How American Doctors Must Treat Disease

The point of the “survey” here, of course, is to goad ignorant people into claiming that doctors can say and do anything they like, by way of treating disease, because their free speech is protected under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

In the United States, the practice of medicine is shepherded by the American Medical Association; it’s illegal to claim to treat a disease without an AMA license.  Generally, we citizens approve of this, as it protects us from being scammed with worthless or even dangerous “cures,” and this is especially important in the Internet age, where QAnon and dozens of other anti-science groups can reach millions of gullible fools with whatever baseless claim they choose.

Having said that, doctors have a certain degree of latitude as to how they go about their work and what treatments they recommend.  I happened to ask one of my doctors if she was bound by AMA regulations, to recommend only the “standard of care,” i.e., what the scientific consensus had determined to be the most efficacious approach, and she replied, “No, I can prescribe anything for which there is a solid reason and evidence that would cause me to believe it to be effective.  I can’t offer voodoo, but I have some leeway.”

Now, let’s apply this to COVID-19.  Considering a) the lethality of the early variants of the disease, b) the threat it poses to our entire civilization, and c) the rapid progress the scientific community is making vis-à-vis vaccination protocols and other safety measures, most doctors are particularly careful to follow the guidelines that are put in place from the world’s top epidemiological organizations.