Recently I listened to very compelling testimony before The Senate Health and Welfare Committee on Senate Bill 1036 that calls for a 10 year pause on vaccines or “any therapy” that uses messenger RNA (MRNA) technology which 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 devasting permanent ascending paralysis that has rendered this rugged individualist dependent on others. I met Mr. Cameron and 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 hydroxy chloroquine, Remdesivir, and Ivermectin.
I was a signer on The Greater Barrington Petition along with tens of thousands of physicians. 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 level 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 in 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 the most 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—aka 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 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 wrong. Using Law already in Idaho Code—The Medical Practices ACT and the Professional Practices ACT should always be the first tool in the box to be 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 own legislators about medical treatments? Do we need a State DEA to redefine the scheduling of drugs?
Policy makers 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’s patient relationship are wrong and will only create frictions 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 are against mandates and who are against Senate Bill 136 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, just as we are against MANDATES today. Our position is consistent with our principles.
One reply on “A Mandate is a Mandate”
Coved like Aids, it is a man-made thing. It didn’t just come out of nowhere. Who’s to blame for this? I’ll tell you who: the American Medical Association, started by the Rockefellers, along with education to control the populace. Doctors perceive the word of the American Medical Association like the word of god! Simply not so. Any thinking doctor will say half of what’s taught in medical school is 100% bullshit. Secondhand smoke will kill you, salt is bad, all bullshit!