If there’s one thing that cranks, quacks, and grifters have long known, it’s that somehow being able to portray oneself as a “victim,” as “persecuted,” is the most effective way to rally followers and promote the grift, and FLCCC is no different. As Merlan reported:
In the ongoing saga of the ivermectin guys, who claim they alone hold the extremely dubious cure for COVID, it’s necessary to have an antagonist—someone they can say is threatening them for exposing the truth. Recently, it’s been the American Board of Internal Medicine, or ABIM.
Two prominent vaccine skeptics and promoters of unproven COVID treatments, Drs. Pierre Kory and Peter McCullough, said on Twitter that the board is threatening them for their work. This narrative has speedily picked up speed across the right-wing ecosystem, with one right-wing website claiming the board is going to “revoke their medical licenses,” which is not something the ABIM can do. The whole thing is a useful view into how mainstream medical bodies are struggling to deal with their still-certified but increasingly out-there colleagues. And it’s a very instructive example of how fringe medicine promoters—and their allies in Congress—immediately spin their tangles with the medical establishment into more fame and attention.
Of course, the wag in me can’t help but wonder why Drs. Kory and Marik are so upset given that they both appear to have abandoned traditional medical practice in which they might want to have hospital privileges and bill insurance companies and Medicare for their services in favor of the model preferred by “brave maverick doctors” who don’t practice according to science-based guidelines or scientific consensus: Cash on the barrelhead fee-for-service, no insurance accepted. As far as their livelihood goes, even if the ABIM does revoke their board certifications, the action is unlikely to have much, if any, financial impact on them.
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