The doctors prescribing misinformation
Post Reports
The Washington Post
4.4 • 5.1K Ratings
🗓️ 27 July 2023
⏱️ 22 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What happens when doctors push misinformation, jeopardizing patients’ lives? Today we dig into a months-long Post investigation into a system that appears ill-equipped to respond, and what that means for patients who suffered the health consequences.
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When Margret Murphy’s long-time doctor’s office told her to stop wearing a mask at her appointments during the height of the coronavirus pandemic, suggesting masking could be the cause of her high blood pressure, she left the practice and went elsewhere.
But the doctor's actions shocked health reporter Lena Sun. Sun – along with our colleague Lauren Weber – looked into how often this kind of bad medical advice was being given in doctors’ offices, and what, if any, consequences doctors faced.
“Doctors are among the most trusted people that we know,” Sun says. “They're up there on the pedestal. And so when they spread misinformation, it is triply damaging.”
Yet, as this investigation found, doctors who prescribed misinformation rarely faced punishment.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Doctors are among the most trusted people that we know. |
| 0:08.5 | Your doctor tells you something, you take their word for it that he or she is telling you |
| 0:14.9 | in good faith that this is what's going to be good for you. |
| 0:19.7 | They're higher. |
| 0:20.7 | They're up there on the pedestal. |
| 0:22.6 | And so when they spread misinformation, it is triply damaging. |
| 0:31.4 | There are over a million licensed physicians in the United States, and state medical boards |
| 0:36.4 | are responsible for making sure those doctors are doing their jobs correctly. |
| 0:40.9 | But Lena's son, a national reporter for the post, along with our colleague Lauren Weber, |
| 0:45.9 | heard about doctors during the COVID-19 pandemic who were giving out bad advice or debunked information, |
| 0:51.7 | or worse, they were prescribing bad treatments. |
| 0:54.8 | Lena and Lauren started finding that surprisingly few of these doctors seemed to face any real |
| 0:59.7 | consequences when they spread false information. |
| 1:04.0 | Patients were prescribed, Ivermectin, and patients died. |
| 1:08.6 | And the doctor had to pay a fine and take continuing medical education, and that's all |
| 1:17.0 | that happened to him. |
| 1:20.1 | It wasn't easy to find these stories, or even find the records of what doctors had been |
| 1:24.7 | investigated. |
| 1:25.7 | But Lauren and Lena knew they were out there, and so they started digging. |
| 1:31.1 | You know, we were able to find these folks, but getting there was an enormous lift. |
| 1:37.3 | We looked at over 2,500 records we had to pour through the lawsuits, and we also read |
| 1:47.1 | local news clips to try to find where these people were, what action had been taken against |
... |
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