Fake Medical News by Erin Schumaker of the Huffington Post

There is a lot of attention to the term “fake news” recently.  For example, I just saw this:

Hillary Clinton challenged policymakers to combat fake and misleading news on social media, as she used a post-election appearance to tackle an issue that gripped her presidential campaign and led to a shooting incident in Washington on Sunday.

Obama talks about it too:

The outgoing US president has lamented an age where ‘active misinformation’ can spread as quickly and easily as the truth.

We should all be bothered by lies and misinformation.  We need to be vet our sources carefully.  The medical community has been guilty of fake medical news for years.  We see it in bad research.  We saw how drug companies manipulate data to manipulate doctors.  We see with studies that are leaked to the media that are way too small and have no power behind them but it has a major effect on patients.  It does make great news, though.

I have another fake medical news story for you, too.  This one is more medico-political.  This headline comes from the Huffington Post:

Disappointed By The AMA, Doctors Start A New Organization To Fight Trump’s Health Care Policies

I bit on this this right away.  Yes, the AMA sucks but they were pro-Obamacare and I never saw the HuffPo talk negative about them 4 years ago. I was suspicious right away.  Then I began to read this piece of garbage. Here are some more tidbits so you understand my angst:

  • More surprising was the American Medical Association’s strong endorsement of Price in a statement from board of trustees chair Dr. Patrice Harris, who urged the Senate to “promptly consider and confirm Dr. Price for this important role.”
  • Backlash from physicians was swift. Among those who spoke out were Drs. Manik Chhabra, Navin Vij and Jane Zhu of the University of Pennsylvania, who wrote a post on Medium titled, “The AMA Does Not Speak for Us.” The trio challenged the association’s endorsement in their letter and invited fellow physicians to sign on.
  • As of Thursday, more than 5,000 health care providers have done so.
  • Chhabra, Vij and Zhu are part of the Clinician Action Network, a nascent alternative organization that has grown in response to Trump’s election. And their letter struck a chord. Before its publication, the initial group of CAN members included 60 health care providers. Network membership has since swelled to several hundred individuals, including physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, pharmacists, social workers and community members.

This, my friends, is a perfect example of cherry picking an article to make your point. The biased Huffington Post is so left leaning that they jumped at anything that fit their agenda.  “Backlash from physicians”?  Really?  All I see is three doctors!  They go on to say 5000 health care providers.  How many are doctors?  There are 800,000 doctors and even if 5000 signed the letter, who cares?   Lastly, they try to legitimize their group called the Clinician Action Network that has 60 members!!!  Sixty!!!  There are more members a group of left-handed, crocheting alien abductees.  Oh, but this group in the article has swelled to several hundred?  Wow.  Are you kidding me?  With all this, the author has the audacity to use the headline “Disappointed by the AMA, Doctors Start A New Organization to Fight Trump’s Health Care Policies?  When the layperson reads this he or she will think that doctors in general are against Dr. Price. That is misleading. That is misinformation.

This is beyond cherry picking.  Erin Schumacher wrote this “fake medical news” piece.  She embellished facts to fit her agenda.  It is embarrassing.  Where were you, Erin, when there was REAL backlash to Obamacare in 2010-2012 by physicians?   Exactly.  If there were a license for journalism then yours should be suspended for this piece of propaganda.