On Monday, Nov. 15, the House of Delegates of the Chicago- and Washington, D.C.-based American Medical Association (AMA) adopted a policy committing the association to collaboration with other professional societies in healthcare and “other stakeholders” to combat public health disinformation created and spread by fellow healthcare professionals. It was arguably the first time that the association had taken such a forceful stand in such an area of public interest.
A press release posted to the association’s website began thus: “Given the dangerous spread of public health disinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic, physician, resident, and medical student members of the American Medical Association (AMA) House of Delegates adopted policy today aimed at combatting public health disinformation disseminated by health care professionals. While it was noted during the Special Interim Meeting that a small number of health professionals are using their professional license to validate the disinformation they are spreading, it has seriously undermined public health efforts. These individuals are harming the credibility of health professionals, including physicians, who are trusted sources of information for their patients and the public.”
Further, the press release stated, “Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, some health care professionals have deliberately made false claims about COVID-19 vaccines and how the virus is transmitted, peddled untested treatments and cures, and flouted public health efforts such as masking and vaccinations—posing serious health risks to patients and significantly damaging vaccine confidence across the country. The new policy calls for the AMA to collaborate with relevant health professional societies and other stakeholders to combat public health disinformation disseminated by health professionals in all forms of media and address disinformation that undermines public health initiatives. Under the new policy, the AMA will also study disinformation disseminated by health professionals and its impact on public health and develop a comprehensive strategy to address it,” the press release stated.
And it quoted AMA board member Jesse M. Ehrenfeld, M.D., M.P.H., as stating that “Physicians are among the most trusted source of information and advice for patients and the public at large, which is why it’s so dangerous when a physician or other health care professional spreads disinformation. While disinformation has run rampant during the COVID-19 pandemic, we know unscientific claims are being made about other health conditions and other public health initiatives are being undermined. We are committed to doing everything we can to stop the spread of disinformation and providing accurate, evidence-based information—the lives of our patients and the public depend on it.”
None of the issues involved in that discussion are abstract; indeed, individual cases are erupting in patient care organizations across the U.S. right now.
As CBS’s News’s Caitlin O’Kane reported on Nov. 15, “A doctor has been suspended from treating patients at a Houston hospital for spreading COVID-19 misinformation online and for refusing to treat patients who were vaccinated, a hospital representative said. Dr. Mary Bowden had recently joined the medical staff at Houston Methodist hospital, a representative for Houston Methodist Hospital told CBS News via email, and was suspended before she had ever admitted a patient at the hospital. Bowden is using her social media accounts to express her personal and political opinions about the COVID-19 vaccine and treatments, the representative said, adding that the opinions are ‘harmful to the community, do not reflect reliable medical evidence or the values of Houston Methodist.’”
Also on Nov. 15, The Washington Post’s Andrea Salcedo wrote, “Mary Bowden, an ear, nose and throat doctor at Houston Methodist Hospital, says vaccine mandates are wrong. It’s a sentiment she has tweeted about numerous times this month, even declaring last week that she is ‘shifting my practice’ to focus on treating unvaccinated patients. Bowden has also used her personal Twitter account to promote the anti-parasitic drug ivermectin as a treatment for the coronavirus, despite warnings from public health officials advising people not to take it. But those opinions have come at a professional cost. Bowden, who recently joined the hospital’s medical staff, has been suspended for “spreading dangerous misinformation” and sharing “harmful” personal and political opinions about the coronavirus vaccine and treatments, a hospital spokeswoman told The Washington Post.”
Salcedo quoted spokesperson Patti Muck, who stated in an email that “The physician’s privileges at Houston Methodist have been suspended.” Salcedo added that “Bowden did not immediately respond to messages from The Post late Sunday. But her attorney, Steve Mitby, said his client has treated more than 2,000 covid-19 patients and is ‘not anti-vaccine.’” In an email to The Post, Mitby wrote that, “Like many Americans, Dr. Bowden believes that people should have a choice and believes that all people, regardless of vaccine status, should have access to the same high quality health care.”
And, Salcedo noted, “Earlier this year, more than 150 health-care workers with the Houston Methodist resigned or were terminated for not complying with its vaccine mandate. The Houston-based hospital system said Bowden, who is vaccinated against the coronavirus, has never admitted a patient at the medical center, which has treated more than 25,000 covid patients. The hospital was one of the country’s first to require proof of vaccination.”
As Healthcare Innovation noted in a report on June 13, “In what might prove to be the first in a long series of rulings on whether hospitals and health systems can require their employees to become vaccinated against COVID-19 as a condition of ongoing employment, “A federal judge on Saturday dismissed a lawsuit brought by 117 Houston Methodist staff over the hospital's policy requiring all employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19.”
Houston Methodist stated its case in a series of tweets on Nov. 12, which can be viewed on the organization’s website. The text of the tweet thread read thus: “Dr. Mary Bowden, who recently joined the medical staff at Houston Methodist Hospital, is using her social media accounts to express her personal and political opinions about the COVID-19 vaccine and treatments. These opinions, which are harmful to the community, do not reflect reliable medical evidence or the values of Houston Methodist, where we have treated more than 25,000 COVID-19 inpatients, and where all our employees and physicians are vaccinated to protect our patients. Despite what she has posted, Houston Methodist does not and will never deny care to a patient based on vaccination status. Dr. Bowden, who has never admitted a patient at Houston Methodist Hospital, is spreading dangerous misinformation which is not based in science. Furthermore, Dr. Bowden has told Houston Methodist that she is vaccinated, as required of all physicians who practice at Houston Methodist.”
On another front, though still in Texas, Medscape Medical News’s Alicia Ault reported on Sep. 16 that “The largest nonprofit health system in Texas has secured a temporary restraining order against cardiologist Peter A. McCullough, M.D., M.P.H., a COVID-19 vaccine skeptic who allegedly continued to claim an affiliation with Baylor Scott & White Health months after he entered into a confidential separation agreement in which he agreed to stop mentioning his prior leadership and academic appointments. Baylor was the first institution to cut ties with McCullough, who has promoted the use of therapies seen as unproven for the treatment of COVID-19 and has questioned the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines. Since the Baylor suit, the Texas A&M College of Medicine, and the Texas Christian University (TCU) and University of North Texas Health Science Center (UNTHSC) School of Medicine have both removed McCullough from their faculties.”
As Ault wrote, “Granted by the 191st District Court in Dallas County, Texas, the Baylor restraining order — which is in effect at least until a hearing on the case on September 30 — was sought as part of Baylor Scott & White's breach of contract suit against McCullough, who had previously been known as a well-respected expert in cardiorenal issues. The suit is seeking $1 million in damages, as well as attorneys' fees.” According to the text of the lawsuit, "This ongoing confusion regarding McCullough's affiliations, and whether Plaintiffs support his opinions, is exactly what Plaintiffs bargained to avoid in the Separation Agreement," and is likely to cause "irreparable reputational and business harm that is incapable of remedy by money damages alone.” But one of McCullough’s attorneys, Clinton Mikel, told Ault that all the times the physician was identified in the "thousands of hours of media interviews and countless publications since his departure from Baylor" were "said/printed by a third party with no encouragement from Dr McCullough," and that the doctor "does not and cannot control third parties."
Yet Drs. McCullough and Bowden are far from alone in making public statements that are anti-scientific. On Sep. 29, Christina Szalinski published an article in Scientific American on the physician groups that are promoting ivermectin, a livestock dewormer whose in humans has been focused on treating parasite infestations (but with very different dose levels and a different formulation from the drug used on animals). Szalinski wrote at length about fringe groups including the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC), which continues to promote ivermectin, and America’s Frontline Doctors (AFLDS), which has also loudly promoted hydroxychloroquine.
As Szalinski wrote, “In contrast with ivermectin, the evidence of COVID vaccines’ effectiveness is ‘incredibly compelling,’” Daniel Griffin, a physician and infectious disease researcher at Columbia University and Chief of the Division of Infectious Disease at the company ProHEALTH, “says, and the majority of COVID deaths and hospitalizations are vaccine-preventable. Yet the groups promoting ivermectin do not appear to strongly support the COVID vaccines. The FLCCC says little about them on social media and writes in the current version of its prevention protocol that ivermectin is a ‘safety net’ for those who are not vaccinated (although that protocol adds, ‘Vaccines have shown efficacy in preventing the most severe outcomes of COVID-19’).”
Further, Szalinski wrote, “AFLDS founder Simone Gold, a doctor who was arrested for activities related to her involvement in the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol and is connected to a conservative political group, and Tess Lawrie, director of a company called the Evidence-Based Medicine Consultancy and organizer of the BIRD Group, have even shared vaccine misinformation in videos online. And AFLDS also gives advice on vaccine exemptions on its Web site. Additionally, the AFLDS Web site suggests—without evidence—that there is some nefarious reason that vaccines are heralded while cheap drugs and dietary supplements (such as ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, zinc, vitamins and antibiotics) are not. The FLCCC, too, has alluded to a conspiracy in a tweet: ‘The FDA, the CDC, major media & others hope you’ll believe them when they tell you that [ivermectin] was meant only for animals, & that it’s dangerous to use for [COVID].’”
