After AP report on Trump campaign push to organize anti-lockdown doctors, Fox News pushes letter from new doctor group
Fox “news”-side anchor complains that people “who have non-COVID related problems” aren’t getting care
Written by Eric Kleefeld
Published
Fox News is now hyping what appears to be a coordinated effort by pro-Trump groups and the Trump campaign to put forward a separate narrative from another group of doctors who are speaking out against official guidance from experts about safety measures to battle the coronavirus pandemic and instead urging the quick reopening of businesses and the end of shelter-in-place orders.
On Wednesday, The Associated Press reported on a May 11 conference call “with a senior staffer for the Trump reelection campaign,” which was organized by an affiliate of the right-wing Council for National Policy.
During the call, Republican activist Nancy Schulze “said she had given the campaign a list of 27 doctors prepared to defend Trump’s reopening push.” According to Schulze, “There is a coalition of doctors who are extremely pro-Trump that have been preparing and coming together for the war ahead in the campaign on health care.” She further added: “And we have doctors that are … in the trenches, that are saying ‘It’s time to reopen.’”
Another participant on the call was Matt Schlapp, head of the American Conservative Union, the organization that hosts the annual Conservative Political Action Conference. Schlapp is also a frequent guest on Fox News and appeared on the network in early March to downplay the danger of the virus while he was isolating at home, after having potentially been exposed to someone during the recent CPAC event who later tested positive for COVID-19.
“The president’s going to get tagged by the fake news media as being irresponsible and not listening to doctors,” Schlapp said on the reported conference call. “And so we have to gird his loins with a lot of other people. So I think what Nancy’s talking about … this is the critical juncture that we highlight them.”
And today, Fox News ran an article featuring a public letter from a new group called “A Doctor a Day,” formed to oppose the lockdown efforts. Currently at over 600 signatures, the letter calls the economic shutdown a “mass casualty incident” resulting in people missing medical appointments for other conditions and experiencing the potentially devastating health effects of financial uncertainty.
As the AP noted, the lead signatory of the letter is Dr. Simone Gold, an emergency medicine specialist. Gold is also a member of the Save Our Country Coalition, an alliance of conservative groups pushing to reopen businesses. The Council for National Policy, the group that organized the May 11 call, is also a member of that coalition. Gold denied to the AP that she was coordinating her efforts with the Trump campaign: “But put this in there: I’m honored to be considered.”
Gold also told Fox News that her push to quickly reopen the economy is “causing a big misunderstanding about what I'm doing so I actually think I'm just going to take my name off [from the Save Our Country Coalition] because it's not really supposed to be political.”
The letter received a glowing mention in the opening block of Thursday’s edition of Fox & Friends.
Citation From the May 21, 2020, edition of Fox News’ Fox & Friends
AINSLEY EARHARDT (CO-HOST): Well, Steve, all of this as hundreds of doctors have joined the call — these are doctors, keep in mind — to end the stringent stay-at-home orders. More than 600 sending a letter to President Trump calling this lockdown a, quote, “massive casualty incident,” saying that Americans are putting themselves at risk by missing routine appointments. Isn't that interesting? Because we hear all these expert doctors say, don't open too quickly. But then you have this other group that's saying, look, if you look at the statistics, it shows states that are reopening, many of them don't have as many cases now, they're doing better. And potentially, you've got suicides that are up, you've got — people are drinking during the day now. They're worried about alcoholism killing people, and they're worried about domestic violence as well, Brian.
At about the same time, the letter was being covered as a seemingly straightforward news headline on Fox Business’ Mornings with Maria Bartiromo.
Citation From the May 21, 2020, edition Fox Business’ Mornings with Maria Bartiromo
The coverage continued on Fox’s purported “news”-side program, with America’s Newsroom co-anchor Ed Henry interviewing Gold after announcing that “doctors across America” are “now voicing concerns about extended lockdowns.” During the interview, Henry voiced concerns about people suffering from ailments other than COVID-19:
Citation From the May 21, 2020, edition of Fox News’ America’s Newsroom
ED HENRY (CO-ANCHOR): You know, my son has a tennis coach, and he was very upset this week because the tennis coach basically had a stroke a few weeks ago. And nobody found him initially, because he lived alone, and rather than going to the tennis courts — the tennis courts were locked down — so this coach went days without getting medical attention. And his friends are now deeply concerned about the impact. I'd imagine there are people around the country who have non-COVID related problems that they're not getting taken care of.
DR. SIMONE GOLD: So, you don't have to imagine. I've had thousands upon thousands of these stories. The New England Journal of Medicine published an article — a letter to the editor, May 8, documenting that 40% of stroke or stroke-like patients didn't show up. Journal of Cardiology, I think JACC [Journal of the American College of Cardiology], really documented the same thing about stroke patients. I could read you heartbreaking story after heartbreaking story sent to me by physicians of patients that have died or suffered severe harm because they were afraid to go to the hospital and their own doctors' offices were shut. There are tragic stories, patients in nursing homes who have no visitors, whose mental health has deteriorated. There's just — it's just — we just want America to hear the story. We feel like there is one narrative out there — and that's OK, but you need to hear the whole picture, the rest of the story. We feel like that one opinion is not sufficient and that the second opinion of all these thousands of doctors needs to be heard.
Given the remarks Henry made about “people around the country who have non-COVID related problems that they're not getting taken care of,” it might also be worth examining the actual text of the letter and what the signatories explained they meant when they described the shutdown as a “mass casualty incident.”
During a mass casualty incident, victims are immediately triaged to black, red, yellow, or green. The first group, triage level black, includes those who require too many resources to save during a mass crisis. The red group has severe injuries that are survivable with treatment, the yellow group has serious injuries that are not immediately life threatening, and the green group has minor injuries.
The red group receives highest priority. The next priority is to ensure that the other two groups do not deteriorate a level. Decades of research have shown that by strictly following this algorithm, we save the maximum number of lives.
Millions of Americans are already at triage level red. These include 150,000 Americans per month who would have had a new cancer detected through routine screening that hasn’t happened, millions who have missed routine dental care to fix problems strongly linked to heart disease/death, and preventable cases of stroke, heart attack, and child abuse. Suicide hotline phone calls have increased 600%.
Tens of millions are at triage level yellow. Liquor sales have increased 300-600%, cigarettes sales have increased, rent has gone unpaid, family relationships have become frayed, and millions of well-child check-ups have been missed.
Hundreds of millions are at triage level green. These are people who currently are solvent, but at risk should economic conditions worsen. Poverty and financial uncertainty is closely linked to poor health.
In this analogy of the shutdown as a “mass casualty incident,” no explanation is given for who the “triage level black” group — those people who “require too many resources to save during a mass crisis” and thus must be abandoned in order to save the rest — might actually represent.
But given the active push by Fox News hosts for the mass reopening of businesses, even if the vulnerable suffer, and their willingness to accept preventable deaths of more coronavirus patients, the answer would seem pretty clear.