Will ‘Dr. Disinformation’ ever face the music?
Earlier this month, Dr. Rashid Buttar posted on Twitter that COVID-19 “was a planned operation” and shared an article alleging that most people who got the COVID-19 vaccine would be dead by 2025.
His statement is a recent example in what has been a steady stream of spurious claims surrounding the COVID-19 vaccines and treatments that swirl around the public consciousness. Others include testimony in June by Dr. Sherri Jane Tenpenny before Ohio state legislators that the vaccine could cause people to become magnetized.
Clips from the hearing went viral on the internet. On April 9, 2020, Dr. Joseph Mercola posted a video titled “Could hydrogen peroxide treat coronavirus?” which was shared more than 4,600 times. In the video, Mercola said inhaling hydrogen peroxide through a nebulizer could prevent or cure COVID-19.
These physicians are identified as members of the “Disinformation Dozen,” a group of top superspreaders of COVID-19 vaccine misinformation on social media, according to a 2021 report by the nonprofit Center for Countering Digital Hate. The report, based on an analysis of anti-vaccine content on social media platforms, found that 12 people were responsible for 65% of it. The group is composed of physicians, anti-vaccine activists and people known for promoting alternative medicine.
The physician voices are of particular concern because their medical credentials lend credence to their unproven, often dangerous pronouncements. All three continue to hold medical licenses and have not faced consequences for their covid-related statements.
But leaders of professional medical organizations increasingly are calling for that to change and urging medical oversight boards to take more aggressive action.
In July, the Federation of State Medical Boards, the national umbrella organization for the statebased boards, issued a statement making clear that doctors who generate and spread COVID-19 misinformation could be subject to disciplinary action, including the suspension or revocation of their licenses. The American Board of Family Medicine, American Board of Internal Medicine and American Board of Pediatrics issued a joint statement Sept. 9 in support of the state boards’ position, warning that “such unethical or unprofessional conduct may prompt their respective Board to take action that could put their certification at risk.”
And the superspreaders identified by the center’s report are not alone. KHN identified 20 other doctors who have made false or misleading claims about COVID-19 by combing through published fact checks and other news coverage.
For example, at an
Indiana school board meeting in August, Dr.
Dan Stock claimed the surge in COVID-19 cases this summer was due to “antibody mediated viral enhancement” from people receiving COVID-19 vaccines. Politifact rated his claim “Pants on Fire” false.
Dr. Stella Immanuel, a member of a group
America’s Frontline Doctors, which has consistently made false statements about COVID-19, said in a video that went viral in July 2020 that masks weren’t needed because the coronavirus could be cured by hydroxychloroquine. Immanuel’s website currently promotes a set of vitamins, as well as hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin, as COVID-19 treatments.
Two of the doctors mentioned by name in this article responded to requests for comment. Mercola offered documents to rebut criticisms of his hydrogen peroxide COVID-19 treatment and took issue with the center’s “Disinformation Dozen” report methodology. Buttar defended his positions, saying via email that “the science is clear and anyone who contests it, has a suspect agenda at best and/ or lacks a moral compass.” He also pointed to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Vaccine Adverse Event
Recording System, considered inconclusive by many experts.
Since the onset of the pandemic, misinformation has been widespread on social media platforms.
And many experts blame it for undermining efforts to curb the coronavirus’s spread. A recent poll showed that more than 50% of Americans who won’t get vaccinated cited conspiracy theories as their reasons — for example, saying the vaccines cause infertility or alter DNA.
Some physicians have gained notoriety by embracing COVIDrelated fringe ideas, quack treatments and falsehoods via social media, conservative talk shows and
even in person with patients. Whether promoting the use of ivermectin, an antiparasitic drug for animals, or a mix of vitamins to treat COVID-19, doctors’ words can be especially powerful. Public opinion polls consistently show that Americans have high trust in doctors.
“There is a sense of credibility that comes with being a doctor,” said Rachel Moran, a researcher who studies COVID-19 misinformation at the University of Washington. “There is also a sense they have access to insider info that we don’t. This is a very confusing time, and it can seem that if anyone knows what I should be doing in this situation, it’s a doctor.”