The dark undercurrent in healthcare

The dark side of healthcare

Editorial, Prague, June 27, 2025

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=610s7Q9TzKs&ab_channel=TheEconomicTimes

The tyrannical treatment of doctors

The persecution of professional freedom and freedom of expression among doctors and healthcare workers around the world is a serious problem. This mistreatment is mainly carried out by the state on the basis of official regulations introduced by the WHO (World Health Organization, part of the UN) through official functionaries who betray their country in exchange for advantages or money.

Healthcare workers have suffered and continue to suffer consequences such as dismissal, restrictions, detention, and harassment for expressing their concerns about health safety or criticizing government policies. We have seen this in the orchestration of the COVID-19 pandemic. This has had an intimidating effect on their freedom at a time when their professional expertise was essential to cure or prevent the death of patients:168.

Specific examples

In Iran, there is the case of Dr. Ahmadreza Djalali, who has been arrested and threatened with the death penalty. This was widely reported in the media, highlighting the extreme risks faced by dissident doctors2. Other examples include Gaza, Sudan, Turkey, and Israel, where pressure against professional freedom endangers healthcare workers who provide care to everyone, regardless of their political affiliation.

The list of oppressive countries is long, including countries with communist political regimes such as Cuba, Nicaragua, and both Chinas. In these countries, harassment of marginalized groups and violations of the labor and professional rights of doctors on international missions are commonplace47.

Doctors also face personal attacks and sexual harassment on social media platforms, which stifles their willingness to speak freely. The COVID-19 pandemic has been used by at least 83 governments to justify restrictions on freedom of expression, including measures against healthcare workers who criticized pandemic responses, often using vague laws to criminalize dissent.

In short, doctors and healthcare workers around the world face persecution for exercising their freedom of expression, especially when their statements challenge official narratives or expose systemic failures. This repression occurs through legal, political, social, and institutional mechanisms, which are often intensified during crises such as pandemics or political unrest, with serious consequences for human rights and public health.

Tyrannical traits in leading countries

However, even ‘model’ countries such as the US and northern European countries also suffer from refined forms of corruption that limit doctors’ freedom to act according to their best scientific knowledge and conscience. Medical treatment protocols are imposed on them, as we have seen in the latest pandemic.

One of the many think tanks created in response to the COVID-19 pandemic is the Brownstone Institute, a non-profit think tank in the US founded by Jeffrey Tucker in 2021. It is known for opposing COVID-19 restrictions such as mask mandates and vaccine mandates for a single vaccine. The institute considers itself the “moral child” of the Great Barrington Declaration, which we reported on at the time: https://thinktanklatam.org/barrington-declaration-against-the-lockdown/.

Close ‘cooperation’ between doctors and the medical industry

On June 6, 2025, Peter Gotzsche published an article in the Brownstone Institute that caused quite a stir among American surgeons: ‘It was a study of all US cardiothoracic (CT) surgeons who had published articles in three major CT surgery journals in 2019. A staggering 96% had received payments from companies. The amount of money involved was astonishing. Over $187 million was paid out over five years to 851 surgeons (an average of $220,000 per surgeon), with the highest-paid surgeon receiving an average of over $5.9 million per year.

To judge this case, one must take into account the close relationship in the US between the medical industry and the doctors who use its products. This gives the industry the opportunity to reward surgeons who prefer their products over others, which poses a risk to patients because the best option may not be selected.

Doctors are the big ‘salespeople’

In medical sectors where healthcare products are used, such as implants, prostheses, pacemakers, catheters, probes, technical equipment, etc., it is very likely that doctors are offered incentives to choose a particular brand. The same is true for drugs, as in the case of the latest pandemic, where doctors were required by law to use only certain vaccines (Pfizer and AstraZeneca), leaving aside much more effective and cheaper remedies such as hydroxychloroquine.

This practice has some very negative consequences:

• It leads to overmedication and drug incompatibilities that can have lethal effects.
• It artificially inflates the demand for unnecessary drugs and raises health insurance premiums.
• Corruption extends to official bodies responsible for approving and authorizing drugs and medical products as a prerequisite for their distribution. It also extends to university departments, where many scientific authorities have been dismissed for not aligning themselves with the official narrative on the pandemic. In this regard, many university professors have been dismissed and highly respected doctors have lost their professional licenses.