It\u2019s always a coup when an anti-vaccination organization can convince a physician to join their ranks. They act like it provides a thin veneer of legitimacy to their pseudoscientific cause. This was recently the case with an anti-vaccination organization in Ohio (my home state.) They recruited the former medical director of the Cleveland Clinic Wellness Institute. You may remember his infamous article in the Cleveland Plain Dealer in January 2017. In it, he goes on about a \u201ctoxic soup\u201d we live in and how vaccines largely contribute to it. At one point, he mentions autism but says, \u201cI won\u2019t debate that here.\u201d He then goes on to do just that. For a few hours, his letter had the Cleveland Clinic\u2019s logo on it (long since removed). But the body of the letter remains. It\u2019s an online pilgrimage site for anti-vaxxers everywhere.<\/p>\n
This physician no longer has a leadership position at the Cleveland Clinic or any that I can tell. He went quiet after issuing a statement in support of vaccination when his article drew widespread condemnation. Aside from his little-known attendance of an Ohio anti-vaccination pseudoscience fair in May, he stayed out the headlines the rest of his 2017.<\/p>\n
Then, in January 2018, he broke his silence. He popped up as a keynote speaker for the anti-vaccination group for a rally at Ohio\u2019s statehouse, eschewing his desire for \u201cdialogue\u201d in favor of a full embrace of their anti-vaccination position. I\u2019ll spend the next few paragraphs discussing his speech. You\u2019re welcome to view it for yourself<\/a>\u00a0(and get a feel for the group above\u2019s technical skills; I attribute any misquotes below to the video quality or lack thereof).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n This physician covers a lot of ground in his 15 minutes. He starts by referring to his time at the Cleveland Clinic and says, \u201cLike most medical providers, I was bought and sold by pharma,\u201d after bemoaning being trained to \u201cidentify a disease state and treat it with I guess that didn\u2019t bother him too much though; he worked there for 20 years. He discusses the fallout from his controversial article. \u201cAs soon as I hit a nerve that impacted my healthcare organization financially, all hell broke loose \u2026 One week after the article came out, I was relieved of my administrative duties. I was allowed to continue to practice clinically, but essentially, my career at the Cleveland Clinic was over.\u201d<\/p>\n Next, he launches into an eight-point anti-vaccine rant that, to observers of this Ohio anti-vaccination organization\u2019s social media, could have been ripped from their Facebook comment section. It isn\u2019t anything other anti-vaccination groups aren\u2019t hawking. One point this physician seems particularly passionate about is informed consent surrounding vaccines. Despite this passion, he isn\u2019t terribly versed in it, of his own admission. He describes his typical practice to provide vaccine information sheets (VIS) to patients\/parents after vaccines are administered. He is quick to infer that this is common in medicine. However, this isn\u2019t common in medicine. Providing a VIS to patients\/parents prior to vaccination is the standard of care. Any resident in a primary care specialty can tell you that. His failure to obtain informed consent is not a reflection of primary care as a whole.<\/p>\n He continues discussing informed consent, going so far as to liken patients to victims of the Holocaust. Dr. David Gorski does an excellent job debunking this worn-out anti-vax trope in his\u00a0own article<\/a> about this physician\u2019s speech.<\/p>\n This doctor then bemoans employer flu-shot requirements. “It\u2019s an incredibly slippery slope!\u201d He wonders aloud if work will mandate Pap smears and digital rectal examinations for employees. Somebody should remind him that interventions that prevent disease outbreaks in the workplace aren\u2019t quite the same as those that are meant to screen for cancer.<\/p>\n He reminds his listeners that physicians take the Hippocratic Oath. Rattling off the Latin like a pro, he says the oath starts with \u201c\u2018primum non nocere,\u2019 \u2018first do no harm.\u2019\u201d However, those of us who took the oath might remember that those words aren\u2019t explicitly part of the oath. This isn\u2019t to say they aren\u2019t a pillar of medical ethics; they are. It\u2019s just another example of this physician failing to get his facts straight.<\/p>\n His speech climaxes with \u201cwe must push to uncover truths in our vaccines \u2026 the real safety and efficacy data. Not the ones big pharma or the government wants us to see.\u201d Houston, we have lift off \u2014 unless he also thinks the moon landing was fake too. Welcome to the club. The tin foil hats are by the refreshments.<\/p>\n He ends with a \u201cplease don\u2019t feel sorry for me.\u201d Don\u2019t worry \u2014 we don\u2019t. He\u2019s starting his own private practice. It sounds like it\u2019s going to be cash only; I don\u2019t expect insurance to cover the \u201cmedical treatments\u201d described\u00a0on their website.<\/p>\n New patient visits are $400, and there\u2019s no on-call service. Despite a self-professed mission to care for his patients, this doctor\u2019s practice seems to be modeled to care for his lifestyle.<\/p>\n His partner, trained in obstetrics and gynecology, purports to have found a cure for autism. That information can be yours for a nominal fee! Forget sharing it with the world when, instead, you can get rich preying on unwitting patients and families.<\/p>\n Their website includes a link to a \u201csupplement store.\u201d What an entrepreneurial way to increase the business\u2019 cash flow! Having accused the Cleveland Clinic of protecting its bottom line, this physician appears to be padding his.<\/p>\n No longer \u201cbought and sold by pharma,\u201d he\u2019s sold himself to pseudoscience and alternative medicine. This doctor would have us see him as a martyr. Instead, he\u2019s just a guy trying to make a buck, to the possible detriment of the health of his community. Instead of \u201cprimum non nocere,\u201d he\u2019s embraced \u201ccash est rex.\u201d<\/p>\n It would seem that this doctor seeks to aid an organization whose goal is to put the life and health of Ohio children, my patients included, at risk. It\u2019s up to those of us who practice evidence-based medicine to advocate for our patients and protect them from such providers and the anti-vaccination groups they stump for.<\/p>\n Sean Gallagher is a pediatric resident. \u00a0<\/em>He can be reached on Twitter\u00a0@TheKidKidDoc\u200b<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n
\nmedication.\u201d<\/p>\n