03/11/2016 / By Tara Paras
The American Medical Association (AMA) has once again proven just how dictatorial it can be (despite merely having a professional membership base of 17% of all doctors), as it has tried to threaten progressive doctors from exercising their freedom of speech on the national stage.
Apparently, despite its less than impressive hold on the entire medical industry, AMA sees itself as the gatekeeper of all scientific knowledge in the medical profession.
According to the Alliance for Natural Health USA (ANH-USA), the AMA, responding to a recent proposal by a handful of medical students, has decided to make some changes to its official policies on medical ethics. Clearly a reactionary move in response to Dr. Oz’s revelations against glyphosate, the policy changes are directed at “celebrity” doctors who have a mass media platform to influence public opinion.
As explained by ANH-USA, the proposal targets “quack MDs” – which is really code for doctors who aren’t brainwashed Pharma zombies – using gag order tactics. The AMA plans to “… create ethical guidelines for physicians in the media, write a report on how doctors may be disciplined for violating medical ethics through their press involvement, and release a public statement denouncing the dissemination of dubious medical information through the radio, TV, newspapers, or websites.”
In other words, the AMA wants to control what doctors say under threat of punishment. If a doctor decides to expose the link between MMR vaccines and autism, for example, he or she could be “disciplined” for “violating medical ethics.”
It’s completely unreasonable for the AMA to impose such guidelines, considering the fact that it is nothing more than a membership-based medical organization representing just one segment of conventional medical thought.
The majority of doctors aren’t even members of AMA, and yet the organization believes that it should have the special privilege of being able to dictate what doctors can or cannot say. This is the textbook definition of censorship, with the AMA acting as a dictator controlling the flow of medical propaganda.
ANH-USA, in fact, puts it this way:
“… we believe in a free and open market when it comes to healthcare choices. By doing what it can to gag doctors’ free speech in the media, the AMA is indeed attempting to ‘defend the profession’ — albeit from competition and change, not from those it dismisses as ‘quacks.'”
Sources used:
Tagged Under: AMA, freedom of speech, medical community, Medicine, Tyranny