McCullough, Høeg, and Makary have questions about myocarditis and we have questions about their connections
McCullough, Høeg, and Makary have questions about myocarditis and we have questions about their connections
Let's explore the trio's far from benign connections, political affiliations, and media control
This week Ron Johnson (R-WI) “2nd Opinion Panel” participant and serially dishonest, Big Pharma grifting Peter McCullough, MD MPH of the Unity Project exchanged tweets with Tracy Høeg, MD PhD of the Urgency of Normal about concerns over pediatric myocarditis and the Covid vaccine. She in turn invoked Glenn Youngkin’s (R-VA) Covid advisor Marty Makary, MD MPH.
Our recent guest contributor Frank Han MD, a pediatric and adult congenital cardiologist, already discussed this issue in his post “It's right to be aware about myocarditis… but not necessary to be frightened of it”. As Dr. Han noted, myocarditis is a rare and near uniformly mild disease, despite their fear mongering. The McCullogh-Høeg-Makary connection is far from benign, however.
The Urgency of Normal’s “Nice White Lady” Political Action
Høeg’s Urgency of Normal is fronted on social media by controversial anti-mask podcaster/physician Vinay Prasad, MD MPH. He interviewed her here in January. Like Simone Gold, MD JD and America’s Frontline Doctors (AFLDS) before her, she is the “nice white lady” face of their political action. Half Danish, even! With “perfect kids”, according to her blog. Her science interpretation is far from perfect, however. She has made erroneous claims like stating RSV was being misdiagnosed as Covid.
Høeg testified in April against California bill AB2098 to classify spread of disinformation as professional misconduct by physicians and surgeons. The bill falls directly in line with the Federation of State Medical Boards’ July 2021 statement and the American Medical Association’s recent commitment to double down on “the public health infodemic” spread by some of our own. Frankly, the AB2098 doesn’t present anything new — disciplining physicians has always been the job of the medical boards and spreading healthcare disinformation for profit is an egregious offense by a licensed medical doctor. The better argument, for another time, is why do we continue to fund boards that fail to act, forcing this sort of legislative pressure?
AB2098 passed out of committee but not before threats of violence were hurled at the physicians and politicians supporting it by the disinformation doctors’ civilian supporters. These threats are being spurred on by the extremist physicians and no amount of faux maternal energy from Gold or mommy blogging from Høeg softens the calls for public hangings of fellow physicians. After all, Gold’s AFLDS colleague Bret Barker DNP is the CEO of ‘Nuremberg 2.0 LTD’, listed in written opposition to AB2098 and Høeg failed to oppose the incendiary language used by her supporters.
Marty Makary and the Press
Prior to serving at Younkin’s Covid adviser in Virginia, Makary was a regular on Fox News and proponent of natural immunity. He wrote extensively in “mainstream media” as well, including a February 2021 Wall Street Journal piece claiming Covid would go away by April of last year that was compared to Trump’s claims that Covid would disappear by Easter 2020. Time proved both men wrong. He wrote again in the WSJ in August 2021, calling masking children “abusive” and regurgitating debunked claims that masking does not reduce the spread of covid also peddled by Urgency of Normal’s Prasad.
How many times does one person, a president or a doctor, have to be wrong before we stop giving them a platform to spread misinformation? After the death and destruction caused by delta, omicron, and low vaccination rates due to physician-induced hysteria, why is Makary still an authority to appeal to for Høeg? Because we continue to allow bad doctors to pair with Trump-backed politicians in mutually beneficial relationships that further the GOP anti-public health crusade. Makary undersold the severity of Covid in kids and now oversells the fear of myocarditis as this imbalance serves this agenda. He has a history of contradicting himself on things like vaccine safety. In January 2020 he claimed in The Washington Post:
“I believe the vaccine is safe and strongly recommend that we vaccinate all Americans, but doing so is not a requirement to achieve herd immunity”
In addition to his work with Younkin, Marty Makary is the former editor-in-chief at MedPage Today, where I have written about Johnson’s relationship with fellow disinformation doctors Gold and Kory. In a less corrupt public health landscape, perhaps reading his former outlet’s publication “Ron Johnson and the Covid Disinformation Pipeline” would allow Makary to hold a mirror up to his own actions — and allies.
The disinformation doctors are a small group. By failing to appropriately discipline physicians, our medical boards have allowed them to gain disproportionate control of the vaccine narrative, politics, and the media. Their narrative has fallen apart scientifically long ago and we are watching acts of face-saving and politically-aligned desperation. They are at risk of losing their licenses and livelihoods but have been given ample warning by the governing bodies in medicine that misinformation spreading would carry consequences. The AMA’s latest messaging signals that the fun may finally be over for the contrarians. At this point, the concern this trio is expressing over myocarditis can only be described as a contrived and strategic effort of the group to appeal to power to save them. In reality, both medicine and politics are overdue for a wave of accountability.