Inadequate Medical Advice Dispensed By Grand Old Party Doctor

 Sen. Roger Marshall is in no mood to let people forget that he is a doctor by adding “Doc” on the letterhead of his news releases of the U.S. Senate office. However, experts claim that his talks on COVID 19 vaccines sound more like a politician than a doctor.

His statements on immunity and vaccines not only defy medical science but also government guidance. He has been vehemently against President Biden’s vaccine mandates, saying it will violate people’s liberties and ruin the economy. He has proposed experimenting with an unproven COVID 19 treatment on himself.

Inadequate Medical Advice Dispensed By Grand Old Party Doctor

Though Marshall’s stance is pushing him closer to the medial edge, he has company in other pharmacists, physicians, and dentists in congress who are also spreading vague medical advice about the pandemic.

Critics are of the opinion that his claims are unethical and dangerous, given that his medical expertise carries weight with members of Congress and constituents.

Arthur Caplan, the vaccine ethics program’s director, and New York University’s medical ethics division’s founder said that it is his responsibility to get his facts right as he has a vital role to play, given that he is a physician and senator.

Before the President’s vaccine’s mandates encouraged the party’s conservative base and led to activists’ prediction that grassroots opposition might lead to Republicans coming into power in 2022 and re-opening of schools in fall this year, which led to parent’s protests against mask mandates, Marshal had said that he is fully vaccinated and had encouraged his parents to get a booster shot. He had also appeared in April’s public service campaign encouraging people to get vaccinated.

Recent polling results show that almost half of Americans, which is enough for gaining a majority, are supporting Biden’s vaccine mandates.

However, The Associated Press and NORC-Center for Public Affairs Research’s survey concluded that 6 in 10 Republicans are in opposition to the vaccine mandates, so the polls suggest that people are split according to their political party.

Marshal had claimed to be an ardent Trump supporter during his Senate seat victory last year. The man from western Kansas was positioned against a retired Kansas City-area anaesthesiologist and Democrat.

Marshal has been regularly seen without a mask at events, to which he’d said that he took a weekly dose of hydroxychloroquine, which was promoted by Trump, in spite of the Food and Drug Administration’s warning against it.

Marshal has been unsuccessfully trying to pass legislation to ban the vaccine mandates, by arguing that it will lead to workers quitting or being fired, which in turn will cause supply chain obstacles and inflation.

In a recent interview, he claimed that he wanted the public to understand the impact the mandates will have on the economy, without bothering the constitutionality of a federal mandate.

Late in September 2021, Marshal joined fellow lawmakers in encouraging unwarranted theories on COVID 19 immunity. He, along with other medical workers, most of whom are from districts and states that Trump dominated by huge margins last year, sent a letter to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to take into account natural immunity for people who’d recovered from the virus.

While experts do agree that natural immunity arises after recovery from an infection, the general medical theory is that the level of immunity varies from person to person and tends to wane with time, which is why CDC has been urging everyone to get vaccinated because unvaccinated individuals are 11 times more likely to succumb to the virus.

However, Marshal argued against it by claiming that his adult children who had Coronavirus did not need vaccines and that more investigations were required in this department.