiology of COVID-19 mRNA vaccine adverse events is illuminating—looking at the vast harms to date. Here we learn that 13 billion COVID vaccine doses have been administered worldwide—almost two doses for each person on the planet. And the US dispensed 650 million doses, causing millions of adverse events.
The types of injuries are remarkable for their breadth—including myocarditis, blood clotting throughout the body and neurological, immunological and reproductive harms. Still, the CDC has the audacity to call the vaccines “safe” and to recommend them for all people 6 months and up on at least an annual basis.
The final chapter by David Rasnick chronicles how AIDS and HIV became the “blueprint for the perversion of medical science” that we continue to live through today. In the 1980s, Dr. Tony Fauci initiated “science by press release,” proclaiming and enforcing an entirely unproven AIDS narrative.
Rasnick cogently explains that the AIDS orthodoxy is false, having never been proven despite 40 years and billions of dollars invested. He writes:
“[A]s incredible as this may sound, there has not been a single scientific study designed or conducted to determine whether or not AIDS—or even HIV—is sexually transmitted. . . .
“Since WWII—but especially in recent decades—the stifling of debate and the persecution of dissenters has become entrenched in virtually every major field of science in the US. It is particularly virulent in the so-called biomedical sciences. . . .
“The conjoining of government, big business and academe which President Eisenhower warned about in 1961 now rules the world. . . . The COVID-19 fraud is the AIDS scam writ large. . . . We are in the middle of a global totalitarian takeover and things are going to get much worse in the months ahead.”
The book’s overall conclusion echoes Rasnick:
“It is not possible to interpret the actions of the authorities as ‘honest mistakes.’ Too much has occurred that points unequivocally to a sinister agenda behind the gene-based COVID-19 vaccines. The rushed approval without necessity, the outright threats and the coercion, the systematic censorship of honest science and the suppression of the truth about the numerous killed or severely injured vaccine victims have all gone on for far too long to permit of any doubts as to intent and purpose.
“Our governments and the national and international administrative bodies are waging an undeclared war on all of us . . . [T]his war has been going on for decades, and we must expect it to continue and to escalate.”
While this well-founded information is both alarming and depressing, knowledge is power. If we come to grips with the reality that past and future harm from mRNA vaccines is both intentional and inevitable, we can protect ourselves and our loved ones.
Forewarned is forearmed. Read this book and keep it close as a reference until we’ve turned the page on this dark chapter in global history.
Margot DesBois is a science and research fellow with Children’s Health Defense.
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The Crusades – colliding narratives
Ashes of Pompeii | June 13, 2026
They say history is written by the victors, but the Crusades offer an interesting historical contrast: a two-century collision that produced not one history, but two parallel, irreconcilable realities. The dates and the battles are identical in both accounts, but the moral axis is entirely flipped.
In the traditional Western narrative, the Crusades are framed as a heroic, if tragic, epic. The First Crusade is a pious pilgrimage; the knights are romanticized figures of chivalry in shining armor, bravely holding the line in a hostile, exotic land. The eventual loss of the Holy Land is mourned as the “fall of Outremer,” a tragic retreat of European civilization. In this telling, the East is often reduced to a passive backdrop, its inhabitants viewed through a lens of mystique or backwardness, mere obstacles to a divine mandate.
But cross the Mediterranean, and the exact same timeline reads like a chronicle of foreign invasion and eventual, hard-won restoration against the barbarous northerners. The dates do not change, but the adjectives do. Here is the history as it is remembered in the Levant… continue
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