Recently, I listened to very compelling testimony before the Senate Health and Welfare Committee on Senate Bill 1036, which calls for a 10-year pause on vaccines or “any therapy” that uses messenger RNA (mRNA) technology. This technology is currently being used in two COVID vaccines.
The bill is sponsored by Brandon Shippy, R-New Plymouth, and is named for Doug Cameron, a Hammet farmer and rancher who took the vaccine in 2021 and almost immediately developed symptoms of a devastating permanent ascending paralysis that has rendered this rugged individualist dependent on others.
I have met Mr. Cameron and have made a cash contribution to his recovery fund several years ago. I have argued against the mRNA vaccines since they were first developed and deployed. I argued against masks and social distancing as a means of controlling the pandemic.
I have argued in favor of alternative therapies, including the use of hydroxychloroquine, Remdesivir, and Ivermectin. I joined tens of thousands of physicians as a signer on The Greater Barrington Declaration. I argued along with internationally respected physicians like Marty Makary, Jayanta Bhattacharya, Scott Atlas, and Ryan Cole against the mandates and the economic coercions that accompanied COVID policies.
I believe our COVID response at both the national and state levels hurt many more people than it helped, especially school-age children. In Idaho, far more children died from a recent endemic of RSV than they did from COVID. I have recently argued that the state of Idaho needs to do a transparent “COVID Out Brief,” and morbidity and mortality reviews of mistakes made during COVID will be repeated.
Senator Shippey orchestrated an excellent presentation. The side presenting in favor of the bill offered scientific data and presented arguments based on logic. On the other side, the usual group of physicians and providers presented anecdotal evidence, however, I must say that Dr. David Peterman’s presentation was the most logical and clinical-based of anyone’s. Words spoken by a physician who has actually taken care of patients, who has seen complications, and who advises patients should be listened to more than the advice of public health specialists who are years away from taking care of patients at the bedside — i.e., Dr. Fauci.
That all being said, I am absolutely against the bill because it places medical decisions in the hands of politicians and government bureaucrats, and in doing so, it impedes the doctor-patient relationship and the informed consent process that has been central to that relationship since the Hippocratic Oath.
Are we going to compel our legislators to take that oath before passing judgment on the efficacy of various medical therapies and procedures? When physicians push the boundaries of the law — boys are boys, the unborn child is a life, etc. — there is a place for the legal system to intervene precisely because a policy that applies to the group is being inserted into the doctor-patient relationship. Mandates of any kind, no matter how well-intentioned they may be, are wrong. Using laws already in the Idaho Code, like the Medical Practices Act and the Professional Practices Act, should always be the first tool deployed by patients and physicians when defining the “standard of care” or the “standard of medical practice” — two different issues often confused.
Finally, a whole bureaucracy has been created at the federal level to support a public health agenda and narrative. The CDC, NIH, DEA, and Public Health Services are lumbering leviathan bureaucracies that employ thousands of physicians, scientists, and technicians. Are we going to create similar agencies within our state government to help inform our legislators about medical treatments? Do we need a state DEA to redefine the scheduling of drugs?
Policymakers in the medical communities throughout our country made bad decisions about COVID. I hope they take advantage of the opportunities to learn. I think inserting politics into these same types of decisions will only make matters worse. The first thing that politicians do after creating these types of laws is to indemnify themselves from their own bad decisions. Does that make “we the people” safer?
Mandates of any kind that insert themselves into the doctor-patient relationship are wrong and will only create friction between doctors and patients. The further away a decision-maker is from the person impacted by the decision, the less accountability there will be. Mandates separate doctors from their patients.
Conservatives who oppose mandates and Senate Bill 1036 are being attacked as being “squishy” on our commitment to pushing back against COVID policies of the past. Nothing could be more wrong. We are against mandates, especially when they negatively impact the doctor-patient relationship. We were against mandates in 2020, and we are against mandates today. Our position is consistent with our principles.
