“Doctors who just say, ‘Well, it’s not my job to stand up to him,’ I think they’re abdicating their role, their professional responsibility to hold one another accountable.” – Michael Patmas M.D.
Should physicians remain silent if they hear misinformation?
In an article by Catherine Offord that appeared in The Scientist (February 19, 2022), it was reported that Robert Malone M.D., a physician who has traveled around the country making brash statements about COVID-19 immunizations, has gotten a dose of his own medicine.
Malone holds an active license in Maryland but these days he likes to spread misinformation about the virus. Most recently, Malone popped-up at an anti-vaxxer rally in Maui (Hawaii).
Enter Michael Patmas
Physician Michael Patmas, M.D. is the medical director at Maui Health and after a speech by Malone at one of the rallies, “[Malone] filed a complaint with the Maryland Board of Physicians late last year after Malone…[who] spread misinformation about the pandemic…opposing vaccine mandates.”
Of his reporting Malone, Patmas said “he felt a moral duty to notify the board because he thought Malone’s conduct in Maui and more generally violated guidance issued last summer by the Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB), a nationwide nonprofit that supports state boards on licensing and regulation, about generating and spreading COVID-19 misinformation.”
So, after Patmas reported Malone, Malone decided to take his complaint to his social media Twitter following, hundreds and thousands of anti-vaxxers worldwide, plus sympathetic media personalities like popular podcaster Joe Rogan. The offended Malone not only mentioned Patmas by name, but his workplace, because that is what offended anti-vaxxers do. Malone has also threatened Patmas with legal action.
Said Patmas (italics are mine):
“Retaliation for a complaint—if that’s allowed to stand, then other physicians are going to be reluctant to hold one another accountable…you’re going to let doctors get away with bad things. It’s unethical, and it’s morally wrong.”
The sentiment among the medical community is that retaliation for a complaint is very troubling. Even more puzzling was that the Maryland medical board “has decided to close its investigation without any further action on the complaint Patmas filed last year. The board didn’t provide an explanation for the decision.”
Allegedly, medical boards are quite restrained in censuring any physicians, even if misinformation has been spread. Ethically, I have a major problem with this practice.
Malone, what are you thinking?
As for Patmas, he has at least facts on his side. More than 1,300 Hawaiian residents have died of COVID-19. Malone, on the other hand, has made claims he helped developed the mRNA vaccines (an over-inflated claim) and apparently, he has a habit of threatening those who don’t agree with his positions. Though Maui has a high vaccination rate, local officials note that after Malone spoke to the local populace about his ideas on COVID, the COVID cases (which had been low) began to spike.
The complaint by Patmas to the State of Maryland in regard to Malone triggered an “anonymous complaint” to the Hawaii Medical Board about Patmas. It was Malone slinging mud of his own, claiming
This back and forth, and the offended, child-like reaction by Malone and his followers to a complaint against the spread of misinformation, opens a much larger issue.
Exactly, why aren’t state medical boards trying to enforce and expand rules on the spread of misinformation and claims that bear no validity? A pandemic is bad enough and, in this case, fatal enough, without having a physician advising people that COVID is a lie, vaccines are dangerous and unapproved medications can easily eradicate the disease.
A segment of the populace may be naïve enough to believe that what a physician tells them is true, but why should a state board look the other way? Is it because they are secretly in agreement with him, or because they are too wimpish to take a stand a save lives?
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