Doctors who endangered the lives of patients through medical misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic have faced few consequences.
Analysis by The Washington Post of disciplinary records from medical boards in all 50 states found over 480 COVID misinformation-related complaints between 2020 and 2023, yet only 20 doctors nationally were penalized. Just five lost their medical licenses — only one had his revoked, while four surrendered theirs.
"State medical boards charged with protecting the American public often failed to stop doctors who went against medical consensus and prescribed unapproved treatments for COVID or misled patients about vaccines and masks," the report reads.
A majority of the complaints involve doctors promoting or prescribing ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine, medications that became popular in conservative circles at the height of the pandemic, but have been disproven as treatments for COVID, and are not suggested by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or approved by the Food and Drug Administration.
In May, the Florida legislature passed a law that prevents medical boards from punishing doctors who spread COVID misinformation online. Six other states have restricted medical boards' ability to discipline physicians for prescribing ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine.
This had led to death in some cases. One Wisconsin doctor, Edward Hagen, prescribed ivermectin to a COVID patient in his 50s, who died just four days later from “probable COVID-19 infection." Hagen had prescribed ivermectin to another patient previously, who died of COVID-related complications in 2022.
Hagen told The Post: "They didn’t pass away from ivermectin. They passed away from COVID.”
The Wisconsin medical board suspended Hagen's license in February 2023 for “failing to conform to the standard of minimally competent medical practice which creates an unacceptable risk of harm to a patient or the public." However, the suspension was lifted after Hagen completed nine hours of education and paid $3,943 in investigation fees.
Hagen said he would still prescribe ivermectin today.
