THE EARTH IS FLAT, THE MOON IS MADE OF GREEN CHEESE, AND THE VACCINE WILL KILL YOU–PART V: THE WACKOS AND THE CON ARTISTS
“For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.” 1 Timothy 6:10, The Bible, New International Version
“There’s a sucker born every minute.” Most frequently attributed to Phineas Taylor (P.T.) Barnum
“Ladies and gentlemen, attention please/ Come in close so everyone can see/ I got a tale to tell, A listen don’t cost a dime/ And if you believe that we’re gonna get along just fine
Now I’ve been travelin’ all around/ I heard trouble’s come to your town/ Well I’ve got a little somethin’, guaranteed to ease your mind/ It’s call Snake Oil y’all, it’s been around for a long, long time. . .” Snake Oil, by Steve Earle, from the Album Copperhead Road
Some of you might remember from my earlier posts that I said this edition would be devoted to the “Wackos.” In that case, you might be wondering where the whole “Con Artist” thing comes in.
Simple. When you look closely at the disinformation being offered by COVID deniers, one fact is indisputable.
They’re making a hell of a lot of money. And in America, at least, it seems dishonesty not only pays, but it pays really well.
On June 27, 2020, a previously unknown group stood in front of the U.S. Capitol in freshly starched white lab coats and began to blather some of the most incredible anti-science nonsense ever heard. They called themselves “America’s Front Line Doctors.”
Actually, few, if any, could claim to be on the front lines of patient care, but we’ll get to that in a minute.
The whole nature of COVID, with multiple variants and an accompanying chorus of mind-numbing political shouting, is evolving (maybe devolving?) so rapidly that June of 2020 may seem like an eternity ago. But let’s look back in time for just a moment.
COVID’s first wave was slamming the country, and deaths were topping a thousand a day. The President, who’d previously promised that COVID would magically disappear as soon as warm weather hit, was now at war with his closest scientific advisors, touting unproven treatments, and backpedaling rapidly from his previous statements. With an election approaching, rightwing strategists knew full well that a failed pandemic response had the potential to swing the outcome. They needed a Hail Mary.
Just which specific strategist came up with the idea of having a group of anti-government professionals don white coats and participate in the Capitol publicity stunt is unknown. But the intent was clear. Go out and find a group of doctors who would parrot every Donald Trump talking point. Whether any of them had any real experience treating COVID was irrelevant. It was all about the propaganda.
Masks don’t work. Social distancing is unnecessary. COVID really isn’t that bad, and besides, hydroxychloroquine cures it like magic. Tests aren’t accurate, so why do them? Just go about your lives like normal. You have nothing to fear.
You can trust us. After all, we’re America’s Front Line Doctors.
Peel back the cover, though, and “Front Line” actually looks more like just a “Front.”
Some members weren’t actually practicing physicians. Some weren’t even licensed. The group’s leader, Dr. Simone Gold, was actually a part-time emergency room physician in a small California hospital (even though she lived in Beverly Hills). Perhaps in an attempt to bolster her credentials, she later held a press conference in front of the well-known Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles.
The hospital responded by saying that she had worked at their emergency room for a grand total of three weeks in 2015, but otherwise had no contact with the facility, and did not speak for the hospital. They wanted nothing to do with her.
Another noted Frontliner was Stella Immanuel. A Texas pediatrician by training, Immanuel nonetheless claims to have rare and unique skills in adult medicine, particularly Gynecology.
She can diagnose demon possession. Well, short term demon possession in women, anyway. According to Immanuel, such common (and often extremely painful) conditions as endometriosis are actually caused by women having “astral sex” with demons during their sleep (just the thought of that would probably give most women insomnia).
She also had a few things to say about “demon sperm,” but let’s not go into that. If you don’t understand this lady is a wacko by now, there’s no sense in more detail.
Robert Hamilton, a pediatrician from California, was also on the steps. Previously, his major contribution to medicine was the development of what he called “the Hamilton Hold” a “technique” guaranteed to stop babies from crying. You can Google it if you’d like, but it looks for all the world like a chokehold.
James Tadaro hadn’t seen a patient in over 2 years when he stood on the capitol steps. His main occupation, in the meantime, seems to have been promoting Bitcoin.
Daniel Erikson was also there. An owner of an Urgent Care Clinic, he was an early supporter of the “herd immunity” theory that said just ten thousand or so would die from COVID in the United States. Of course, the current number is over 750,000 and counting.
But never mind all of that. The whole Capitol steps promotion was recorded by Breitbart and released online. It didn’t seem to matter that none of the doctors had ever treated a patient with confirmed COVID, much less had any expertise regarding COVID. The posting wound up with millions of views within the first few days.
And what a simple message. Masks don’t work. Social distancing doesn’t work. Take Hydroxychloroquine. Take Zinc. You’ll be fine.
Of course, nothing was said about vaccines at this point, because Donald Trump was touting his “Operation Warp-Speed” program. The Frontliners weren’t about to say anything negative yet. But once Trump was gone, and vaccines were actually being produced, all of that changed. Suddenly vaccines were the enemy, too.
B.S. sells. And now it was time for the Frontliners to cash in. In short order, they started making the rounds among right-wing news outlets. They created a slick website, filled not only with false information, but with plenty of buttons you could click to donate money.
The group embarked on a RV tour to promote their organization. When they came to your town, you could even buy a “VIP” ticket to catch the show.
The asking price? A cool $1000 per ticket. And with Donald Trump out of office, anti-vaccine hysteria moved to the forefront.
That’s right. Just bashing masks and social distancing was now so yesterday.
The problem with promoting a phony cure, of course, is that sooner or later people figure out that it’s phony. Demands for hydroxychloroquine started to diminish (after all, Trump himself had bragged about taking it, only to wind up being choppered to the Bethesda ICU). A new “miracle drug” was needed.
Enter the time-honored drug Invermectin.
Invermectin is a great worm killer. If you’re into public health, you know that parasitic worms devastate much of the developing world. Plus, stopping the spread among animals is essential in modern agriculture.
In 2012, a laboratory study showed that the drug might slow the growth of RNA viruses in laboratory cultures only. To this day, no one has shown that it alters the course of a viral infection in humans. In people, it seems to only work on worms.
And it can be toxic, producing everything from nausea to seizures. At the Oregon Poison Control Center, for example, treatments for Invermectin overdoses have gone up 1000% since it began to be touted as a cure for COVID. In Georgia, 70% of all contacts with the state Poison Control Center involved Invermectin.
But never mind all of that. If you’re going to run a scam, you have to keep feeding it. And no sooner had hydroxychloroquine lost its luster than the Frontliners pivoted to Invermectin.
This insured that the dollars kept rolling in. By this time, the Frontliners weren’t just cashing in on rightwing donations. They were also racking up online medical visits. Go to the America’s Front Line Doctors website, and you could schedule an online consultation, complete with prescriptions by mail.
The cost? Ninety bucks a pop, for consultations only. Drugs were extra.
And the ninety dollars had to be paid upfront, and, then you waited to be contacted. Many patients complained that after paying, they never heard back from the Frontliners.
Does this add up? You bet it does. According to records accessed by The Intercept, the Frontliners have taken in $6.7 million on consultations alone (any donations aside). The dollars going toward unproven medications at Frontliner affiliated online pharmacies check in at another 8.5 million.
Sound like a lot of money? Well, here’s another tidbit. When Simone Gold was arrested for her participation with the rioters who invaded the American Capitol on January 6, she went online to plead for financial help to pay her legal fees. More than $400,000 quickly poured in.
Apparently, being a part of a mob that desecrated and defecated on America’s heart of democracy is no big deal, but silently taking a knee during the National Anthem is a horrible sin. That’s a discussion for another time, but it shows you just how powerful the appeals from hucksters can be. Whether Dr. Gold received inspiration from television evangelists or not, her techniques are certainly the same.
Send me money and you will be saved. Forget what your personal physician says, forget what your local hospital says, just do what I say—and pay me.
But the Frontliners haven’t been the only ones to cash in on bogus COVID cures. Noted conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has shaken down his viewers for millions by promoting colloidal silver gargles. And he certainly isn’t alone. Television evangelist Reverend Jim Bakker (remember him?) will also sell you the same stuff—presumably with God’s blessing. And there’s California Internist Jennings Staley who was indicted for selling “Covid-19 treatment packs” consisting of hydroxychloroquine, antibiotics, Xanax, and (you guessed it) Viagra for $4000 a pop.
This just scratches the surface. There are plenty of scammers out there. They all want your money. And if they have to tell you lies in the process, they don’t really care. Their formula is simple—bash vaccines, bash science, convince you that they have the cure, then sell it to you at an outrageous price.
Tulane Cardiologist Dr. Siyab Panhwar has perhaps said it best. “The whole anti-vax movement is one big multi-level marketing scheme.”
But other wackos are out there, often basking in attention rather than money. Exhibit A is Kentucky Senator and former Ophthalmologist (he lost his certification by the American Board of Ophthalmology in 2005) Rand Paul. Paul has maintained that “natural” immunity from infection is superior to that of vaccination, and since he himself had a mild case early in the pandemic, he (and presumably anyone who tests positive at any point) doesn’t need a vaccination because he’s now “safe.”
Science of course says otherwise. Antibodies wane over time, and vaccines provide additional protection. And as the virus mutates, the entire population needs all the antibody production it can get. Whether you’ve had a mild or severe case in the past, the evidence points to added protection from the vaccine not only for you, but your loved ones, as well.
I will give Paul the benefit of the doubt and assume he understands this, and is promoting his stance purely from his radical anti-government, anti-regulation biases. If not, the other possibility is that he might actually believe what amounts to a junior-high level understanding of science.
If this is the case, he should be glad he’s already a doctor. Because if he were in medical school today, and said something this extraordinarily stupid, he’d probably get himself flunked out in a heartbeat.
The list just keeps going on and on. Dr. Joe Mercola, a long time anti-vaxxer who’s personal fortune is estimated at $100 million, donates to a variety of organizations to discourage vaccinations. He also claims that cancer is really a fungus and baking soda can cure it.
And then there’s Ohio physician Dr. Sherri Tenpenny. She claims to be board-certified in 3 different specialties, although I couldn’t find a single reference to her obtaining full residency training in any field. She’s famous for claiming that vaccinations will make you “magnetic” and that keys and spoons will stick to your forehead. It would be great if this were true, since it would be a cool trick I could use to entertain my grandkids, but as a three-time vaccine recipient, I can tell you from personal experience that this is B.S.
More recently, another wacko arrived on the scene. The Centner Academy in Florida. It calls itself the “Brain School.” Maybe it should change its name to the “Brain Dead School.”
Centner, in its zeal to promote its extremist philosophy, has announced that any child who’s been vaccinated must quarantine for 30 days before returning to class. This is based on the totally dishonest theory that vaccinated children can somehow “infect” others.
There’s nothing to this theory. It’s untrue, disingenuous, and immoral. Its only goal is to discourage vaccination. Go back and read my earlier post on vaccinations if you like. I describe how the vaccine doesn’t even contain the virus. It’s physically impossible for it to infect someone!
But never mind. Apparently, conspiracy theories are more important than children’s lives at Centner.
I’ll wrap up now. Sadly, I’ve only given you a sample of the quacks, scammers, and wackos. Whether based on conspiracy theories, antigovernment hatred, or a perversion of religious faith, they’re out there. And they would love to get their hands on your money.
In a few days, I’ll conclude my thoughts on COVID. We have plenty of other pressing issues that confront our nation, and they all need to be discussed as well. We can do that in later posts.
In the meantime, I can only say that our national response to this deadly epidemic has been nothing short of heartbreaking.
I usually don’t include links to references I use in my posts because I reason that anyone wanting further information can look it up on-line, but today’s post has contained a huge amount of content. For anyone wishing to investigate further, here’s a sample of sources.
Tornado Alley (PROG): How ‘America’s Frontline Doctors’ Sold Access to Bogus (advfn.com)
Faster than warp speed: early attention to COVD-19 by anti-vaccine groups on Facebook (nih.gov)
Covid-19: “Shkreli Awards” go to pandemic’s top profiteers | The BMJ
Health Care Network Made Millions Off Hydroxychloroquine, Ivermectin (theintercept.com)
https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/19/us/doctors-covid-vaccine-misinformation-invs/index.html
https://time.com/6092368/americas-frontline-doctors-covid-19-misinformation/
https://gizmodo.com/who-are-americas-frontline-doctors-the-pro-trump-pro-1844528900