e-commentary

November 11, 2021

Sent to medicalboard@alaska.gov

Alaska State Medical Board

P.O. Box 110806

Juneau, Alaska  99811-0806

Re:     Sound Medical Information and Ilona J. H. Farr, M.D.       

Dear Board Members:

          I am concerned about some accusations and aspersions being made against my friend Ilona Farr, M.D.  Although we joke that our political leanings and religious inclinations are quite different, I support and celebrate her tireless and selfless efforts to prevent and treat Covid-19 in Alaska.  My support is in a personal not a professional capacity. 

I recently read the article by Mr. Pat Dougherty in the “Anchorage Daily News” titled “Alaska’s medical board needs to act on misinformation.”  He does not provide any evidence of any training, background or experience to be opining on the issues in the article.  He does not appear qualified to practice medicine or to determine how medicine should be practiced in Alaska.  He does not appear to recognize the scope of the First Amendment.  This public health issue is guided if not governed by many laws and regulations.

His allegation is troubling:  “What does the Alaska State Medical Board, which licenses and governs the conduct of all doctors in Alaska, have to say about doctors who give clearly inaccurate and possibly life-threatening misinformation to the public in order to promote their personal political or institutional agendas?”  Ask the wrong question and you invariably get the wrong answer.

The right question is compelling:  “What does the Alaska State Medical Board, which licenses and governs the conduct of all doctors in Alaska, have to say about doctors who give clearly accurate and possibly life-saving information to the public in order to promote the public health and welfare at a tremendous personal and professional cost to themselves?”  The Alaska State Medical Board should commend and encourage them to continue sacrificing and caring for the community.

Would you provide or make available for copying Mr. Dougherty’s written complaints and other correspondence with the Board?  The Alaska Public Records Act (APRA) includes laws designed to guarantee that the public has access to records of government bodies at all levels in the State of Alaska.  The law is available at Alaska Statutes 40.25.110 – 40.25.125. 

The current experimental mRNA treatments and the more traditional adenovirus vaccine were subject to incomplete and abbreviated FDA “emergency use authorization” (EUA) review.  Under section 564 of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, the FDA was required to determine that there are no “adequate, approved, and available” alternatives.  https://www.fda.gov/emergency-preparedness-and-response/mcm-legal-regulatory-and-policy-framework/emergency-use-authorization  Many health care professionals and informed citizens remain concerned that this review of alternative treatments was never adequately or honestly undertaken.  The official “studies” were carefully and strategically titrated to avoid an honest evaluation of a proposed treatment protocol.  The “studies” did not include the specific uses of the medicines and combinations of medicines prescribed by Dr. Farr and others.  The FDA has redoubled its efforts to avoid and preclude honest testing of possible “adequate, approved, and available” alternatives to avoid jeopardizing the EUAs.  In the face of government recalcitrance and indifference, courageous doctors and health care professionals must step in and take care of us.    

In addition, after the sketchy EUA analysis, the actual tests to determine the “safety and efficacy” of the two treatments and the vaccine were limited in scope and duration before hasty emergency approvals.  Something just does not seem right. 

A senior bioethicist who heads a research team at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) is taking the lead at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the debate over the ethics of COVID vaccine mandates.  Dr. Matthew Memoli, the director of the Laboratory of Infectious Diseases at the NIH, will argue against vaccine mandates during a December 1 livestreamed roundtable session open to the public.  “There’s a lot of debate within the NIH about whether [a vaccine mandate] is appropriate,” David Wendler, a senior NIH bioethicist in charge of planning the session, told the “Wall Street Journal” newspaper.  “It’s an important, hot topic,” he noted.  Dr. Memoli opposes mandates for the COVID vaccines authorized for emergency use in the United States and has chosen not to be vaccinated.^[1]     https://www.wsj.com/articles/vaccine-mandate-debate-makes-it-to-top-federal-research-agency-11636286400

          Banishing citizens who test positive for Covid-19 back home to isolate and decline and inviting them to go to the hospital when it is usually too late to treat is inappropriate.  The current failed plan not surprisingly successfully fills the hospitals with patients and fills the public with unnecessary fear and dread.  You are indeed on your own.  

          The State must embark on a policy of prevention and early treatment.  The State should review and follow as appropriate some of the recommendations set forth by the health care professionals with Front Line Critical Covid Care (FLCCC) and other authorities.  https://covid19criticalcare.com/.  Dr. Farr is among the few health care professionals trying to prevent and treat the Virus with something other than the current experimental creations. 

The Right to Try Act is a federal law that allows patients to try treatment options.  https://www.fda.gov/patients/learn-about-expanded-access-and-other-treatment-options/right-try and https://www.congress.gov/115/bills/s204/BILLS-115s204enr.pdf  As a general proposition, federal law pre-empts conflicting state law; this federal law pre-empts conflicting Alaska state law.  Federal law protects a citizen who seeks to access and use a generic equivalent of Stromectol.  The patient’s access and use should not be and cannot legally be prevented by someone who wants to use Alaska law to deny access and use. 

There is not a “flu season” and a “non-flu season” in Alaska; there is a “non-sun season” and a “sun season” every year.  If each person achieved at least 50 ng/mL of 25(OH) D3, the NIH notes that the mortality rate from Covid-19 would be close to zero (0).  https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34684596/  To aid in the prevention of Covid-19, why are there not billboards, PSAs and planes towing banners promoting the regular use of Vitamin D3 (a critical fat-soluble secosteroid) and Zinc during the winter months in Alaska?  The current Chief Medical Officer in Alaska does not mention Vitamin D3 to the public.  Again the duty and the task fall on Dr. Farr and others^[2] who encourage and promote the intake of Vitamin D3.  Hippocrates of Kos himself noted that if your shadow is longer than you are tall during the peak of the day, the Sun is not providing bioavailable Vitamin D.

The Board should reassert the primacy of the physician-patient relationship in Alaska.  A physician prescribes and a pharmacist provides.  Pharmacists are not trained to and should not practice medicine without training and a proper license.  When a patient presents a prescription from a physician to a pharmacist in Alaska, the pharmacist should confirm the identity of the individual and provide the medication without question.  This time-honored policy and practice protects pharmacists by providing certainty and relieving them of some ineffable yearning to second-guess the settled decision of the physician and patient and thereby deny treatment without explanation or recourse.  If a pharmacist assumes the role of a physician and refuses to fill a prescription, does the Alaska State Medical Board or the Alaska State Board of Pharmacy have jurisdiction?

The Board should carefully consider the sound legal and medical analysis by the Attorney General for the State of Nebraska in Opinion Number 21-017 titled the “Prescription of Ivermectin or Hydroxychloroquine as Off-Label Medicines for the Prevention or Treatment of Covid-19” dated October 15, 2021.  The conclusion in the forty seven (47) page analysis supported by three hundred and four (304) footnotes is as follows: 

[W]e address only the off-label early treatment options discussed in this opinion and conclude that the available evidence suggests that they might work for some people.  Allowing physicians to consider these early treatments will free them to evaluate additional tools that could save lives, keep patients out of hospitals, and provide relief for our already strained healthcare system. 

https://ago.nebraska.gov/sites/ago.nebraska.gov/files/docs/opinions/21-017_0.pdf at page 47.  The Board should make a formal request for an official legal opinion from the Attorney General for the State of Alaska before proceeding with any action.      

Firing employees or forcing them to resign because of their principles or religious convictions at a time of chronic worker shortage is ill advised and counterproductive.  Intentionally destroying an economy is devastating not only to the economy of the state but also to the health and welfare of the citizens.  Covid-19 has done as much debilitating psychological harm to the populace as the physical damage.

There are some out there who assert if you do not accept all of their medical mandates and their one-size-fits-all treatment option, then they will take action so that you do not get any medical attention of any kind.  They assert their unilateral right to apportion medical care.  That is mad.  That is insane.  That is criminal.  That is a sign that the fear has broken them.  They need psychiatric medical care and must be prevented from denying medical care to others.  

To promote some sense of emotional equilibrium, the Board should encourage citizens to read Rudyard Kipling’s “If” before bed at night and then get a restful night of sleep.  https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46473/if—  And, according to the FLCCC protocol, consider taking 6 mg of melatonin prophylactically.  https://covid19criticalcare.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/FLCCC-Alliance-I-MASKplus-Protocol-ENGLISH.pdf

Law students are blessed to take a sexy course in “Administrative Law” (“Bureaucracy Law”).  The undersigned’s instructor – a world authority on the FDA – more than two score years ago (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_A._Merrill) might not agree with some or even any of these contentions, yet he always supported honest inquiry.

As a society, we need to transition from this Pandemic to a controlled Endemic as quickly and painlessly as possible.  Dr. Farr is spreading clearly accurate and possibly life-saving information to the public.  Dr. Farr is making heroic contributions to the prevention and treatment of Covid-19.  Dr. Farr should and must be allowed and encouraged to continue practicing medicine in Alaska.  Clio will look kindly on Ilona’s kindness. 

Thank you for your attention to this matter.  Best wishes.                                       

Keeping my head when all about me are losing theirs and blaming it on moi, I remain, 

                                                  ______________________________

CC:    Ilona

“Men [and women] fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth — more than ruin, more even than death.  Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habits; thought is anarchic and lawless, indifferent to authority, careless of the well-tried wisdom of the ages.  Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid …  Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man [and women].”  Bert Russell, Why Men Fight            

. . .

[1]         Dr. Memoli is a likely candidate for the next edition of Profiles In Courage.

[2]         The undersigned made an effort to inform the public by sending a letter to the editor published on August 1:

Letter: Vitamin supplements

Vaccines are not enough.  Take care of yourself.  Vitamin D3 and zinc help sustain one’s immune system.  Discuss with your health care provider taking, say, 5000 IUs of Vitamin D3 and 50 mg of zinc regularly, along with a balanced diet and vigorous exercise after a night of restful sleep.  Take zinc with a hint of copper and an ionophore to get the zinc into your cells.

Alaska should create a contest to craft a catchy slogan like the “slip, slop, slap and wrap” campaign in Australia that encourages kids and adults to protect themselves against the sun and skin cancer.  However, Alaskans need to address a lack of sun, and thus a lack of vitamin D3. For inspiration, think of the catchy first poem recited by some attentive seven-year-olds to their occasionally inattentive parents: “Click it or ticket.”  How about: “Got D ‘n’ Z

[See the e-commentary on courage and truth at “On Courage and Truth (March 17, 2008)”.]

Bumper sticker of the week:

Try courage, because callow just seems so . . . shallow