Doubting mainstream medicine, COVID patients find dangerous advice and pills online featuring Dr. David Gorski
July 22, 2022
COVID cases and hospitalizations are once again on the rise, thanks to a new omicron subvariant. Vaccines and certain proven treatments can help prevent the worst outcomes. But for some Americans who don’t trust the medical establishment, there’s a network of fringe medical doctors, natural healers and internet personalities ready to push unproven cures for COVID. And a shady black market where you can buy them. For some plugged into that alternative medical network, doctors say it ultimately cost their lives. “The non-fraudulent non-messed up clinical trials are all pretty uniformly negative,” says David Gorski, a cancer surgeon and researcher at the Wayne State University School of Medicine in Michigan. For years before COVID, Gorski tracked doctors who offered alternative cures for cancers. And he sees plenty of parallels between those physicians and doctors like Pierre Kory. “A lot of these doctors fit the mold of what I used to call back in the day ‘the brave maverick doctor,'” he says. Gorski says that they play up their persecution by the system, offer scant evidence for their treatments, and deride effective therapies while promoting their own cures. “COVID is no different than quackery going back centuries,” Gorski says.
Listen to, “Doubting mainstream medicine, COVID patients find dangerous advice and pills online,” from NPR.