There has long been a huge appeal in medicine that derives from being an “apostate”. Since COVID-19 hit, apostasy has become like a drug among too many doctors, and social media has amplified the popularity of “medical apostates” beyond anything I’ve seen previously.
Early in the pandemic, America’s Frontline Doctors made a splash promoting hydroxychloroquine. They then turned to running an ivermectin prescription mill. Now they’re suing each other. It’s always about the grift.
Minerva published an op-ed disguised as a “study” decrying “censorship and defamation.” It was really just criticism and quality control, but the usual suspects are all over it as evidence of evil.
Economist turned COVID-19 contrarian Emily Oster recently published an article in The Atlantic about offering amnesty and forgiveness over the pandemic. Shorter Oster: “Admit you were wrong!”
In 2008, I tried to answer the question: How do doctors become contrarians, quacks, and antivaxxers? A Twitter encounter suggested to me not just answers but that an update to that post is massively overdue.
