Covid "Experts" Broke the World...and Now They Want Amnesty?
Dr. Fauci and others made some of history's most catastrophic decisions. They must change drastic policies, not ask for a mulligan.
From the Editors: The world is lucky to have Dr. Pierre Kory. But why is he known as “Lucky Pierre?”
Kory, the covid-19 doctor and researcher who helped pioneer ivermectin treatment for all stages of covid and was one of the earliest proponents of corticosteroid use in hospitalized patients, well before it later became the standard of care for hospital patients worldwide, writes near the end of this essay that he and his FLCCC colleagues weren’t lucky to develop their life-saving protocols. They created them based on a deep knowledge of both the mechanisms of illness caused by SARS-CoV2 and the pharmacologic mechanisms of the medicines used. And they continually integrated new therapeutics and adjusted doses as the clinical and research data evolved during the pandemic. “It wasn’t luck,” he writes. “We were following the science.”
“Lucky Pierre” is an inside joke at the FLCCC. (Full disclosure: I know this as part of my reporting as co-author of Dr. Kory’s book, The War on Ivermectin: The Medicine that Saved Millions and Could Have Ended the COVID Pandemic.) It’s not a very funny joke. But the story goes to the heart of a little-noticed but massively unethical, authoritarian, and medically moronic policy change that caused countless deaths.
New York Times Magazine writer Susan Dominus wrote one of the most important stories of the pandemic in August 2020, documenting (without fully understanding it) civilization’s turning point in our historic loss of medical freedom in “The Covid Drug Wars That Pitted Doctor vs. Doctors.”
The issue on which so many lives depended worldwide came down to a single question of medical philosophy in the story. Was Stella, a critical care pulmonologist in a Long Island ICU, correct one day, when she found her patient in cardiac arrest, to quickly remove him from a blind clinical trial to give him a higher dose of the drug under study, believing it was her best chance to save his life?
Or was Alex, the hospital’s researcher running the clinical trial, correct when he argued heatedly at the bedside that she must not remove the subject from the study and abandon “the science” of a randomized-controlled trial (even if it cost the man his life). What was Angry Alex’s justification for urging violation of mankind’s most sacred medical ethic?
Grab a seat or a cocktail for this one: Because, without “the science,” he argued that what she was doing was essentially “witchcraft.”
We used to call it doctoring.
In other words, should humanity stick with the Hippocratic Oath or adopt Dr. Fauci’s revolutionary overthrow of that hoary pledge for new “science” which would require holding as less important the value of an individual human life? In this bizarre new world, the doctor who delivers treatment without a randomized controlled trial to support his choice of therapy is viewed as some sort of crazy intuitive witch or warlock who must be re-educated to suspend his clinical judgement so as to robotically match government-approved one-size-fits-all protocols.
Dominus interviewed many doctors for that exhaustively reported story. But Pierre Kory was the only doctor with the courage to go on the record defending the Hippocratic Oath. She quotes him twenty-seven times. It’s a must-read.
Eric Rubin, a Harvard professor of infectious diseases and editor-in-chief of The New England Journal of Medicine, acknowledges in the story that Pierre Kory was ultimately proven correct when he passionately advocated, based on a mountain of his own research and bedside experience, for steroid treatment of covid patients when he was professor and critical care chief at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW) medical center. (This advocacy absurdly forced Pierre to leave his position as Associate Professor and Chief of the Critical Care service at UW because his superiors were insisting on following “the guidelines,” which, at the time consisted of “supportive care only”—that is, fluids, Tylenol, food, and oxygen only. Although he was later proven correct, at the time, the university and WHO and NIH wrongly recommended against steroids, costing at least 300,000 people their lives. Expect no apologies from the UW or NIH or a mainstream media investigation revealing the truth. And these people want amnesty?)
Then the story gets even more insane. The editor of the most prestigious medical journal in the world hesitated when asked if it was the proper thing for Dr. Kory to adopt and advocate for corticosteroids as the world’s best hospitalized covid treatment. Was it appropriate that the doctor used his own clinical judgement and vast global research and collaborations with other frontline doctors and scientists across the globe to decide upon a therapeutic strategy? Especially when this strategy saved his patients at demonstrably world-leading rates while they were facing death? Or should he have waited for the new “science,” which would require months of trials and time for publication? Without “the science,” it wasn’t so-clear cut, Rubin said.
“You could also say he was lucky,” Rubin said.
Dr. Paul Marik, Kory’s best friend and partner in the FLCCC, couldn’t let that one go, and “Lucky Pierre” was born. Lucky for us all, actually, that he is fighting this fight, and why Teresa and I feel fortunate to publish Kory on a regular basis, including today. —MC
You can’t make this up: The same cast of characters who erred so badly on covid-19 want a do-over. A head-turning essay in The Atlantic went so far as to plead for “pandemic amnesty.” For many in the medical community who have been derided by the likes of Dr. Anthony Fauci and his fanatics, these words ring hollow. Talk, as they say, is cheap, especially with the benefit of hindsight. Before a covid-19 mulligan can be considered, here are three policies that must change.
First, “vaccine or bust” proponents must admit their approach overpromised and underdelivered. President Biden has repeatedly declared covid-19 a “pandemic of the unvaccinated,” despite the science indicating otherwise. His claim that the vaccinated “do not spread the disease to anyone else” was rated “mostly false” by PolitiFact. Simply lowering the goalposts about less severe symptoms is insufficient. This is not what we were promised.
Making matters worse was the weaponization of this misinformation to influence public policy. It wasn’t just a smug Rachel Maddow telling her audience in March 2021 that the “virus stops with every vaccinated person.” This so-called science was used to pit Americans against one another, keep children out of school, and forced personnel out of critically important positions in the military, schools and first responders. Last fall, 5 percent of unvaccinated adults reported leaving their jobs.
I should know. I’ve been on the receiving end of threats to my livelihood.
This brings us to point two: The new California law empowering the punishment of doctors deemed guilty of spreading “misinformation” must be repealed before it can inflict further damage. Signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, California Assembly Bill 2098 enables the state to strip the medical licenses of professionals who veer from the preferred political party line.
It’s a disturbing trend taking hold across the country. The American Board of Internal Medicine recently voted to remove Dr. Peter McCullough, one of the nation’s leading cardiologists, from his certifications in cardiovascular disease. Mr. McCullough’s sin had nothing to do with his performance in caring for patients, but rather with questioning the necessity of the covid-19 vaccine for younger populations. With their far-reaching certification authority, the ABIM has the power to make any doctor’s life a living hell. Mr. McCullough’s fate now hangs in the balance until his November 18 appeal date. This dangerous precedent must be nipped in the bud in the nation’s most populous state (governed by an oft-mentioned future presidential candidate) before it can take hold elsewhere.
Third, the District of Columbia must scrap its vaccine mandate for children in schools once and for all. Last week’s vote to delay compliance until January 3, 2023, is not enough. D.C. is one of the only school districts in the country with this type of requirement, going further than their counterparts in New York City or Los Angeles.
Last month, nearly half (44.7 percent) of D.C. school students fell short of covid-19 compliance, according to Axios. In a city where 60 percent of the school-age population is black, this mandate is not only unnecessary but is perpetuating further inequity. The pandemic has already taken an incredible toll on our children’s education, with math and reading scores falling to astonishing new lows. It is beyond misguided to bar children from attending school unless they receive a vaccine for an illness that poses a far smaller hazard to their health than the soaring crime rates in our cities.
From masks to breakthrough cases to alternative treatments, the so-called experts have amassed a track record of incorrect judgments that make political pollsters look good by comparison. Even in the fog of a once-in-a-century pandemic, these decisions were not just borne of inexpert and incorrect scientific knowledge but rather driven by a rush to push a medical agenda.
Our organization, the FLCCC (the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance) practices what we preach. As data evolved over time, we updated our recommendations and approaches accordingly. It wasn’t luck. We were following the science. Sadly, government agencies stuck with their unceasing policy recommendations that were increasingly divorced from the science.
One thing most people can agree on: covid-19 won’t be the last public health emergency. There are already concerning headlines about an early spike of R.S.V. impacting children. The leaders of captured health agencies must learn from their mistake of allowing the pharmaceutical industry unimpeded control of pandemic health policy. Americans are incredibly forgiving people willing to show grace, but step one in that process is a willingness for those in charge to admit their mistakes.
Can you imagine for one moment what these last 3 years would have been looked like if the majority of physicians in America had done a deep dive into Covid as Drs. Kory and Marik had done, OR if scientific debate had been allowed? Can you imagine where we'd be if the WHO had agreed to share the contents of the "home medicine kits" that they helped distribute to 230 Million citizens in Uttar Pradesh, which resulted in the end of the Delta wave in that region in less than 3 months? Now imagine how our lives will continue to change if laws like those in California are allowed to continue, preventing the doctor/patient relationship from being meaningful in any way? This sounds like rules imposed in China or Russia, not in the U.S.A...but that is exactly what is happening in America today. All of our public health agencies and our medical boards have been captured by the pharmaceutical industry. No one will be free until we make each and every person accountable for their negligence, collusion and scientific fraud.
I love that you turned a dismissive insult into an inside joke, thus negating their attempt to obscure the considerable knowledge, experience, and evidence behind your life-saving contributions.
We are indeed lucky to have you, Pierre, and I hope millions of others will soon realize that when they read your book 🍀