Truths Labeled Medical Misinformation, Falsities Called Official Truths

Gruesome Gavin Newsom signed a bill in 2022 that allowed him to snatch the medical license from any doctor that disagreed with his Official Truths of coronadoom.

I say “his” Official Truths, but since his only avowed claim to authority is being the husband to some women (I do not jest), I mean the Official Truths supplied to him by a panel of Experts he hired. This panel included the California Medical Association itself.

The law was designed “to tamp down COVID-19 misinformation, often spread through social media, promoting untested or ineffective treatments and cures and questioning the effectiveness of face masks and vaccines.”

Even questions can become Official Misinformation. That (if you saw yesterday’s post) is the way The Science works. It is dictated from on high and all contradictory evidence is unpersoned. Questions are seen as disloyal.

Forgive me, dear reader. I know you’re sick unto death of hearing this, just as I feel shooting pain in my hands every time I type it, but: If there is Official Disinformation there must necessarily exist Official Truths, and agencies charged with producing, promoting, and policing them.

If the Official Truths really are true Truths, then this is fine. But when they are not, or where there is uncertainty, there is tyranny.

As there was, and is, with Newsom. Who had the temerity to announce recently that “Mistakes were made on both sides” regarding covid. Or something like that. Not that he admitted to mistakes he himself made by the abuse of his authority. But we would expect nothing less from a politician in an Our Democracy.

We should, however, expect more from doctors, which is to say physicians, people who, at one time anyway, were able to memorize human anatomy. We’ll soon see that this is not longer so. But for today let us examine the peer-reviewed paper “Communication of COVID-19 Misinformation on Social Media by Physicians in the US” by Sahana Sule in JAMA. (Thanks to Kip Hansen.)

Their “findings”?

Findings In this mixed-methods study of high-use social media platforms, physicians from across the US and representing a range of medical specialties were found to propagate COVID-19 misinformation about vaccines, treatments, and masks on large social media and other online platforms and that many had a wide reach based on number of followers.

Meaning This study’s findings suggest a need for rigorous evaluation of harm that may be caused by physicians, who hold a uniquely trusted position in society, propagating misinformation; ethical and legal guidelines for propagation of misinformation are needed.

Harm, they say, caused by physicians who disagreed with Official Truths.

Again, if physicians (and we’ll see these creatures exist) say “Some men have uteruses”, then harm can be done, because this information is in fact false, and therefore genuine disinformation. But if these are physicians who say “Vaccine by definition and design cause you harm, for the hope of future benefit” or “Masks have consistently shown no benefit in preventing the transmission of respiratory diseases”, then there is not only no harm, but real benefit, because these are truths.

But they are not Official Truths. Official Truths are the opposite of these propositions.

Specific examples:

Specific types of misinformation included the following: (1) vaccines were unsafe and/or ineffective, (2) masks and/or social distancing did not decrease risk for contracting COVID-19, (3) medications for prevention or treatment were effective despite not having completed clinical trials or having been FDA approved, and (4) other (eg, conspiracy theories).

Remember when CDC boss DOCTOR Rochelle Walensky sidled up the microphone and said that if you were vaxxed you could not catch covid? She, of course, was one of many Experts who told the same lie. Disagreeing with her became Official Misinformation. The lie became Official Truth. Masks we have done to death. The lies about “horse paste” we all also remember. But do you also recall that when they were first bruited “vaccine passports” were labeled a “conspiracy theory”?

Our point is obvious. Truths, actual truths, were, and are still called Official Misinformation. And falsities were and are Official Truths.

Which we already knew and which is not our main point. Which can be made by examining the authors of the paper, all members of or aspiring to membership in the Expertocracy. Only one is a physician, and therefore one who should know better.

It is that aspiration which is our point. That easy belief Experts have in other Experts, a belief which includes the strong desire to punish questioning of any Expert, and their need to silence all disagreement. Even on propositions on which agreement can with sanity no longer be believed. A trick they manage by unpersoning all contradictory evidence.

This is the danger of the Expertocracy. Their haughty cocksure intransigence.

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