Investigation reveals lack of consequences for doctors spreading COVID misinformation

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• Amna Nawaz:

  What happens when, in the middle of a pandemic, doctors spread misinformation, potentially endangering people's lives?

  William Brangham spoke recently with a reporter who set out to answer that very question.

• William Brangham:

  A new investigation from The Washington Post reveals how doctors who pushed medical misinformation, particularly about dangerous alleged COVID remedies, faced few, if any, repercussions.

  One of the lead reporters on that investigation was Lena Sun. She covers health and infectious diseases for The Post, and joins us now.

  Lena Sun, welcome back to the "NewsHour."

• Lena Sun, The Washington Post:

  Thank you. Nice to be here.

• William Brangham:

  You looked at complaints against doctors in all 50 states, and from the starting of the pandemic until just recently.

  Before we get into what you found, can you tell us, what are these doctors alleged to have been doing?

• Lena Sun:

  It covers the range, but many of the doctors that we looked into that actually were disciplined were prescribing ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine.

  Those are two treatments that are shown to be not effective for treating COVID-19. But they, of course, gained a lot of popularity during the pandemic because they were pushed by former President Trump and his allies. So that was the prescription side.

  But then there were other physicians who were spreading false and misleading statements about vaccines and masks and treatments, saying things like equating the COVID vaccine to needle rape or…

• William Brangham:

  Needle rape?

• Lena Sun:

  Needle rape, yes. And that was one Idaho pathologist who is under investigation in Washington state.

  Or saying that ivermectin, if you take it, it's up to 90 percent effective in getting rid of the disease. These are blatantly untrue. And — but what happened is that they would fill the vacuum out there on social media. A lot of people wanted to know — remember, during the pandemic, there was a lot of confusion.

  A lot of people latched on to these conspiracy theories, these ideas, and they would march into the hospital E.R.s demanding these medications.

• William Brangham:

  Were their actual harms that came from these untruths and prescriptions?

• Lena Sun:

  I think what the disciplinary documents show us is that some doctors would prescribe these unproven treatments to people and then, days later, the person died.

  Now, they died. Whether that was a direct linkage, or if it was that they were going to die from other causes, it's not that clear, but we do know that they were prescribed this medication, and then they died. And then you have to think about the delayed opportunity cost, right?

  So if I am prescribing you some quack medicine, and that prevents you from going to get a vaccine or antiviral that could actually prevent you from getting serious disease or dying, well, you know, you figure it out.

  The reason this is so important is that, for the American public, doctors are the people who are most trusted, have the greatest credibility. And for those doctors to go out there and spread this misinformation is a huge disservice and harm.

• William Brangham:

  So, you examined what happened to so many of these doctors where complaints were alleged. What did you find overall?

• Lena Sun:

  Well, we surveyed all 50 state medical boards, asked for their records. It was a very long process. And we found that there were — nobody really monitors complaints about COVID misinformation or misleading statements about vaccines and masks.

  But we were able to get about — at least 480 COVID misinformation-related complaints of — and then we looked at the disciplinary records and showed that at least 20 doctors nationally were sanctioned in some way.

• William Brangham:

  It seems like a very small fraction.

• Lena Sun:

  It's a very small fraction, because the 480 is not the entire universe, right? This is just what we were able to find.

  A lot of states don't monitor, or, even if they do, they're not going to share it with us. So, it's a drop in the bucket, I think. And then, of those 20, five doctors lost their licenses. Only one had his license revoked, which is the ultimate penalty.

• William Brangham:

  And how do you explain that?

• Lena Sun:

  The agencies that regulate doctors in this country — there's over a million licensed physicians in the United States, and they're regulated by state medical boards.

  Each one is different. They're covered under different state medical practices acts in their states. And they are traditionally, historically, underfunded, underresourced. They have to be the ones who give you the license in the first place. They have to do all these other mundane tasks.

  They don't have time to monitor social media. And, in most cases, the complaint process only starts if you — if there's a complaint filed. So, somebody has to file a complaint. And then, finally, these boards are made up of doctors and maybe public members.

  And doctors are loath to tread on the right of a physician to do what he or she thinks is in their best medical judgment.

• William Brangham:

  Right, because it is not "illegal" — quote, unquote — to off-label prescribe something.

• Lena Sun:

  Right. Off-label is something that doctors do all the time. And that's their right. That's their medical judgment.

  But what we have here is doctors prescribing medications that are way outside medical consensus. It's not like, OK, this might work. It's — and this was done after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug administration expressly warned against doing this because of potential harm.

• William Brangham:

  Your reporting also shows that not only are these oversight boards overtaxed and have a myriad set of different rules governing them, but, also, some states are taking specific steps to make it harder for them to do their job, specifically about this issue.

• Lena Sun:

  Exactly.

  So, already, you have these state medical boards that are underfunded, underresourced. They have their hands tied, right? Then you have state legislatures or attorneys general who say, oh, you know what? You guys, you don't have the authority to discipline any doctors if they're prescribing ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine.

• William Brangham:

  Those drugs specifically?

• Lena Sun:

  Yes, those specifically.

• William Brangham:

  Lena Sun of The Washington Post, really a tremendous investigation.

  Thank you.

• Lena Sun:

  Thank you.