CHICAGO — Revolution MacInnes believes that disinformation about COVID-19 killed his father.
In recent years, MacInnes’ dad began subscribing to conspiracy theories. His father spent a lot of time on Facebook, and believed posts that claimed COVID-19 vaccines were harmful and lining the pockets of government officials, MacInnes said. He believes his father may have been mentally ill, and the conspiracy theories helped him feel engaged.
His dad refused to get vaccinated. In late January, the Oswego man began having trouble breathing. Within a few days, he was in the hospital with COVID-19. Soon after, he had a heart attack, his lung collapsed, and he was on a ventilator, MacInnes said.
He died Feb. 8 at the age of 76.
“The reason he didn’t get vaccinated is because he had been told a series of things around the dangers of vaccines,” said MacInnes, 55 of Chicago, who described his dad as one of his closest friends. “He was seeing all this nonsense.”
False information about COVID-19 has proliferated throughout the pandemic, and now a number of groups and states are grappling with how to handle misinformation spread by one unlikely group in particular: doctors. Though the vast majority of doctors are in agreement that COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective, some physicians and physician groups are saying the opposite, often on social media sites such as those frequented by MacInnes’ dad. About two-thirds of state medical boards across the country have reported an increase in complaints related to doctors spreading false or misleading information, according to the Federation of State Medical Boards.
Some say doctors who spread misinformation about COVID-19 should lose their medical licenses while others are pushing to prohibit punishments against them.
The Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation released a notice in November saying that doctors can face disciplinary action for failing to give advice or treatment in line with evidence-based medicine and standards of care. That includes giving patients exemptions from wearing masks when there’s no medical need, and prescribing ivermectin for COVID-19, the department said. It’s also encouraging anyone who hears Illinois doctors spreading misinformation about COVID-19 to file a complaint with the department.
Other states are taking the opposite approach. The Federation of State Medical Boards is now tracking 28 bills in 15 states that would prohibit discipline against doctors who prescribe certain nonapproved treatments for COVID-19 or spread misinformation.
A bill in Florida, for example, would prohibit discipline against any health care practitioner “for exercising his or her constitutional right of free speech, including, but not limited to, speech through the use of a social media platform,” unless it can be proved “beyond a reasonable doubt” that the speech physically harmed a patient of that provider. Bills in Iowa and Indiana would prohibit disciplining doctors for prescribing ivermectin and/or hydroxychloroquine. Tennessee and North Dakota have already passed similar bills, and their governors have signed them into law.
Ivermectin is a drug used to treat people with infections caused by some parasitic worms, but it is not approved for the treatment of COVID-19, as it has not yet been shown to be safe or effective, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Hydroxychloroquine is a malaria medication that received emergency use authorization to treat COVID-19 in 2020, but the FDA later revoked that authorization because the drug was not found to be effective against COVID-19 and the FDA determined its benefits did not outweigh the risks, including potential heart rhythm problems.
“The risks are low and the potential gains are high,” Rep. Curt Nisly said of ivermectin, in a statement. Nisley is the lawmaker sponsoring the Indiana bill. “Hoosiers should be able to care for their health safely and effectively.”
But the federation, which represents medical boards across the country, and many other doctors find such bills troubling.
“We see the effects of patients coming in unvaccinated and the unnecessary suffering and death that is caused by the conspiracy theories and disinformation that is being spread by this small number of very vocal physicians who are far outside of the medical consensus but causing a great deal of harm to a population who is mostly confused,” said Dr. Nick Sawyer, a California ER doctor and executive director of No License for Disinformation, a group pushing for physicians who spread false information to be disciplined.
“What they’ve done is they have co-opted the trust that the public places in physicians,” Sawyer said.
‘An unconscionable violation of physician trust’
It’s unclear how many physicians may be warning against vaccines, or prescribing nonapproved treatments in the privacy of their own offices. But several groups of doctors — including America’s Frontline Doctors and the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance — have been advocating the use of certain nonapproved treatments on social media and/or questioning the safety of COVID-19 vaccines.
In late November, America’s Frontline Doctors posted on Facebook that COVID-19 vaccines increase the risk of heart attacks by more than twofold, and that vaccinated adults under age 60 in England were more likely to die than those who were unvaccinated. Facebook tagged both of those posts with warnings either saying they were false or referring people to Facebook’s COVID-19 information center for facts about COVID-19 and vaccines.
Some individual doctors have also gained prominence in recent months for their stances. About a dozen influential anti-vaxxers — including Chicago-born and trained physician Dr. Joseph Mercola — were responsible for nearly two-thirds of anti-vaccine content on social media, according to a report released by the Center for Countering Digital Hate last year.
In response to increasing misinformation about COVID-19 spread by doctors, the Federation of State Medical Boards released a statement in July saying that physicians who spread misinformation or disinformation about COVID-19 vaccines risk having their medical licenses suspended or revoked. At least 15 states, including Illinois, followed suit, publishing their own statements on the issue. The federation has no power over state medical boards but is a nonprofit organization that represents state medical boards, which deal with matters involving physician discipline.
The Chicago-based American Medical Association also adopted a policy in November aimed at combating disinformation spread by health care professionals.
“My experience is people trust me with their most valuable possessions, their health and the health of their loved ones, and to deliberately mislead them with inaccuracy, that’s an unconscionable violation of physician trust,” said Dr. Gerald Harmon, president of the American Medical Association.
How much discipline is enough?
Exactly how to deal with those doctors, however, remains a topic of discussion even among those who agree that what they’re doing is wrong.
At least a dozen state medical boards had disciplined medical professionals for spreading false information, as of this past fall, according to the federation.
Some, however, say that number is not nearly high enough.
“Medical boards are supposed to enforce provisions in state medical practice acts, and they’ve failed to do that,” said Sawyer, with No License for Disinformation. “They’ve failed to protect the public from these dangerous disinformation doctors, and that has now metastasized into this issue where you have a large number of disinformed people who believe in the conspiracy theories.”
Harmon, with the American Medical Association, said: “I’m encouraged that some action is being taken. I’m not satisfied that we have enough action at this point or we have not reached a point where misinformation seems to have been reduced.”
It’s possible that more disciplinary action hasn’t been taken because investigations into complaints, and the due process for the doctors involved, can take time, said Lisa Robin, chief advocacy officer for the Federation of State Medical Boards. It’s difficult to know how many states may be now investigating complaints because many medical boards don’t publicly confirm investigations.
Boards can take a number of actions against doctors who spread misinformation about COVID-19, depending on their state laws and rules. Actions can range from simply sending the doctor a warning letter to suspension or revocation of a doctor’s medical license.
A statement issued by the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation in November said that it is a violation of state law to engage “in dishonorable, unethical, or unprofessional conduct of a character likely to deceive, defraud or harm the public.” The department said it was aware of licensed health care professionals “providing misinformation regarding COVID-19 mitigations and treatment.”
The department, however, at this point, has not taken any public disciplinary action against doctors in Illinois for spreading COVID-19 misinformation, spokesman Chris Slaby said in an statement. He noted that complaints and investigations are confidential until the department takes an enforcement action or publicly disciplines a person. He did not answer questions about how many complaints, if any, the department has received.
MacInnes, whose father died of COVID-19 earlier this month, would like to see doctors who spread false information about COVID-19 and vaccines online punished severely. The misinformation his dad saw online likely came from a number of sources, said MacInnes, who owns a media production company and hosts livestream shows. But false information that comes from doctors is especially dangerous, given that they’re not average people, he said. They’re supposed to be experts.
“They need to lose their licenses, and they need to do jail time,” MacInnes said. “If you go against science and you’re a doctor, my opinion is you don’t get to be a doctor.”
