Mendacity is worse than dishonesty. According to one essay on mendacity, “Mendacity connotes a mixture of dishonesty, hypocrisy and audacity.” Mendacity is an important theme of the play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, by Tennessee Williams. “What’s that smell in this room? Didn’t you notice it? Didn’t you notice a powerful and obnoxious odor of mendacity? There ain’t nothing more powerful than the odor of mendacity!” I recently encountered this powerful and obnoxious odor in my email inbox with the arrival of a Medical News and Perspectives from the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
The title of this bit of medical mendacity is: “When Physicians Spread Unscientific Information about COVID-19.” Scientific information is curiously absent from the commentary. Instead, the words misinformation and disinformation in the body of the work are equated with unscientific information in the title. A number of people are accused of spreading misinformation, but no specific examples of scientifically incorrect statements are provided.
The first specific claim of wrongdoing is “Ladapo continued to publicly contradict CDC recommendations on vaccines, masks, and testing.” The reader is required to accept that CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) recommendations are necessarily statements of scientific truth. This is religious dogma rather than the practice of the scientific method. The scientific method requires the free and open dissent from any scientific hypothesis by either empiric evidence contrary to the hypothesis or the logical extension of the hypothesis to an absurd conclusion.
It is only by successful defense against dissenting opinions that scientific hypotheses become accepted as truth. By claiming that any dissent from CDC opinion is misinformation or scientific falsehood, JAMA has elevated the CDC to a divine source of infallible truth. JAMA further requests that medical boards become a new Inquisition to root out heresy and apostasy.
The JAMA commentary reserved special criticism of the organization America’s Frontline Doctors for the sins of opposition to “vaccination and mask mandates” and the promotion of “ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine for prevention and early treatment of COVID-19.” The JAMA commentary is dishonest by conflating opposition to mandates with opposition to the action being mandated.
It is quite possible to agree with the decision to vaccinate yet be opposed to forcing others to agree with that decision. Furthermore, claims about vaccine efficacy and safety are always debatable, given that data have been withheld from the public and are necessarily incomplete about future events. The JAMA commentary is further dishonest in its implication that promotion of ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine is beyond the pale. The National Library of Medicine includes citations supporting the efficacy of ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine for covid-19. While the quality of the scientific information is always debatable, it is mendacious to claim that promotion of ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine is unscientific.
The JAMA commentary is hypocritical in failing to note that CDC—the oracle of Delphi—has changed its position on the efficacy of masks multiple times during the course of the covid-19 pandemic. The JAMA commentary is dripping with audacity in asserting that anyone contradicting the CDC deserves excommunication from the practice of medicine.
Another specific citation of sin in the JAMA commentary noted: “A widely publicized January 23, 2022, march against COVID-19 vaccine mandates in Washington, DC, included physicians among its sponsors and speakers. A livestream of the event showed attendees shoulder to shoulder in front of the Lincoln Memorial, vanishingly few wearing masks.” Perhaps JAMA inquisitors should keep up with “The Science,” which currently questions the wisdom of masks during outdoor events. The history of science is full of examples where heresy and apostasy become generally accepted scientific truths.
The JAMA commentary is a typical authoritarian response to dissent. Authoritarians insist that people practice the logical fallacy known as appeal to authority. In this case, JAMA asserts that any statement from the CDC must be true, so any contradiction of CDC policy must be unscientific or misinformation. In this way, authoritarians relieve themselves of the difficult task of persuading people about the truth of their claims. The most common reason why people reject statements from authority is recent memory of lies from the same authority.
The CDC has damaged its own credibility by admissions that it has withheld significant data on vaccines because the data might be misinterpreted. Rather than correct the mendacity of authority to increase trust in authority, the authoritarians demand that disagreement with authority be punished by some form of excommunication from civil discourse. In this case, rather than recognizing that the prevalence of people who disagree with statements made by the CDC is based on previous false or misleading statements by the CDC, JAMA asserts that any dissent from the CDC statements must be purged or silenced. True science with a small s welcomes dissent and agrees to debate dissent on the merits of the arguments rather than ad hominem attacks on the dissenters.
The medical establishment is afraid to debate dissenters on the merits of the arguments demonstrating the weakness of the establishment narrative. JAMA does not even pretend to demonstrate that the heretics and apostates have made false statements. Instead, JAMA asserts that the CDC is infallible and any contradiction of CDC policy by physicians is de facto proof of heresy and should be punished by excommunication.
The stench of mendacity emanating from the medical establishment has become powerful and obnoxious.
About the Author
Gilbert Berdine is an associate professor of medicine at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center and an affiliate of the Free Market Institute at Texas Tech University.
Image by Raed Mansour via Flickr, CC BY 2.0. Article cross-posted from Mises.
Will America-First News Outlets Make it to 2023?
Things are looking grim for conservative and populist news sites.
There’s something happening behind the scenes at several popular conservative news outlets. 2021 was bad, but 2022 is proving to be disastrous for news sites that aren’t “playing ball” with the corporate media narrative. It’s being said that advertisers are cracking down, forcing some of the biggest ad networks like Google and Yahoo to pull their inventory from conservative outlets. This has had two major effects. First, it has cooled most conservative outlets from discussing “taboo” topics like Pandemic Panic Theater, voter fraud, or The Great Reset. Second, it has isolated those ad networks that aren’t playing ball.
Certain topics are anathema for most ad networks. Speaking out against vaccines or vaccine mandates is a certain path to being demonetized. Highlighting voter fraud in the 2020 and future elections is another instant advertising death penalty. Throw in truthful stories about climate change hysteria, Critical Race Theory, and the border crisis and it’s easy to understand how difficult it is for America-First news outlets to spread the facts, share conservative opinions, and still pay the bills.
Without naming names, I have been told of several news outlets who have been forced to either consolidate with larger organizations or who have backed down on covering certain topics out of fear of being “canceled” by the ad networks. I get it. This is a business for many of us and it’s not very profitable. Those of us who do this for a living are often barely squeaking by, so loss of additional revenue can often mean being forced to make cuts. That means not being able to cover the topics properly. Its a Catch-22: Tell the truth and lose the money necessary to keep telling the truth, or avoid the truth and make enough money to survive. Those who have chosen survival simply aren’t able to spread the truth properly.
We will never avoid the truth. The Lord will provide if it is His will. Our job is simply to share the facts, spread the Gospel, and educate as many Americans as possible while exposing the forces of evil.
To those who have the means, we ask that you please donate. We have options available now, but there is no telling when those options will cancel us. We just launched a new GiveSendGo page. We also have our GivingFuel page. There have been many who have been canceled by PayPal, but for now it’s still an option. Your generosity is what keeps these sites running and allows us to get the truth to the masses. We’ve had great success in growing but we know we can do more with your assistance.
Thank you, and God Bless!
JD Rucker
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