Topic: Newsmax
One would think that if you are moved to put a disclaimer on a column, you should be thinking twice about publishing that column in the first place. But Newsmax does anyway, publishing columns it has to point out were "authored by a non-clinician" with surprising regularity, presumably to escape liability for publishing medical misinformation and falsehoods. We've looked at a few from 2022 already, but it's time to compile some more.
Noted misinformer Mark Schulte -- who loves to toss around a blizzard of numbers to make his misinformation seem more credible -- earned yet another tag through spending a Aug. 3 column raging at monkeypox -- which actually got the double disclaimer that "The following article has been authored by a non-clinician and should not be interpreted in any way as the dispensing of medical advice":
But in a world with 8 billion people and 22,485 cases, the infection rate is an infinitesimal 3 per 1 million.
Moreover, 12 of the world's 14 most populous countries (excluding America and Brazil), have a combined 4.5 billion people, or 56% of humanity. They have a total of 200< monkeypox cases, or 1 per 22.5 million, according to the CDC as of Aug. 1.
They are: China, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Russia, Mexico, Japan, Ethiopia, Philippines and Egypt.
Finally, Americans should stay informed and use their own judgment in reviewing polls, and that includes polls on the subject of monkeypox. Dissecting monkeypox information, or information on other matters of health, should always be done calmly, and not with hysterics.
An Aug. 24 column by Ziva Dahl complained that the American Medical Association is trying to fight racial bias and discrimination in health care:
The traditionally conservative medical establishment has bought into the spurious claim that our health care system is "systemically racist" — that institutionalized racism is responsible for racial disparities in the demographics of the medical profession and in healthcare outcomes for people of color.
[...]
The medical profession has abandoned rational thought in favor of intolerant racist dogma in a misbegotten effort to right past wrongs, insisting that giving preference to people of color is a form of reparations for white racism and must be institutionalized across the medical field.
Common sense says that patients of all ethnicities will suffer.
The public’s trust in medical institutions, which has already fallen during the coronavirus pandemic, will decline as will the quality of medical care.
Jeff Crouere huffed in an Oct. 17 column:
Among 38,818 COVID tests conducted in their 8.000 stores across the country last week, the group of Americans with the lowest positivity rate for the virus was the unvaccinated.
How can this be?
President Biden and Dr. Fauci repeatedly claimed that COVID was a "pandemic of the unvaccinated."
They used this warning to scare people into taking the vaccine.
[...]
These results clearly show that COVID is a virus impacting those who have been vaccinated more than those who are unvaccinated.
It has become a pandemic of the vaccinated.
An Oct. 24 column by Horace Cooper complained that YouTube bans people for spreading medical misinformation:
Ask Dan Bongino.
Bongino, host of the popular Fox News show "Unfiltered," was unceremoniously banned from YouTube last January.
His crime was telling his audience that the use of masks lacked scientific consensus as a valid means of stopping the spread of COVID-19.
Now the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has put out guidance in the last couple weeks announcing that masking is largely optional — even in hospitals and nursing homes. If you check, the CDC’s YouTube’s page is still working.
There are caveats to the CDC's guidance, but Cooper didn't mention that.
A Nov. 4 column by Crouere offered an armchair diagnosis of President Biden:
Crouere was back for a Dec. 6 column dangerously claiming that exposure to COVID is better than getting a vaccine against it:What is it going to take for the 25th Amendment to be utilized and for President Joe Biden to be removed from office? He is 79 years old and is suffering from significant mental incapacities. Biden needs rest, medical care, and treatment for his condition.
Due to his mental incompetence, Biden has been controlled by members of his administration and pushed in a far-left direction that has been disastrous to our nation. The report card for the first 21 months of his administration is a catastrophe. His grade is an F-, as nothing he has attempted has succeeded.
[...]
The Biden impeachment needs to happen. If Republicans refuse to do the right thing and give Biden a pass, at the very least, they should demand that he submit to a mental competency test.
Biden has not released the results of any mental competency test to the American people since he assumed the presidency. This test is crucial because almost every Biden speech is littered with gaffes and humiliating mistakes.
There is no question that COVID has taken a tremendous toll on people from across the world. At least 650 million have been sickened and over 6.6 million have died from the deadly virus.
However, the best way to deal with COVID is through building up antibodies by exposure to the virus and effective treatment.
The best response is not forced measures such as mandatory vaccines, quarantines, lockdowns and mass testing. Fortunately, the unconstitutional lockdowns are over in this country, while they are still being used to torment citizens in the communist dictatorship of China.
Newsmax also put the "non-clinician" tag on a Dec. 7 column by John Cylc that endeavored to downplay the deaths caused by gun violence:
If you were to believe the hyperbole from the left, firearms are what make humans dangerous. They perpetrate a false narrative that firearms cause more deaths than any item ever invented.
[...]
Besides the occasional mass shooting (another mental health issue), most firearm homicides are inner-city shootings between gangs and thugs who battle for control of the Democrat strongholds that liberal/leftist politicians ignore once elected. (More here.)
These are the places where cops are few and outnumbered, and where district attorneys cut deals and downgrade charges to make statistics falsely show that crime is lower or dropping.
There is a simple and rational point that disproves holding the firearm responsible for these crimes. Conservatively, there are 100,000,000 U.S. gun owners, with a total of approximately 300,000,000 firearms.
If firearms were the problem, shouldn't the firearm deaths be in the hundreds of thousands, or even in the millions? Maybe the government should attempt disarming all the criminals and leave everyone else alone?
In another odd move, Newsmax stuck a "non-clinician" tag on a Dec. 7 column by Callista Gingrich touting research into developing a vaccine to counter the effects of fentanyl. But it got back to its usual tagging tactics when Michael Reagan and Michael Shannon spouted anti-vaccine rantings in a Dec. 17 column:
The COVID vaccines are the most dangerous substance Americans have ever been ordered to inject into their bodies.
The disabling and often deadly side effects from these vaccines outnumber all the total side effects from every other U.S. vaccine since record keeping began.
Let's review:
- Vaccines were marketed in a false and deceptive fashion
- Vaccines did not prevent the vaccinated from getting COVID
- Vaccines did not prevent the vaxxed from transmitting COVID
- Vaccines did not prevent being hospitalized with COVID
- Vaccines did not prevent deaths from COVID
And — the side effects were hidden from the American public.
Actually, the vaccines do save lives, but that truth is not part of Reagan's misinformation narrative.
But Newsmax oddly stuck the "non-clinician" tag on a Nov. 14 column by token liberal writer Susan Estrich, who was imparting actual facts about COVID vaccines:
"I don't believe in vaccines," otherwise intelligent people will tell me with a straight face. Exactly what do you believe in, if not science? Are your children vaccinated? Of course.
Science is irrefutable on this one: It's better, safer, life-saving, even, to protect yourself against COVID and flu. People also die of flu. They die of hospital-acquired infections. They die of COVID. They do not die of flu shots or COVID boosters. Science is not a debate about which reasonable people can differ.
[...]
I'll survive if I get it, the naysayers tell me. Why get another shot? Because while it's true that you probably will survive, you might be miserably sick or, worse, struggle with the after-effects of long COVID. You might infect someone who won't survive. As opposed to the sting of a shot.
Estrich got the "non-clinician" tag again in a Dec. 27 column pointing out the fact that COVID is spreading again in part because people aren't wearing masks and that government officials won't mandate mask-wearing because it's politically unpopular. Again, no actual misinformation in her column.
