“I’m certain that all of the MAGA/MAHA/RFK/anti-vaxx kooks, like Drs Bhattacharya, Makary, Prasad & Oz, will hit the keynote circuit & will be welcomed with open arms.”
MAHA and MAGA have been a juvenile soap opera since their start, with middle-school drama all around. Those of us who understood the internal contradictions between MAHA and MAGA as well as the cranks leading these movements, knew it was always going to end badly for those involved. However, the wheels are coming off even faster than I could have imagined.
The FDA leadership has already been purged, and with the midterms over and investigations on the way, MAHA and MAGA have devolved into a cesspool of bitter, public accusations and recriminations. No one trusts anyone over there, and those of us on the outside are happy to grab the popcorn and let them fight. It would be endlessly entertaining if the stakes weren’t so high.
However, the MAHA/MAGA crack-up is also an opportunity to contemplate what might be next for the disinformation doctors who enabled it all.
Dr. Gavin Yamey, the Director of the Center for Policy Impact in Global Health at Duke University, recently expressed his thoughts on the matter. Dr. Yamey has been a fearless advocate for public health and a steadfast opponent of disinformation. If he’s said anything that’s not fully aligned with us here at SBM, I have yet to discover it. However, he recently made a prediction and suggestion that is worth discussing.
His prediction was this:
I’m certain that all of the MAGA/MAHA/RFK/anti-vaxx kooks, like Drs Bhattacharya, Makary, Prasad & Oz, will hit the keynote circuit & will be welcomed with open arms.
We have some data about this already, and I am not sure the situation is so dire. Since his inglorious exit from the FDA, Dr. Vinay Prasad has limited himself to softball interviews with cranks like Alex Berenson, disgraced science-communicator Dr. Zubin Damania (aka ZDoggMD), and pro-MAHA disinformation outlets such Reason. While there, Dr. Prasad has continued to try to relive his pandemic glory days, droning on about Fauci and claiming the COVID vaccine killed kids using his familiar “trust me, bro” as evidence. Unfortunately for him, these issues don’t have the same juice they once did. Dr. Prasad is the one who can’t take off his mask and let the pandemic go.
I am unsure if his disappearance from other speaking engagements is because he’s received no invitations or because he’s too cowardly to answer tough questions about his COVID disinformation and abdominal job performance. Either way, it’s nice that his career as a medical influencer is sunsetting, though he should have been a pariah long ago.
Dr. Marty Makary has been even quieter since his inglorious exit from the FDA. However, he recently joined the MAHA/MAGA circular firing squad, saying in an interview:
A lot of pressure from White House and HHS aides was not on medical cures or healthy food but instead on getting more vapes approved and catering to lobbyists. Americans don’t want their kids smoking strawberry banana vapes — they want a government that stands up to corruption. Every time I saw government corruption, I rejected it, just as voters did last week.
Dr. Makary is not wrong about this corruption, though he neglected to mention that he was a key enabler of it with his relentless MAHA/MAGA boosterism. He also neglected to mention that rather than rejecting corporate influence, he promoted untested AI wellness devices, and his last act as FDA commissioner was to approve “Classic Menthol, Fresh Menthol, Gold, and Sapphire” vaping products.
Dr. Makary had been previously invited to speak to the American College of Surgeons about “Four Challenges Facing Healthcare”. Unfortunately, they ignored my advice to honestly inform the audience of his abdominal history. According to a summary of his speech, as Dr. Yamey feared, Dr. Makary drew “strong applause” for saying:
The real battle is not between left versus right. It’s between people who are lying to you and people who are trying to tell you the truth.
That’s true but banal. However, from COVID to Kennedy and Trump, it’s hard to think of someone who lied to the public more than Dr. Makary. It’s deeply disappointing that doctors applauded a serial fabricator like him, especially considering his dishonesty continued at FDA. One can only hope they were blissfully ignorant of his atrocious track record, and the medical community shouldn’t make that mistake again.
“IMHO they should be shunned.”
Dr. Yamey’s suggestion with regards to MAHA/MAGA doctors was this:
IMHO they should be shunned.
I obviously understand that sentiment, but don’t entirely agree with it. I don’t think MAHA/MAGA doctors should be allowed to slink away into obscurity. Rather, I think they should be widely platformed, providing the only purpose is to hold them accountable for their COVID disinformation, their dismal performance in office, and the failure of the entire MAHA/MAGA regime they enabled. MAHA/MAGA doctors should be politely, but relentlessly reminded of their words and actions anytime they engage with the public. Selections from my YouTube channel should be played before their every lecture and podcast appearance. They deserve to have their words follow them for the rest of their careers.
They are not owed a safe space, and Dr. Yamey explained why:
They took an oath to “first do no harm” yet aided & abetted the dismantling of science & public health
He’s absolutely right, and MAHA/MAGA doctors still have a valuable contribution to make. They can serve as cautionary tales about what happens when medical professionals prioritize their political agenda and personal aggrandizement over science and medicine. It’s up to us to make sure this happens.