Last week I was fortunate to be in the audience for a Capital Clarity function at the Capital that featured Dr. Ryan Cole. His presentation, like all of his professional and political writings and presentations was factual and based on the very best science currently available. All my interactions with Dr. Cole since the beginning of the Covid pandemic when I first met him at his office in Garden City have been of a similar nature. He is a professional and worthy of the respect of all in the medical community.
Dr. Cole has paid a great price for his outspoken opinions regarding Covid mitigation, treatment, tracking, and policy. He has been correct over 90% of the time in his opinions. I do not know the details of the actions taken against him by the various State Boards of Medicine, but I do know that many of his adversaries in the medical and public health communities have expressed to me satisfaction that he has paid a price for his “dissidence”—their words”.
Nowhere in the press or media, or by any agency of government has there been a review of the State of Idaho Covid policy and response. In light of the fact that editorials were written in major Idaho newspapers by professional people asking for the revocation of Dr. Cole’s license, maybe a review of what The Governor’s advisory committee recommended, and what the various Public Health District Boards recommended would not only be fair to Dr. Cole and those identified as “dissidents”, but it could help us design better and more appropriate responses when similar situations arise in our State. There has not been to my knowledge a formal Morbidity and Mortality review of any institutional Covid responses. The Idaho legislature last week “punted” on appropriating money for such a review.
Dr. Cole is an Air Force Academy graduate and graduate of Georgetown University Medical School. He did his residency at The Mayo Clinic in Pathology, and he has a special certificate in virology. There was and is nobody in our State of Idaho with equivalent credentials and expertise and who was more capable and knowledgeable about speaking to the Covid policies promulgated by people many who didn’t even have a medical or public health degree.
Several of the people speaking out against Dr. Cole were attorneys or hospital administrators or worked in the insurance industry. They brandished a legal or administrative—bureaucratic credential that at least to the media who reported on these events carried more weight than the medical credentials of many in our state who disagreed with their policies. If you had 10 lawyers, 10 hospital administrators, and 10 administrators from the Department of Health and Welfare plus Dr. Cole around a large table, and the vote was 30-1 in favor of Covid policy “A” and Dr. Cole was the lone dissenting vote, who would you believe? The applied and practical knowledge of the one dissenting vote was far greater than the other 30.
I call on the Idaho Governor or Legislature to appoint and fund a “Covid Commission” to review the State of Idaho’s Covid response. I call on all who wrote editorials or spoke out publicly against Dr. Cole’s position and when unable to refute Dr. Cole’s positions they resorted to personal attacks, to apologize publicly using the same media platforms that they leveraged during their personal attacks.
I have no knowledge of the clinical, scientific, or administrative predicates that were used when Dr. Cole’s license in the State of Washington or The State of Idaho were reviewed, nor do I fully understand the actions that were taken by those Boards. I do know that Dr. Cole was supported in his clinical positions by some of the most respected clinicians and public health specialists in the world including Dr. Robert Malone, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, Dr. Marty Makary, and the over 5000 signers of The Great Barrington Declaration almost all who have more appropriate clinical and scientific credentials than many who publicly criticized Dr. Cole in the Idaho media.
I do know that in retrospect Dr. Cole was far more correct in his assessment of the data and the application of the science than the experts were—many who called for his license. Many who don’t have the courage to offer a public apology today.
I won’t hold my breath waiting for an apology.
One last item of note. Below is a video of Bill Mahr opining on these same issues that I have just written about. Though graphic at times it states the argument very well.
Bill Maher Mercilessly Drags the Media for Being Dead Wrong About COVID (townhall.com)
