A Florida doctor was recently stripped of his American Board of Family Medicine certification after allegedly making "false and misleading claims" online about COVID-19 and the vaccine, the Floridian Press reported.
Last week, Doctor John Littell, a family physician and U.S. Army veteran, received a letter from the ABFM informing him that his certification had been "rescinded" as of March 16.
Littell, a certified ABFM member since 1990, previously made headlines for successfully treating over 3,000 COVID patients with ivermectin. The physician also made waves last month when he was kicked out of a Sarasota Memorial Hospital board meeting for testifying to the effectiveness of the treatment.
During the meeting, Littell stated, "I got disciplined for giving ivermectin, which got a young mom out of the hospital in three days when she would have died."
The ABFM letter, written by professionalism specialist Andrea Back, accused Littell of violating the board's guidelines by failing in his obligation to "practice professional competence," "commitment to lifelong learning and maintaining the necessary medical knowledge to provide quality patient care," "demonstrating honesty with patients," "demonstrating honesty with the public," "maintaining appropriate relationships with patients," and "refraining from abusive or disruptive behavior."
According to the board, Littell disseminated "false or misleading information" on his YouTube and Rumble channels regarding COVID and the treatment of COVID.
The letter said that Littell made statements in his online videos that were "not supported by prevailing medical evidence on the standard of care for prevention and treatment of COVID-19 and vaccination and, as such, represents breaches of your professional obligation to rely on evidence-based standards when providing medical information to patients and the public."
The ABFM provided several examples of Littell's online statements that the board determined to be "demonstrably false, inaccurate, and/or misleading," which it claimed proved "an ongoing pattern of dissemination of health misinformation."
In several videos posted by Littell to Rumble, he referred to the vaccine as "genetic engineering." However, ABFM's letter argued that "genetic engineering is not possible with the mRNA vaccines" because it "does not enter the nucleus of the cells."
Littell also claimed that the COVID injection caused myocarditis in children, leading to an increase in deaths.
ABFM did not dispute the link between myocarditis and the vaccine but still accused Littell of spreading misinformation because "there is no evidence that pediatric myocarditis deaths, attributed to the COVID vaccination, are more numerous than prevented deaths, serious illness, or hospitalizations from COVID."
"The myocarditis caused by COVID vaccination is mild and not associated with fatalities," the board wrote.
Littell told the Floridian Press, "It's not disinformation, it's good information." He accused the ABFM of being politically charged and "corrupt."
"You have no chance of being a conservative and speaking out and keeping your certification," said Littell. "Will this stop me from teaching medical students? Will this stop me from working in a hospital? One would at least expect to receive a letter from the president of the American Board of Family Medicine who happens to be a family physician."
"If you decertify every physician for talking about the safety of a drug, you would decertify everyone," he added.
The ABFM's letter informed Littell that he has 20 days to request a review.
Littell stated that he and his attorney, Jeff Childers, plan to take action against the board's decision.
"We will ultimately prevail, not only in the legal arena, but primarily in the court of public opinion," Littell said. "If Americans want to have physicians who are truly independent, who value the Sanctity of the physician/patient relationship, and who practice according to the basic tenet, 'first, do no harm,' - then we, together, must fight against those institutions, such as the specialty boards, which choose rather to treat us like trainable puppies, with choke collars and tight leashes, preparing to discipline us, whenever we choose to exercise our First Amendment right to speak freely about the potential dangers of certain medications, vaccines or procedures which will, in truth, do harm to the patients we serve."
The ABFM stated that it does not comment on "issues of physician professionalism," the Floridian Press reported.
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