The Journal of the American Medical Association recently published a review of alleged ‘misinformation’ about COVID-19 that physicians were responsible for, either on social media and in other news sources.
In the paper, the corresponding author, Dr. Sarah L. Goff, MD PhD, defined misinformation. She surveyed social media platforms and news sources for anything written by other physicians that fits her selected examples of both. She then proposes that physicians guilty of writing what she judges to be misinformation should be “regulated and disciplined”.
Dr. Goff and her co-authors define misinformation as “false, inaccurate or misleading information according to the best evidence available at the time” and disinformation as “having an intentionally malicious purpose”.
Dr. Goff states: “We conservatively classified inaccurate information as misinformation rather than disinformation because the intent of the propagator cannot be objectively assessed.”
Dr. Goff identified four major themes of alleged misinformation. These included: (1) vaccines were unsafe and/or ineffective; (2) masks and/or social distancing did not decrease risk for contracting COVID-19; (3) other medications for prevention or treatment were effective despite not having completed clinical trials or having been FDA approved, and (4) other misinformation.
Dr. Goff includes a brief discussion of vaccine safety and effectiveness and mask effectiveness, but does not attempt to undertake a full review of the published evidence in these areas. Instead, she seems to assume that her readers will agree that any suggestion that vaccines or masks were ineffective or unsafe are self-evidently false.
Dr. Goff states that the American Medical Association has called for disciplinary action for physicians propagating COVID-19 misinformation. She laments the fact that “few physicians appear to have faced disciplinary action” for alleged sins against Covid orthodoxy.
I am not an expert in analysis of published medical research. I don’t work in a School of Public Health like Dr. Goff. I have worked as a licensed physician in England for over 40 years as a family doctor and an occupational physician and I have over 40 years’ experience reading the medical peer review literature. I retired from full time medical practice in 2017. I have a reasonable understanding of English, maths, logic and critical thinking. I don’t pretend to have read all the published research on masks or vaccinations. However, I continue to read leading medical journals on a regular basis.
I understand the concept of truth and how hard it is to establish an absolute truth in science. I understand the enlightenment principles that any ideas can be discussed, that nobody has a veto on ideas and that it is important to doubt and test all of our ideas continually. There is no indication from her writing that Dr. Goff understands how important it is to doubt, question and test the effectiveness and safety of interventions such as vaccines and masks.
From my reading of the peer review literature, for illustration purposes, I identified the following four publications as examples of publications which should raise concerns and questions about COVID-19 vaccines and masks.
In 2019, the World Health Organisation (WHO) published a report entitled ‘Non-pharmaceutical public health measures for mitigating the risk and impact of epidemic and pandemic influenza’. The WHO concluded: “There are a number of high-quality randomised controlled trials demonstrating that personal measures (e.g. hand hygiene and face masks) have at best a small effect on transmission.”
In February 2023 a Cochrane review into the effectiveness of masks concluded: “Compared with wearing no mask in the community studies only, wearing a mask may make little to no difference in how many people caught a flu-like illness/Covid-like illness.”
A study from the Department of Infectious Diseases in Cleveland, Ohio, in December 2022 found that “the bivalent COVID-19 vaccine only offered modest effectiveness”.
A study from the University of Queensland in September 2022 concluded: “Never in vaccine history have 57 leading scientists and policy experts released a report questioning the safety and efficacy of a vaccine. They not only questioned the safety of the current COVID-19 injections but were calling for an immediate end to all vaccination. Many doctors and scientists around the world have voiced similar misgivings and warned of consequences due to long-term side effects.”
These four publications are examples which give us a legitimate reason to question the use of masks and the Covid vaccines and to look further for evidence. Are we not allowed to raise questions about these issues without being threatened with disciplinary procedures? Not to ask any questions would be lacking in curiosity in the extreme, especially for practising physicians concerned about the safety of their patients and the integrity of their advice. These publications do not prove anything conclusively, but they should not be ignored. Expressing doubt and asking questions about the safety and effectiveness of vaccines and masks is not false, inaccurate or misleading, to use the definition adopted by Dr. Goff. If questions arise in my mind, why don’t similar questions arise in the minds of Dr. Goff and her co-authors? How did Dr. Goff reach such a degree of certainty about the effectiveness of masks and vaccines against COVID-19 that she can classify any statement to the contrary as misinformation worthy of disciplining a colleague? Why does she conclude that a colleague who disagrees with her does not have the right to be heard? Why would she seek to silence those who disagree with her?
Inaccurate information which is not deliberately intended to deceive is simply inaccurate. In science and medicine there are many inaccurate statements made in good faith by researchers who are presenting their data or their theories as accurately and honestly as possible. It is important that all theories and all research data can be published, even when the data or the theory are wrong. Disciplinary action for any statement which turns out to be inaccurate or false would surely suppress a large proportion of all scientific and medical discourse. Is this what Dr. Goff wants?
It could be argued that the examples of misinformation used by Dr. Goff are themselves misinformation. To suggest that anyone who states that the Covid vaccines were unsafe and/or ineffective is guilty of misinformation is to ignore significant evidence which raises questions about the vaccines. To suggest that anyone who states that masks did not decrease risk for contracting COVID-19 is guilty of misinformation is also to ignore evidence to support this view. It could be argued that Dr. Goff is using false, inaccurate or misleading examples of misinformation in her study in order to suppress dissenting views.
Dr. Goff appears to have very little humility. She does not appear to be in any doubt that she and her co-authors are infallible in relation to masks and vaccines. She seems to think she is the ultimate arbiter of truth, and that she is immune from being regulated or disciplined for her views in the way she promotes for others. I would not propose disciplining or applying regulatory sanctions to Dr. Goff or her colleagues if her publication includes false, inaccurate or misleading statements. Instead, I would propose respectful dialogue with her to debate her proposal, offering arguments to the contrary with a view to educating her and myself.
In England, medical doctors are obliged to respect colleagues’ skills and contributions, and to treat colleagues fairly. We must create a working environment in which it is safe to ask questions and raise concerns. I believe in these principles. Failure to adhere to these standards can lead to disciplinary action against medical doctors. I understand that similar professional obligations apply to medical doctors in the United States. Dr. Goff does not appear to respect the skills and contributions of colleagues who disagree with her. She seems to be promoting a working environment in which it is not safe for those who disagree with whatever the orthodoxy within the medical profession is at any one time to ask questions and raise concerns. Does she not realise that this may make it unsafe for her to raise concerns and ask questions in due course?
Dr. Goff acknowledges in her final sentence that “a coordinated response by federal and state governments and the profession that takes free speech carefully into account is needed”. This tiny nod towards free speech is somewhat undermined by her attempts to censor her colleagues’ right to disagree with her. Free speech is nothing if it is not accorded to those with whom we disagree.
Frederick Douglass, the American social reformer said: “To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker.” If Dr. Goff persuades those in power to regulate or discipline those who disagree with her, then their right to free speech is violated and our right to hear them is violated. Does Dr. Goff not have a glimmer of doubt about her omniscience? Does she not think there is even a faint possibility that physicians who disagree with her might have something useful to say?
Why do some physicians think that the best response when another physician disagrees with them is to censor their colleague? How could any physicians achieve such unshakeable certainty in their own omniscience? When did they forget the fundamental principles of the enlightenment, that all ideas can be discussed and that nobody has a veto on any ideas? How did the principles of treating colleagues with respect and upholding the free speech of those with whom we disagree become so degraded?
Dr. Goff and her co-authors should be careful what they wish for. They seek to discipline colleagues for daring to disagree with their orthodoxy. If they succeed, the cancel police may be coming for them next.
Dr. Nigel Wilson MRCGP FFOM is a retired consultant occupational physician.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
I always said this was a Mass Hysteria outbreak over an imaginary virus from the start and it looks like Dr Goff is emerging as the Witchfinder General for Covid.
“Mass Hysteria outbreak.”
Give it a rest.
I am somewhat puzzled as to the downticks here. I imagine huxleypiggles doesn’t mean there was no mass hysteria, just that mass hysteria was not the root cause and that there were many planned, co-ordinated and/or knowingly evil aspects to the whole thing.
Huxleypiggles hates me.
He says i’m Brigade 77.
When I said that almost all the cardiac arrests i’d been to as a Paramedic had a father or mother who had severe cardiac problem he claimed to have had a “Myocardial Infarction” with no cardiac history in his family to disprove my point.
I then said that he was making it up as no one outside the medical profession calls it a Myocardial Infarction and that he’d simply googled heart attack and that was what came up.
Hence the grudge and why he always down ticks me.
Not sure how you know who downticks you. I think his position is that covid was a lot more than mass hysteria, and that is how I interpreted his reply to you.
I’m not a fan of downticking people without explaining why. It seems to run contrary to the spirit of DS.
I always get one down tick if he’s around, believe me.
I try not to take anything said or done here personally, unless there are people openly advocating for covid restrictions.
That’s possibly because somebody else on here thinks you are an annoying fool. But that is just a guess.
Absolute nonsense.
I don’t hate you. I’ve very little time for you and your silly “mass hysteria” theorising but as a Paramedic your understanding of what has happened these last three years is woeful. Somebody who should know what is going on and yet is so stuck with his own self-importance as part of the medical industry that you refuse to undertake proper research. That translates as ignorance.
For your information I have suffered a myocardial infarction and there is no history of heart disease in my family. Fact. As you can see your failure to accept facts which do not fit with your narrowly trained world view is clearly part of your problem.
So nobody outside the medical industry – “profession,” you’re not serious are you after the last three and half years – refers to a heart attack as Myocardial Infarction? Well you know someone now don’t you?
There is no grudge. You are way over the top in your estimation of your own knowledge although in that respect no different to many in the medical industry.
Obviously you don’t know me but you can take as fact any statement I make as being true. I do not make things up, still less would I post made up nonsense on here.
Oh, and you can take as FACT that I don’t downtick. Very, very occasionally do I downtick but it is exceedingly rare. I may have blessed you once with a downtick but now I cannot be bothered.
Desmet’s theory of mass hysteria is very interesting but it falls a long way short of explaining what has happened to the masses these last three plus years.
And if you think I am being hard on the medical industry – too bloody right I am.
Oddly enough of all the occupations in the medical sector the ones I used to have the greatest respect for where the Paramedics and sadly I have required their assistance far too often. Until the last time when a PM tried to insist I wear a mask as I was wheeled in to Emergency following an MI. It wasn’t you was it?
I refused the mask.
Excellent post Doctor.
So if it wasn’t Mass hysteria what was it?
Why?
Did your aunt’s boss’s brother’s wife’s personal trainer’s niece’s teacher know a friend who’s husband’s brother’s friend’s grandfather, 97 and in a hospice with a terminal illness,died of Covid 19?
is that why you think it’s real?
Could you explain this unintelligible little rant please?
Or let me put it another way – WTF are you on about?
Someone knew it was imaginary and went to some trouble to make sure people thought it was real
Who and why?
Simply follow the money, it always works.
Yup. Money and power.
These people are evil. I’ve said it elsewhere but it bears repeating. Long rope, short drop.
Dr Goff, like the majority in the medical profession whether they say it or not, know that they, in their madness over Covid, have just exterminated millions across the globe.
Hell will freeze over before they ever admit that so the only way out of this mess is to continue to double down, ramp up the censorship and eliminate anyone, by any means, from investigating what they did.
Long rope, even longer drop – we do want to rip their heads off, don’t we?
All in public, of course, “pour encourager les autres”.
Insufficient suffering, unlike the rest of us.
Why the drop? Let them wriggle.
The whole concept of modern medicine is basically an ideology and disciples like Dr.Goff were inculcated thus the moment they set foot in med. school. Germ Theory Rules.
The education of medics has been controlled by bigpharma, for nigh on 100 years, boosted by the Rockefellers who saw a wonderful business opportunity. (Read Kennedy’s book).
The new kid on the block is the genetic engineer, who knows next to zero about our immune systems, much less the effects of their products upon it – although maybe that particular pigeon is coming home to roost, excessdeaths/dysregulation of the immune systems/CVS problems etc.
mRNA “vaccines” and their proponents are the new disciples and you rail against them at your peril. Anyone who dares to do so is spreading mis/disinformation and that is costing lives as well as preventing us to emerge from the pandemic. So there. The fact that it’s all about keeping a multi multi billion dollar industry going is immaterial.
The Dr. Goffs of this world have no moral qualms whatsoever about suppressing free speech/enforcing mask mandates or even locking up critics, the simple reason being that they know they are right and the likes of us wrong. They will never be troubled by any conscience.
We’re in a War, and have been for 3.5 years.
In the UK, the war started the day after the 1945 general election.
The British public made a pact with the Devil – Socialism… lots of free stuff in exchange for their sovereignty and freedom.
It is said that power corrupts. The move from local, to national and now to world health authority means a move to absolute corruption.
PS I am told that the science that led to the preference for diesel vehicles may not have been right, and that the government may have been wrong. This faulty interpretation of the science has however empowered the apparently unstoppable green movement and a certain small son of a London (diesel) bus driver.
Anybody in the medical industry spouting this garbage should be struck off immediately because they are clearly not fit to practice.
No mention in the article of exponential growth of epidemics which would be one of the most common pieces of misinformation.
“Are we not allowed to raise questions about these issues without being threatened with disciplinary procedures?”
Metaphorically it’s a bit like asking; “The Sinaloa cartel are turning our city into a corrupt murderous hell scape, are we really not allowed to raise these issues without being hung from a motorway bridge?”
These are gangsters we’re dealing with now and ‘expert class’ grubby shills like Goff and the JAMA are doing exactly what they’re paid to do – chipping away constantly at the constitutional and social fabric of the country to bend it to the voracious appetite of the conjoined political, pharma & millionaire class plutocracy. The only thing that will change this is mass public awakening and full scale non-compliance. It is happening gradually as evidenced on Twitter/(X??!) and with many of our friends & family but only the next inevitable round of lies will tell for sure.
Isn’t it odd that in the history of modern medicine there has never been much interest or need to punish doctors for “misinformation” but suddenly, since covid, the profession has gone so out of control, so reckless and with so bad intentioned that special new measures need to be taken to clamp down on all these newly rogue doctors supposedly acting like loose canon.
How come so many doctors have all of a sudden become such a threat to the integrity of medicine all at the same time?
Is that realistically possible? The sudden mass turning of doctors against the integrity of their profession?
The obvious answer is that they have always been like that, or have been for a long time, and covid brought it into sharper relief for many of us.
I’m calling for doctors who spread fear-mongering disinfo about covid to be disbarred.
Start with van Tam.
“false, inaccurate or misleading information according to the best evidence available at the time”
That describes Einstein’s Theory of Relativity which was not according to the best information – supplied by Sir Isaac Newton – accepted by the ‘consensus’ of scientists for about 200 years.
Dr. Sarah L. Goff, MD PhD Bombay (failed) is a supreme nitwit who clearly has no understanding of the scientific process. This the problem when academic standards are lowered to admit any rabble in the name of diversity and inclusion.
“Dr. Sarah L. Goff, MD PhD Bombay (failed)”
So potentially the owner of a hooky degree.
Ah! Excellent. The Perishers.
There is a stark melancholy realisation that can only hit you under certain circumstances where it is revealed – people sell out along every step of the way. Once you’ve sold out then how can you possibly reverse it. To reverse it would be to invalidate a major life-changing decision. Of course people are weak and venal but you would never know it unless the right circumstances came to pass. This time really is the lifting of the veil on so many levels. I wouldn’t bother feeling despondent or disappointed because that just feeds their energy. Just thank God that you finally found out and that we were presented with circumstances that revealed it.
When a relatively small group of powerful people enforce unjust laws on the majority and act to suppress debate it ALWAYS results in tyranny.
This woman is another dangerous public health expert. How is it possible she is not witnessing what we are all witnessing. The sudden and unexpected severe adverse events and deaths post vaxx. She is not a practicing healthcare provider. Because if she was, there is no way she could ignore the death and destruction around her.
Excellent commentary. Obviously the writer, like me, is fully aware of the GMC guidelines on the duties of a doctor and has always strived to follow them.
I would argue that if any doctor has concerns that patients may be harmed they have an absolute professional obligation to raise the issues.
As a retired doctor the risks of speaking up are less significant, but for a working doctor the pressure to remain silent has been excessive. It is ethically and morally indefensible to prevent doctors from raising concerns about patient safety.
This is very dangerous territory and Dr Goff is to my mind guilty of gross disservice to the public and to a previously honourable profession.