20 yr. GP MD Doctor Losing License For Speaking Out About Karen (1)

Video Transcript:

Hi, Senator Scott-Jensen, I represent Carva County. This is one of the most important videos I've made, and one of the hardest. Frankly, it's been a very difficult decision to make whether I even wanted to do it. Less than a week ago, I was notified by the Board of Medical Practice in Minnesota that I was being investigated because of public statements I had made. They listed two allegations. They said I've been spreading misinformation in regards to the completion of death certificates on a news program which happened to take place on April 7th, and you could find that one. It was with Chris Berg, if you wanted to. And the other allegation was that I provided reckless advice in my willingness to compare COVID-19 and the flu. When I got this letter, I was ticked. And quite frankly, I leaned into the comfort and wisdom of my family to help them, let them walk me and talk me off the cliff. But, Tagana, did this can happen to me? My view is it could happen to anybody. I mean, I've been a family doctor for 40 years. I work hard. I love my patients. I do house calls. I've been medical directors. I've held staff positions in hospitals to help make things work better. I've been in the Senate for 40 years and I have learned a lot. I've never had anything like this happen. Shoot a mile. Five years ago I was named the Minnesota Family Doctor of the Year in Minnesota. And I get this because a couple people complained. And I don't get to know who those people are. I don't know if they're routinely in a political camp, if they're activists. I've gone online and looked at what it takes to complete a complaint that the Board of Medical Practice has to follow up on. It's a one-page deal. You can say what you want. You could be a huge donor for the other party. And I wouldn't get to know what I wouldn't get to know if you live in my district. I don't get to know anything. I checked. So here I am. I've spent the better part of the last six days preparing a response. I understand that important work is the Board of Medical Practice does. I mean, physicians do screw up. Two of the big areas where physicians mess up is inappropriate sexual behavior, inappropriate self-medicating, certainly with opiates. But this is an odd position for me to be in. And I am just stunned. But I should have seen it coming because I saw the threats on social media. I've seen them for the last two or three months. I've seen them come from physicians. I've seen them come from people in all walk of life. They didn't agree with me. They didn't like that I was trying to provide some context for the flu for COVID-19. We've had some 35, 40,000 cases of COVID-19 in Minnesota thus far. According to the Department of Health people, that might translate into 10 times that many. And if it does translate into 10 times that many, that's 350,000 cases. But in 2018, we had more than a half a million men of sultans with the flu. When I say that, am I recklessly giving you advice regarding COVID-19 in the flu? Dr. Anthony Fauci has come out and compared him all the time. Dr. Mike Osterholm has. In terms of the death certificates, on April 3rd, I got an email from the Department of Health that said very clearly that we should report COVID-19 on death certificates if it is assumed to have caused or contributed. Well, that's not how we do death certificates. The official ICD-10 coding for April 1st, 2020 through September 30, 2020, during the time frame in question, says this, if the provider documents suspected, possible, probable, or inconclusive, COVID-19, do not assign U07.1, which is COVID-19 disease. It says, assign a code explaining the reason for the encounter, such as fever or cough or a shortness of breath. That's what the official instructions say. So I get this on April 3rd. I end up inadvertently, sort of accidentally, running it up the flagpole with Chris Berg on April 7th. And what happens? The Department of Health a few days later comes out with a clarification. And then a few weeks later they come out with another clarification. And I appreciate it. In fact, to the matter is, I'm proud of the Department of Health and Minnesota for saying we are not going to list non-confirmed cases as deaths in Minnesota. We are going to put an asteris by them and we'll follow up on those later. But that's not what Pennsylvania was doing. That's why they had to subtract 200 patients from their COVID-19 death count. Colorado did the same thing. New York went the other direction. New York said, we're having more deaths in a certain period than we normally have. So those deaths must be COVID-19. We just didn't pick them up. So never mind the testing. We're adding 3700 to our total. And, oh, well, that does increase our total by 50%. So I'm in the position where I have to explain that I wasn't spreading misinformation. And I'm not being reckless when I talk about COVID-19 and influence of both being single-stranded RNA viruses that are respiratory in nature with similar symptoms and can be spread through particulate matter and aerosol transmission. I've got an eight-page document that I put together for the Board of Medical Practice and let me be clear. They do important work and I'm going to fully cooperate with them. I also have some 70 pages of attachments. And in the attachments, I've got the Pennsylvania Department of Health slashing their numbers by 201. I've got the Department of Health in Illinois where one of the directors says that just because we put COVID-19 down on the desert to be this cause of death, that doesn't mean the patient died of COVID-19. She said that. Dr. Fauci, when he talks about influenza, he was a lead article in this New England Journal article and he said this, if one assumes that the number of asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic cases for COVID-19 is several times as high as the number of reported cases, the case fatality rate may be considerably less than 1%. This suggests that the overall clinical consequences of COVID-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza. That's Dr. Fauci. And oh, by the way, one of the contributing authors was Dr. Robert Redfield, the head of the CDC. Dr. Osterholm is a well-regarded epidemiologist and he was saying this in the in the middle of March. He said, the flu has become a pandemic more than once and skilled millions of people. It still exists today. Unfortunately, we now have on our hands something else, but it's caused by coronavirus, which is acting very much like influenza. Folks, do I feel targeted? Yeah, I do. Do I know who my accusers are? No, I don't get to know. Could I be disciplined by the Board of Medical Practice? Well, sure I can. There's two allegations they're investigating. If I have been spreading this information, then what about Governor Walls in the Department of Health? Right around March 1st, we had a Department of Health that talked about the purpose of, if you will, some of the measures it would be taking to dampen, delay and decrease the peak to allow accumulation of PPE and make sure that our hospital capacities weren't being overwhelmed. In that memo, they say what effective measures are, covering them out, don't go out if you have cough or fever, avoid touching your face, your eyes, your mouth, cover your mouth if you cough, wash your hands frequently, minimize outings, socially distance, but what did they say were not effective measures? They said wearing masks is not effective. Taking antibiotics is not effective. Months later, Governor Walls comes out, talks about 74,000 Minisotus dying. Later on, he went back to 29,000 and right around then I put a different video saying just the facts and I said I'm not buying 74,000 Minisotus dying. I'm not buying 29,000 and then this one came out a month later right around May 1st. This is a model that they're using and it says on here, Minisotus model projects nearly 1,000 deaths a day in mid-July. Well folks, that's next week. So far we have less than, so right around 1,500 of which all but 300 of them have occurred in people in long-term care facilities in large part because the Department of Health participated in decisions that put people with active COVID-19 disease in the nursing homes. And I'm spreading misinformation. Of course I am. I don't know what to tell you. I just know this is wrong. We're in a bad place. My wife asked me the other day, it's got, why didn't 9-1-1 pull us together as Americans so much and why is COVID-19 breaking us apart? I think physicians are part to blame. Scientists are. We've become so darn political. Physicians and scientists in the past, it's supposed to be above the free. They're not. I have this odd set of hats I'm wearing because I'm the Vice Chair of the Health and Human Services Committee in the Senate and I'm involved in policy discussions and involved in bills, a deal with providing relief for COVID-19 and on the other hand I've been a physician in trenches for 35 years. So I try to connect the dots. I don't try to present myself to be something I'm not, I'm not an epidemiologist but yes I've taken epidemiology classes. I'm not an infectious disease doctor but I take care of infectious disease every day. I just want to leave you with a couple of questions you could maybe ask yourself. Do we think it's okay for physicians to certify undecstificates that someone died of COVID-19 even if there was never a COVID-19 positive test obtained? Even if there was never a COVID-19 test done, even if a COVID-19 test hadn't even been considered and maybe the worst even if even if the family had no clue that the death certificate they received for their loved one was going to say COVID-19. What do we want to be doing there? In Minnesota I think the Department of Health has taken care of business. Those are important questions. I'm sure there are naysayers out there that think that I'm getting exactly what I deserve. Fine. If it can happen to me I think frankly that it could happen to anybody. Feels ugly. It feels like some of the people that disagree with me don't want to have a conversation. I've asked many of you to have conversations and you've not been interested. So reckless advice regarding comparisons between COVID-19 and the flu. Spreading misinformation because I cried foul when I received a memorandum from the Department of Health on April 3rd which directed me to a CDC link which says clearly that you could have a patient suffering from other medical problems. We'll cheer bound. Severe stroke within the preceding year two. No COVID-19 test ever done or ordered. And when that patient dies of pneumonia it's COVID-19 death. I cried foul and I'm grateful that the Department of Health week later tried to clarify things and a month later it clarified it further but I'll say it again. The official people who write the coding Bible in this country said if the provider documents suspected possible probable or inconclusive do not assign COVID-19. Thanks for listening. We better all stay engaged. Thank you.