Advice on When and How Physicians Can Speak Out If Their Opinions Differ from Their Employer

by Linda Kossoff •

Linda Kossoff is a freelance medical writer based in California.

Opinion Versus Misinformation

When physicians take a public stand, most do so out of a deeply held belief about a healthcare issue. But what if their voiced position contradicts not only the majority medical opinion but federal health guidelines? Freedom of speech is a Constitutional right but shouting “Fire!” in a crowded theater is not, and, in a pandemic, advising against a potentially lifesaving vaccine or touting an untested medication sounds an awful lot like “Fire!”

According to researchers at the Center for Health Security at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, an estimated 2 to 12 million people in the U.S. were unvaccinated against COVID-19 because of misinformation or disinformation. Meanwhile, in a December 2021 poll for the philanthropic de Beaumont Foundation in which 2,220 adults in the U.S. were asked whether physicians who intentionally spread COVID-19 misinformation should be disciplined, 78% said yes. Each state medical board is different, however, and, so far, there are no data to suggest an increase in the numbers of physicians who have been disciplined since 2019.