I Will Continue to Piss Off Men

For reasons that are beyond my ability to comprehend, both Aaron Rodgers and Paul Thacker are still talking their nonsense with a level of confidence neither deserve and that can generally only be found in white dudes.

After an error-ridden attempt at a hit piece on me, Thacker continues to run his mouth, claiming I am a “fake” physician. His latest big scoop is that an organization called the National Association of Medical Doctors republished my open letter to Aaron Rodgers from 2021. I do not know anything about this organization and they never contacted me about reposting the letter. But according to Thacker, for whom everything is a conspiracy, this “fake physician group” is further proof of my fakeness and gives more credence to his claims that I am not to be trusted.

I originally published the letter on KevinMD, which is tied to MedPage Today, so it also appears there (I also published an oped about Ron Johnson there and have been mentioned a few times in other pieces — including one about Nuremberg 2.0 threats, something I started receiving after my open letter). The title of the letter, “To Aaron Rodgers, From a Physician and Packers Fan” was chosen by the blog publishing the letter, not me. I previously discussed my meeting the AMA’s definition of a physician and Thacker’s hypocrisy in not holding his unlicensed physician Brownstone Institute colleague Dr. Jay Bhattacharya to the same standard to which he holds me.

In light of the “fake doctor” allegations, I would like to add that I wrote the letter as a recent graduate of the medical school that had awarded Rodgers an honorary doctorate in 2018 for his “commitment to end childhood cancer,” hoping to encourage him to reestablish his relationship with medical experts and listen to people who are not Joe Rogan.

I had seen the anger created by misinformation over COVID-19 as a medical student — I had an elderly male patient once shout at me that I was a “liberal pawn of the CDC” for saying hydroxychloroquine, pushed by Trump, did not work for the virus — and obviously had my own personal experience with a troubled family member falling into internet radicalization. So Rogan/Rodgers’s comments on vaccines and promotion of ivermectin, pushed by our Sen. Ron Johnson, going into the Omicron BA.1 winter made me nervous.

I mistakenly thought Rodgers’ past involvement with the medical community meant he cared about others and with some thoughtful redirection — my letter was intentionally very patient, understanding, and kind — he could be a hero for public health at a crucial time in my home state where he was still beloved.

Obviously that’s not what happened and I cringe a bit at my 2021 naiveté (you are welcome to do so as well). I’m not exactly the doe-eyed idealist today that I was then given the response I got, which was just an overwhelming amount of hate, and how much I’ve learned about how deep and international this mess goes.

Every male scientist and doctor colleague I’ve networked with since has said they would have strongly recommended against my speaking out the way I did in the post-Gamergate era. Immediately after publishing my letter and doing a short local news appearance, I started receiving an onslaught of threats. At what was likely the height of the COVID-19 anti-vax movement, these included death threats, sexual violence threats, pictures of nooses and guns, claims I would hang at Nuremberg 2.0, assurance people could find where I lived, and promises to make my life a living hell.

One thing that people don’t understand about internet hate like this is that it very easily can go offline — in addition to public threats, direct messages, and emails, I’ve gotten voicemails on my personal cell phone, and eventually had someone show up at my apartment. And it impacts mental health. I couldn’t eat or sleep, felt really paranoid, and started having debilitating panic attacks. A few weeks after the letter I went to the emergency room for one for the first (but not last) time.

The fear was compounded by a feeling of total isolation. There wasn’t anyone who could really help stop what was happening and people in my real life couldn’t understand what I was going through. Some people I would have expected more compassion from dismissed my situation as just dumb internet drama and that really hurt when I needed support.

As I heard from my friends in the hospitals struggling through the deadly winter of ‘21/’22, I watched Rogan, Johnson, and the January 2022 Defeat the Mandates rally in D.C. host dishonest doctors fueling the paranoia that led to the out of control hate I was receiving. My radicalized, dying alcoholic mother joined in on the hate. I rage cried a lot and didn’t leave bed often.

In her Science-Based Medicine feature “Voices in the Vacuum,” Dr. Natalia Solenkova, who has been targeted by anti-vaxxers online and by Rogan, discussed the tragic case of a young female physician in Austria who took her own life after being targeted by anti-vax conspiracy theorists. In her final interview, Dr. Lisa-Maria Kellermayr said, “What has happened to me can happen to any citizen who is not well known or is not well connected.”

I think about her a lot.

I wanted to turn my feelings of desperation about a topic I had a personal connection to into some form of action to combat this sort of hate, but it’s been a really uphill battle. And not just because I was new, had to find my voice, and figure out through trial and error how to do this effectively. Thanks to the internet, this out of control anti-vax movement is a global problem and thanks to its embrace by far-right politics it is well-funded.

And thanks to a whole lot of pandemic apathy, it is neglected, leaving people like me on their own.

So yes, I am angry. I’m fucking furious and I’ve been emotionally depleted, running on the fumes of my own spite, for quite a while. It’s so easy to stick the crazy woman label on someone without trying to understand how she got there.

Furthermore, I am held to a much higher standard of professionalism than those who have erred far worse on far larger platforms and I think that is absolute bullshit.

In Thacker’s latest piece, he gets commentary on me from former MedPage Today Editor-In-Chief turned Media Matters’ 2021 #2 most frequent “dishonest” doctor appearing on Fox News. Makary, who famously published a February 2021 Wall Street Journal oped claiming we would have COVID-19 herd immunity by April 2021, finds my “fake” doctor story “disturbing,” which is how I would describe Makary’s pandemic turn into a right-wing darling and also the targeted hate I and too many others, particularly women, have received recently.

Makary is also a member of the Norfolk Group made for the GOP-led House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic alongside unlicensed physician Bhattacharya and non-epidemiologist Dr. Tracy Beth Hoeg. Hoeg, who received her MD from the same place that granted me my medical degree and Rodgers his honorary doctorate, provided some really condescending commentary in Thacker’s first piece on me.

I’ve discussed my disgust with the women physicians and the weaponization of white womanhood of this right-wing movement previously. I’ve also discussed the issues with Hoeg’s as well as Makary’s work before (see here, here, here, and here) so you can’t accuse me of ad hominem attacks. But I don’t have to pretend to respect people I don’t.

Still, if it makes you feel more comfortable to hear critiques of them from men, here are some videos:

The reality is that while I had some growing pains in figuring out how to do this, I’ve become very good at it because I have worked myself to death, have sacrificed a lot, have pushed through some real hell, and have maintained my emotional honesty. That is threatening. So weak-ass men like Thacker have to try to tear me down and I just refuse to give them the satisfaction.

My 2021 criticism of Rodgers as a spreader of misinformation has aged pretty well on account of how Aaron has not. He’s in the headlines again for saying the U.S. government created HIV, which is old Soviet propaganda from before I was born. But Rodgers is too dumb to realize it and far too proud to admit he was wrong and that he was lied to. He is a case study in the self-destructive capability of male hubris and the internet.

Meanwhile, I’m doing just fine, thanks for asking.

Some day the dishonest real doctors — mostly men and a few bad women — will have to apologize for the societal damage they have done and I look forward to watching. In the meantime, I will continue to speak out and work with others in this ignored and thankless vacuum to help make it less ignored.

I will continue to piss off men, and I’m not sorry about that at all.