Geoff Brumfiel Profile picture
Feb 9 17 tweets 9 min read
NEW: When conservative media figure Ben Bergquam become seriously ill with COVID-19 earlier this year, he video blogged about his experience.

In doing so, he provided a rare look at a shadowy world of COVID telemedicine. Here's what we found 🧵

npr.org/sections/healt…
A little background on what's going on. For much of the pandemic, ati-vaccine groups have been pushing alternative therapies for COVID-19. These groups claim vaccines are dangerous, and that drugs like ivermectin can cure COVID.

They also sell prescriptions for 💵💵💵.
These unproven therapies are promoted by conservative media figures, including Steve Bannon (for whom Bergquam has worked).

CDC data shows ivermectin prescriptions have surged in the pandemic.

Most doctors won't prescribe it, so where are these prescriptions coming from?
We usually don't know the answer, because medical privacy laws protect the patient-Dr. relationship.

But Mr. Bergquam shared both his prescription bottle and the doctor's name. She is Kathleen Ann Cullen, and she works with the group known as America's Frontline Doctors.
Dr. Cullen has a troubled past in medicine. She has a license suspended in Kansas for failure to pay fees. Her certification with the American Board of Internal Medicine has lapsed....
But where she's really run into trouble is in the state of Alabama.

She had her license revoked in November for involvement in a separate telehealth business. Attorneys with the board told me that she ordered large numbers of tests without speaking to patients.
(BTW, the owner of that previous business has since pleaded guilty to charges involving federal healthcare fraud:

justice.gov/usao-nj/pr/dis…)
Despite all this, Dr. Cullen continues to hold an active medical licenses in Florida and North Carolina.

And as Bergquam's video shows, she's actively using them to prescribe unproven COVID therapies for America's Frontline Doctors...
How important Cullen's work to the Frontline Doctor's bottom line? Well it's hard to say, but their leader, Simone Gold has been out on the road selling telehealth appointments for the better part of a year.

npr.org/sections/healt…
Misinformation researcher @KolinaKoltai thinks that this "is one of the major income-generating streams for America's Frontline Doctors."

A few good pieces of journalism support that.

@VeraMBergen showed that demand for their services was very high:
time.com/6092368/americ…
@KolinaKoltai @VeraMBergen And @micahflee obtained hacked data suggesting they could be making millions off of these treatments: theintercept.com/2021/09/28/cov…

(I should note that Gold disputes the story and says the hack never occurred).
Back to Cullen. The Florida Department of Health has two complaints publicly filed against her, related to her license suspension in KS and the revocation in AL.

Her license in Florida also expired last week, but it's still listed as active. The department would not comment.
NC's medical board declined to comment directly.

Meanwhile, Cullen and America's Frontline Doctors can continue to prescribe ivermectin.

Which has left @TheBlondeRN wondering: "How many patients have to suffer from disinfo until we actually have action?"
@TheBlondeRN LAST NOTES:

I am not the first journalist to notice Cullen. As usual @paldhous is two steps ahead of the game and was writing about her last September:
buzzfeednews.com/article/petera…
For more on AFLDS and Simone Gold, read @anelsona's very good early coverage of the group:
washingtonspectator.org/anatomy-of-dec…

And @smencimer's definitive profile of Simone Gold:
motherjones.com/politics/2021/…
*became

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Geoff Brumfiel

Geoff Brumfiel Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @gbrumfiel

Feb 9
I'm actually really glad you've brought this up, because it wasn't covered in my story out earlier today:
npr.org/sections/healt…

But I do think it's important to talk about some of the potentially troubling impacts of these prescriptions... (another 🧵)
Ben Bergquam gave a pretty full account of what happened to him in his facebook video. He became sick before Christmas and started taking alternative therapies including hydroxychloroquine, zinc, vitamin D, and other unspecified treatments (possibly ivermectin).
But according to his own account they didn't work. His fever spiked at 105, and he had serious trouble breathing.

He then went in on Day 8 to seek monoclonal antibody treatment (a proven therapy) and antibiotics for COVID-induced bilateral pneumonia. Also proven...
Read 10 tweets
Dec 7, 2021
Short 🧵

Over the past few months @DanielPWWood and I have been looking at the connection between COVID deaths, vaccinations and election results. We found counties that went heavily Trump in 2020 had higher death rates. And lower vaccination rates.

npr.org/sections/healt…
@DanielPWWood To me, this correlation is b-a-n-a-n-a-s. There is NO reason election results and deaths from a disease should have ANYTHING to do with each other. For example, state flu deaths don't appear to match the election map. Why would they?

(NB, I'm not being rigorous here)
@DanielPWWood And yet there it is. An apparently massive connection between how a county voted and how many people are dying from COVID-19. How can this be? After a lot of research, I've concluded it comes down to basically two things:

✅Vaccination

✅Misinformation about vaccines.
Read 10 tweets
Sep 14, 2021
Let's talk about doctors behaving badly. Specifically, licensed physicians who promote misinformation about COVID-19.

And let's start with one in particular: Simone Gold. I've spent much of the past few weeks listening to what she has to say...🧵

npr.org/sections/healt…
Gold describes herself as an emergency physician or, sometimes "a board-certified emergency physician..." That's half-true...
She is a licensed physician in California, but her American Board of Emergency Medicine certification expired in December of 2020.
Read 15 tweets
Jul 20, 2021
Today on @MorningEdition, I walked through the life cycle of a vaccine lie.

It starts with a kernel of truth: After vax, many women anecdotally reported heavy periods. That's plausible, says @aliceluculligan, because immune cells aid in menstruation.

npr.org/sections/healt…
But the clinical trials never asked women about their experiences with menstruation, so there's no data.

That created an opportunity for misinformation, says @MelanieFSmith (then at @Graphika_NYC).

For misinfo to thrive "there is always that gap of knowledge," she says.
@MelanieFSmith @Graphika_NYC There was plenty of chatter around the question of periods in groups and message boards. But one Facebook group turned out to be particularly influential. It was frequented by anti-vaccine activists who quickly picked up on the idea and ran with it...
Read 10 tweets
Jul 19, 2021
NEW: A key scientist who signed the letter calling for investigation into the lab leak theory now says a natural origin "is the most likely scenario by a long shot."

It's based on his own analysis of where the first cases were found. (by @FoodieScience)
npr.org/sections/goats…
@FoodieScience Evolutionary biologist Michael Worobey, who's studied the origins of the 1918 flu and the beginning of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in America. He initially signed the letter because he hadn't seen anything that differentiated whether it came from the markets or the lab.
@FoodieScience But two things have swayed him that the market is (again) the most likely origin.

1. Initial cases clearly radiate out away from the markets, not the lab.

2. A newly published paper shows numerous live animals were being sold in the market...

nature.com/articles/s4159…
Read 6 tweets
Jul 1, 2021
🚨🚨SCOOPLET!🚨🚨 China is expanding its mysterious, giant airfield in the middle of the desert. New (28 June) imagery from @Maxar shows a dozen or so buildings under construction at the site.

This may be China's Area 51 under construction.

Full Story: npr.org/2021/07/01/101…
This airstrip is huge at 5km (3 mi). It's weird in several ways:

✅Its in the middle of nowhere, on the edge of an abandoned nuclear test site at Lop Nur.

✅It doesn't have normal aistrip stuff, like taxiways, aprons or control towers.

✅Did I mention it's GINORMOUSLY LONG?
Last year its believed that China landed a classified "space plane" at the site. That's in part because the runway JUST HAPPENED to align perfectly with the space plane's orbital path.

Read 13 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

:(