“It was as if the world had gone mad, and everything we had discussed was forgotten. The cases became too many and the political pressure got too strong . . . In the same way that all drugs have side effects, measures against a pandemic also have negative effects. At an authority like ours, which works with a broad spectrum of public health issues, it is natural to take these aspects into account.”
—Anders Tegnell, Sweden’s epidemiologist, June 2020
This blog was modified slightly on 10/19/21. I was informed that the blog seemed to indicate my approval of taking away a doctor's license when he/she offers an opinion that verges from what I others believe to be true, something that has personally happened to me and something i oppose vigorously. All doctors, as all people, have a right to discuss issues in a civil way, and to express opinions. However, where that changes is when doctors use their positions of authority to promote or implement policies that have ramifications antithetical to their Hippocratic oath of doing no harm. Discussing an issue and implementing policy are very different entities; the former must always be encouraged in a democratic society, the latter must be met with different standards, just as someone who instigates an attack an abortion clinic would be viewed differently than someone who express his/her disdain for abortion.
Sorry for the length of this blog, but I promise the next one will be shorter and funnier! This one is important as to who we are as a nation. So, yea, that’s why it's long. And believe me, I think doctors and anyone else can have various opinions about masking, immunization, and other issues related to COVID. But, just as doctors who refuse to wear masks in their offices, or who break rules they believe are not ethical related to COVID regulations, have lost their license during this COVID mess, so too should doctors who force kids to wear masks, or force them to be vaccinated, despite a complete lack of evidence that such measures will help anyone, and despite concerns that such measures may harm those kids who are being forced by doctors to have questionable treatments, be similarly have their license reviewed. It is against the Hippocratic oath to cause harm. And thus, since we are in the business of stripping doctors of their licenses for breaking policies that they believe are not ethical, so too should be consider doing the same to doctors who clearly break their Hippocratic oath for political expediency.
The other day my car was totaled by a teenage driver wearing a mask. I jumped out of the car and screamed, “What the He** is that kid doing driving with a mask!?!” To which his father said, “Please, it’s not the mask,” to which I said, “Then you son is one horrible driver.”
But how do we know it’s not the mask? Are we so sure that masking kids hours every day in school, during activities, when they gather, in cars and in parks for God’s sake, are we sure that it’s safe? How about immunizing kids, is that safe? Are those measures effective in protecting people from dying of COVID? Was the mask the kid was wearing when he destroyed my car really helping him, and could it have been harming him?
It is of course the obligation of doctors to know such things, or at least to make every medical attempt to know. We wouldn’t tell a bunch of kids to take a pill for a disease that rarely hurts then and for which the pill has never been proven to help when we’re not sure if the pill hurts them. Any doctor who suggests such a thing, let alone those who would mandate taking that pill, is breaking his or her Hippocratic oath of do no harm. He/she is turning his/her back on science and humane thinking and pursuing a dogmatic course for reasons that may be completely nonmedical, perhaps even political or based on going with the flow.
Such thinking harkens to dark days gone by, when doctors in this nation believed—by virtue of a mainstream science that they took for granted—that certain races were inferior to others and must be kept out of the country and restricted in whom they could marry, that it was ethical and even necessary to sterilize the handicapped and other “inferior” people for the good of society (and the Supreme Court agreed), that it was OK to inject unknowing African Americans with syphilis so we could learn about the disease’s progression, that we could perform hysterectomies on women without their consent. Even as liberal doctors cry foul as Texas wants to eliminate abortion (“We’re pro-choice and women have a right control their own bodies”), they demand that kids be masked and immunized lest they can’t go to school, partake in sports, travel, or live their lives, OFTEN AGAINST THEIR CHOICE AND WHAT THEY WANT TO DO WITH THEIR BODIES. And they don’t seem to care if such measures are harmful; that word’s not in their vocabulary when it comes to the medical measures they deem appropriate to inflict upon people against their “choice.” It’s a grand experiment, an exercise in dogmatic speculation, and a stab in the back to the Hippocratic oath and the ethos of pro-choice.
Masks have developed a symbolic sanctity among those who adhere to their efficacy; they have transcended anything medical or scientific and become like a Freudian Totem, a sacred symbol of their tribe that none can dare threaten. The other day a group of my patients gathered with us for a meeting, and one of them said how much she enjoyed reading Three Brothers from Virginia. Another asked, “What do you think of the Geriatrics Vengeance Club?” This very pleasant and complimentary patient then scowled, and right in front of me said, “Oh, I hated that book, couldn’t get through it at all!” The book has been well reviewed but not well received, mostly because liberals disdain that it dares question the myth of the mask and the god-like status of Anthony Fauci. Thus, I am challenging the liberal totem when I even bring up the issue of masking kids.
So, let’s start with a fact, which I know too is antithetical to the keepers of Faucist faith. KIDS AND YOUNG ADULTS RARELY DIE FROM COVID. It’s a fact! 320 deaths in a year out of 60 million people under the age of 20 puts COVID somewhere near infected toenails as a cause of death. And for this we are subjecting our kids to an untested vaccine, untested masking, physical and psychological trauma, and incessant fearmongering that will likely leave scars on them for the rest of their lives?
Here’s another fact. More kids die every year of car accidents (4000 kids, or 20/100,000), gunshots (3000 kids, or 15/100,000), drug overdoses (2000 kids, or 10/100,000) and suicide (7000 kids, or 25/100,000) than almost anything else; far more than that are seriously injured too. Compare that to the 300 COVID deaths in 2020 (1/200,000) and compare it to 2017 when 2000 kids died of flu and our medical and political community didn’t bat an eye; no masks, forced flu shots, school closings, hysteria. And guess what. Because we are putting our kids in a torture chamber to protect them from a disease that is one of the least harmful things they’ll face this year, because we are exposing them to risks by relying on untested and potentially harmful treatments, more kids will die of drug overdoses and suicides than ever, more will be depressed, more will fall into poverty. We are killing and maiming our kids in a feckless and unnecessary effort to help them from something unlikely to harm them, and that’s without considering the likely deleterious effects of masks and vaccinations.
So, for those not married to their totem, it should be abundantly clear that masks and vaccinations won’t help kids and young adults because so few of them get very ill or die from COVID. Plus, we already know that in schools requiring masks, kids are getting COVID as much as unmasked kids. Those are facts. Masking won’t make any substantial positive difference.
What’s the harm of vaccination? Of course, our CDC and science President and mask zealots don’t delve into such minor issues as adverse reactions. A recent article has described the risk/benefit of giving kids a vaccine: there’s no proven benefit and there is potential risk, and thus they urge caution. I personally know of two college-age kids who developed severe pericarditis from the vaccine; one was a soccer player who now can’t walk across the room without shortness of breath. And this for a vaccine that won’t help them but that they are being forced to take, a vaccine endorsed by doctors and medical societies who somehow have forgotten their Hippocratic Oath and are acting more like eugenicists and participants in the Tuskegee Syphilis experiment than as doctors. When I say I’m strongly opposed to vaccinating young people, my liberal friends (the few I have left) and family members think I’m wrong. Some call me an anti-vaxer, even though nearly 100% of my patients are vaccinated as am I. But that’s how it is today; you’re either in line with the dogma completely, or you’re labeled anti-science. Vinay Prasad wrote a great article about the binary thinking that has emerged from COVID, where science eschews experimentation, discussion, measured thinking. As Sweden’s now ousted health minister said in the quote above, some degree of understanding the harms of what our mandates are doing.
A recent report of VAERS data—albeit by a conservative news source that likely will be taken down soon for daring to report such data—shows that about 70 people are dying of the vaccine EVERY DAY and that many more are suffering serious injury. Again, our doctors are forcing kids to take this vaccine, despite the fact it has no benefit to them and no proven benefit in terms of curbing overall COVID societal death, well knowing that it could harm or kill them. How are they not losing their licenses ? They are medically negligent at the very least!
So, what about masks? President Biden said in his speech that the use of masks was proven science in schools, much like improved ventilation systems, although, sorry to say, neither has been shown to reduce death or injury from COVID. And of course our science President didn’t mention possible adverse effects of mandated masking. I did write an op-ed after I heard his speech that pointed these facts out, but alas it was not published, as well as a testimony I prepared for the State House in my state of Maryland regarding compulsory mask use.
Masks won't help kids and young adults as I explained above. Whatever you may think of masks, whatever science you’ve somehow convinced yourself proves that masks reduce death in COVID, is irrelevant. When 300 kids die of something, and when kids are catching that disease despite masks, then the chance of masks reducing any deaths in kids is essentially zero. Sorry, that’s just a fact. Masking kids is like giving all 60 million of them chemotherapy because a few might get cancer. The Science President may say, “It’s proven science that kids get cancer and chemotherapy cures cancer, so we will mandate chemotherapy for anyone in school,” never mentioning side effects or the small number of kids who die of cancer (which is far more than those who die of COVID) or whether his chemotherapy cocktail will even help those kids. It’s medically absurd and negligent. But that’s what Biden and our medical and educational community are doing. How can doctors allow that, let alone endorse it?
What about the harms of masks? A wonderful article that was more of a health hypothesis than a conclusive piece collected available data about the risks of mask use; just a perusal of the references will give you a sense of how dangerous masks can be, and by the way, I’ve looked at the sources all and they’re legit. I say that because the article has been redacted, which means removed from the literature. This was done not because it was scientifically invalid, but rather out of censorship, something that I did confirm but which I can’t further discuss due to the risk it may pose to the article’s author.
As someone who has developed asthma and panic attacks from wearing a mask hours every day for a year and a half, I do believe that there are repercussions to forcing kids to wear them, and until we prove that they are safe (since we already know they won’t save any lives of young people), then how can we in good conscience force them on our kids? It’s child abuse at best, medical and societal filicide at worst. Asthma, panic attacks, anxiety, inability to concentrate, fear, increased risk of pneumonia, carbon dioxide retention, oxygen deprivation, dizziness, fatigue weakness; these are all possible ramifications of long-term mask use in kids. COVID goes right through a mask, but kids keep rebreathing stale air, and they suffocate and can be harmed.
I am a student at University of Maryland. The President, who requires vaccination and masks, wrote an email extolling the scientific benefit of masking without showing any evidence, only hearsay. And never does he consider the adverse repercussions of masking and immunizing a campus of youths whose risk of harm from COVID is nil. This is higher education? The University, Pfizer, Biden; none of them are liable for complications of mandatory vaccination or universal mask mandates; that’s the law. These measures are literally another step in the direction of the kind of snake-oil medical science that has plagued our medical society for eons, the same medical science that berated interracial marriage as being harmful, castrated the handicapped, curbed immigration of “inferior” races like Jews, Italians, and Chinese; and was adapted by Hitler as justification for the Final Solution.
Science is not about compulsion, not about dogma, not about censorship. As doctors, we have to understand the risks and benefits of everything we endorse, and if we are forcing people to take actions that we know won’t help them and which may well cause them harm, then we should not have the right to maintain our medical licenses. Masking kids and young adults falls into that category; it is unethical and against the Hippocratic oath. Doctors who discuss this, who debate it, who study it; that is all part of the scientific process. But doctors who implement policies to force kids to mask and vaccinate, that's an entirely different beast, because they are replacing science with compulsion, discussion with mandates, compassion with potential harm. Masks and vaccinations for kids are medically negligent. It’s time to demask our kids and defrock our doctors who are forcing them down this very precarious road.