The Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB) issued a statement in April 2022,1 advocating for legislation that would discipline and potentially place a doctor’s medical license at risk for sharing research information with their patients or prescribing medications approved by the FDA.
A physician’s medical license is regulated by the state medical board in each state. Until March 2020, physicians had some latitude in prescribing medications and treatment. Ultimately, analysis was made on whether the patients receive safe care, which generally is judged on the expected outcome and the actual outcome.
That all changed when the medical establishment geared up to face an unknown virus that the public was told could kill millions.2 Some doctors waited for the AMA, CDC and public experts to tell them how to treat patients. Others, like Drs. Paul Marik, Vladamir Zelenko (who passed away in June 2022) and Pierre Kory began using medications such as hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin, which the FDA approved for other conditions.
Patients began successfully recovering without hospitalization, which made the medical establishment sit up and take notice — but not in a good way. The FDA warned that doctors were inappropriately prescribing medications used as horse dewormers that would kill patients.3 4
The newest recommendations by the FSMB propose that medical boards and state legislators take the added step of broadly disciplining all doctors who step outside the established standard of care for COVID-19, which has fared far worse than the treatments developed by the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance,5 Zelenko6 and others.
The Defender7 reported that the FSMB has taken a stand against what the FSMB calls the “dissemination of COVID-19 vaccine misinformation.” In a press release published July 29, 2021,8 the FSMB warned physicians could face “disciplinary action by state medical boards, including the suspension or revocation of their medical license.” Most telling is the next statement:
“They also have an ethical and professional responsibility to practice medicine in the best interests of their patients and must share information that is factual, scientifically grounded and consensus-driven for the betterment of public health.”
While physicians who are speaking honestly about the vaccine science are labeled “misinformers” and may face disciplinary action, the “consensus” would never be a consensus of physicians treating patients, but of those powerful few who have assumed the role of oversight and whose focus is political policy and future agenda, not patient care.
Lest you think this recommendation has no teeth, California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk that would punish doctors who share “misinformation” on COVID-19 vaccinations and treatments with their patients.9
While the decision to remove the license of a doctor found to violate the law would be up the state medical board, the law itself would still align with the FSMB’s goals, as detailed in a statement issued in April 2022,10 which advocates for laws nationwide that would discipline and punish doctors by state medical boards:
“… adopting a specific policy on misinformation is encouraged in light of the increased prevalence of, and harm caused by, physician-disseminated misinformation in this ongoing pandemic.”
Following the press release in July 2021, the American Board of Internal Medicine and the American Board of Family Medicine issued a joint statement11 in which they supported the FSMB’s position and warned doctors certified by their boards that spreading misinformation could prompt the board to revoke their certification.
Although that press release did not define misinformation or disinformation, the lengthier document released in April 2022 began with a strong statement that “Truthful and accurate information is central to the provision of quality medical care … Honesty, truthfulness and transparency are virtues that society expects of all health professionals.”
Unfortunately for society, it is apparent that the FSMB has defined vaccine truth by its own standards and those standards do not include the transparent information provided by the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS),12 which is regulated and administered by the CDC and the FDA.13
Since the standard of truth is not accurate, the definition may be fluid and could change as the FSMB, AMA or other national health organizations see fit. As The Defender14 writes, critics of the FSMB’s aggressive misinformation and disinformation policy recommendations wonder where the FSMB derives its authority.
The FSMB is the self-proclaimed “voice for state medical boards.”15 The organization began in 1912 as an annual gathering of state board executive officers. They had no headquarters or permanent staff and have since grown in power and number,16 in part by offering a range of services to state osteopathic and medical boards, including policy documents and credentialing services.
In May 1994, the FSMB collaborated with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to create another medical authority, the International Association of Medical Regulatory Authorities (IAMRA). In other words, it was the collaboration of two U.S.-based organizations that spawned an international medical regulatory agency.
In August 2022, a psychiatrist from New Zealand, Dr. Emanuel Garcia, voiced concern about Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine in a paper published in Global Research. In it, Garcia concluded:17
“In casting an eye over the years since the dramatic introduction of the COVID pandemic, the near total shutdown of the world, the immense transfer of wealth from the middle and poorer classes upwards, the universal imposition of an inadequately tested so-called vaccine, and the vehement suppression of critical early treatment, one cannot but conclude that there is indeed an agenda beyond health and welfare.
The FSMB and the IAMRA have shown by their actions that they are tools whose task is to further this agenda, and that this agenda is both anti-medical and inhumane.”
The Defender also points to historical evidence published in MedPage Today18 demonstrating that Big Pharma has been funneling money to the FSMB for documentation that opioid analgesics are safe. The FSMB wrote and distributed a book to 700,000 practicing doctors with guidelines for a model policy to treat patients with chronic pain using opioid analgesics.
The book production and distribution were funded in part by Purdue Pharmaceuticals. The second edition was published in July 2012, which included CME activity.19 The recent activities have prompted scientists and doctors to ask many questions, some of which were shared by Dr. Meryl Nass, who is a biological warfare epidemiologist and internist.
Her medical license was suspended in January 2022 for “spreading misinformation.” She believes there are many questions that the FSMB’s actions have raised, and outlined several in an email to The Defender:20
- Why would a nonprofit with no regulatory authority suddenly decide it was important to trash the First Amendment, the Nuremberg Code and other legal doctrines to push for punishing doctors who fail to tell the government’s story and use COVID-19 treatments the government doesn’t want used?
- Why is the FSMB monitoring the states and collecting information in their attempts to investigate and/or punish doctors for doing their duty to act as learned intermediaries to their patients?
- Why did the American Board of Internal Medicine, the American Board of Family Medicine, the American Medical Association and the American Association of Pediatrics push identical policies in lockstep in mid-2021 that would destroy physician autonomy, when physicians are, one would think, their clients?
- Why did the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists push for experimental vaccinations during all trimesters of pregnancy?
Limiting your access to information controls what you see and hear and therefore what you think and how you act. Disguised by an organizational name that elicits feelings of protection, the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) spends most of the time doing exactly the opposite.
The founder and current CEO of the organization, Imran Ahmed,21 started the group in Britain and currently lives in Washington, D.C., where he has influential access to some of the most influential think tanks and politicians in the country.
His focus has turned to censoring information he labels “misinformation,” however he defines it. I’m featured on his anti-vaxx misinformation page as a charismatic pied-piper leading people down a dark path to destruction since, according to his logic, most people cannot read and think for themselves.
The CCDH, and Ahmed in particular,22 are praising new California legislation that reportedly will protect children’s safety online. Newsom signed this legislation into law September 15, 2022.23 It imposes strict criteria on websites that children are likely to view. It is being promoted as a thorn in the side of Big Tech as it establishes how companies can collect and use personal data for children.
CNN used the example of prohibiting tracking children’s geolocation and requiring websites to default to the highest privacy protection when children are using the website. Nicole Gill is the executive director of Accountable Tech, which has been highly critical of large Tech platforms. She told CNN business:24
“This new law will upend the status quo and take real steps to stop pervasive surveillance, profiling, and manipulation of kids online. It also will serve as a transformative model for other states and countries, so that every child is protected from Big Tech’s abuse and exploitation — not just those in California.”
The law also changes the expectation for businesses, which previously only required action when the business had “actual knowledge” that children were using the website and the new law requires protection when children are “likely” to access the service.
While interesting in theory, in practice it likely means that websites will be forced to scan all user faces to determine age — which in and of itself is a different form of “tracking” you and invading your privacy. This necessarily would have to happen with each use since most family computers are shared by children and adults.
Biometric scanned data for all children and adults could be stored and saved by websites and Big Tech, which gives these entities greater access and greater control than they have now.
CCDH is also highly supportive of the U.K. Online Safety Bill,25 which is another peg planned in the removal of free speech. This bill has come under fire from civil rights organizations that recognize it gives unprecedented censorship power to the Secretary of State and the Office of Communications with limited parliamentary or judicial oversight.
The Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), a free market think tank founded in 1955, calls The Online Safety Bill “unsafe.”26 Among other things it outlines the broad scope of powers the bill gives, which raises significant issues for free speech, privacy and innovation. It is telling that two powerful pieces of legislation that will ultimately censor speech and negatively impact your privacy are supported and promoted by the CCDH.
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Federation of State Medical Boards, April 2022
Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance, Protocols
Vladamir Zelenko, Zelenko Protocols
The Defender, September 14, 2022
New York Times August 29, 2022
ABIM Foundation, September 8, 2021
The Defender, September 14, 2022, last para section 1
Global Research, August 22, 2022
MedPage Today, February 19, 2012
North Carolina Medical Board, July 31, 2012
The Defender, September 14, 2022
Center for Countering Digital Hate, About
CNN Business, September 15, 2022
CNN Business, September 15, 2022
