Topic: WorldNetDaily
Medical misinformer Elizabeth Lee Vliet wrote in her Oct. 25 WorldNetDaily column:
In a shocking departure from traditional hospital policies, admission to a hospital has become like reporting to prison. Prisoners in America's jails have more visitation rights than do COVID patients in America's hospitals.
One family member, a professional psychologist with a career focus treating victims of trauma, said that in many hospitals COVID patients are treated "little better than animals."
Shocking recordings of Mayo Clinic-Scottsdale and Banner Health System hospital executives have been released by an attorney on the Legal Advisory Council of Truth for Health Foundation, an Arizona public charity. Executives were discussing coordinated efforts to restrict fluids and nutrition for hospitalized COVID patients and to suppress all visitations for COVID patients.
The COVID Protocol hospital physicians must follow, in lockstep across the U.S., appears to be the implementation of the 2009-2010 "Complete Lives System" developed by Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel for rationing medical care for people older than 50.
Weirdly, Vliet doesn't actually quote anything from these purported "shocking recordings" -- let alone that there's any link to the right-wing bogeyman that is the "Complete Lives System" -- nor does she provide a direct link to them at the Truth for Health Foundation; she simply links to the group's home page, where it's not even highlighted. Also, Vliet hides the fact that the "Complete Lives System" is about allocation of scarce medical resources, not routine medical care. We don't know what is on those recordings since Vliet would rather fearmonger than offer facts, but the discussions may actually be referring to triage, a situation that governs how medical resources are allocated when dealing with a large number of patients... such as emergency rooms and intensive care units being swamped by COVID patients.
You'd think a doctor like Vliet would know the difference. Apparently not.
Vliet's description of the Truth for Health Foundation as "an Arizona public charity" also sticks out like a sore thumb. But one has to go down pastd the end of her column to read her bio to understand why:
Dr. Vliet is the President and CEO of Truth for Health Foundation, a 501(c)(3) public charity, and the creator of the Foundation's innovative six initiatives that advocate for early outpatient COVID treatment, assist families of hospitalized patients denied effective treatment, defend medical freedom, and provide international educational and training programs focused on effective strategies for COVID and on the interconnections of health, faith and lifestyle approaches for restoring resilience and quality of life.
If that sounds like her foundation is more about politicizing COVID with dubious medicine, you're correct. A list of the people involved in it is a rogue's gallery of dubious docs:
- The chief medical adviser is Peter McCullough, a rogue doctor whose COVID misinformation WND loves to spread.
- The chief scientific adviser is Michael Yeadon, a former Pfizer scientist who has become a right-wing anti-vaxxer hero by spreading misinformation about COVID vaccines.
- The "Director of Evidence-Based Medicine and Research Methodology" is Paul Alexander, who is best known for piushing a highly risky herd immunity strategy while as a Trump White House appointee.
- The "Surgery and Family Medicine Advisor" is Dierdre Byrne, whom we've noted is a pro-Trump nun and ex-surgeon who thinks people should refuse to take COVID vaccines because they were developed using fetal tissue descended from an abortion (something even the anti-abortion Charlotte Lozier Institute disputes).
Vliet went on to melodramatically write:
The heartbreaking story of Veronica Wolski, a well-known Chicago Freedom advocate, was widely publicized. Once hospitalized in ironically named Resurrection Hospital, Veronica was given Remdesivir, which she had repeatedly refused, denied proper basic medical care that could have been lifesaving, and was not allowed access to her family, priest, or health care power of attorney. Veronica was blocked from leaving the hospital when she and her attorneys demanded release. Her health care power of attorney was removed by hospital security. Veronica died alone as a medical prisoner in a Catholic hospital, denied even a priest at the end of her life.
Wolski was a QAnon supporter and anti-vaxxer who also opposed wearing masks. when she inevitably came down with COVID, she demanded to be treated with ivermectin, which the hospital refused to do. Ivermectin has not been approved for treating COVID, no matter how right-wingers like Vliet toss around dubious studies purporting to show its efficacy, and Vliet is apparently so ignorant that she doesn't understand that remdesivir is basic and potentially lifesaving treatment for COVID. Wolski was not a "medical prisoner"; she lived her life in a way that this sort of death was sadly inevitable.
Vliet then tried to manufacture a conspiracy around remdesivir:
Patients are coerced to take rapidly approved drugs like Remdesivir, in spite of known risks of kidney and liver failure, and to be placed on ventilators, both of which bring in incentive payments and create huge profits for hospitals.
As we noted when fellow misinformer Joel Hirschhorn peddled a similar conspiracy theory, remdesivir is not killing people, and patients must undergo kidney and liver tests prior to treatment to make sure it is safe for them.
And WND wonders why nobody trusts them.
