Heading into the Thanksgiving holiday, hospitals across the United States are overwhelmed by a potent three-headed respiratory monster of COVID, seasonal flu, and Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). The situation is expected to get worse before it improves, and yet our public officials are sticking with their tired “vaccine only” containment strategy. The Biden Administration has even resorted to promoting $20 dollar discounts on groceries to boost flagging vaccine rates.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Among the key takeaways from the 2022 elections was voters yearning for a sense of normalcy. The populace wants to turn the page on the pandemic and the containment strategies that have been imposed upon us.

For doctors, that means returning to a pre-pandemic mindset of applying critical thinking and pushing back on misguided protocols and policies — especially those offered up by bullying public health agencies influenced by profit-making entities. Politicians talk about putting America first — for doctors, patients must always come first.

For nearly three years, the world has been living in a fog. In the face of a once-in-a-century pandemic, a terrified populace was asked to comply with a widespread groupthink and accept the closing of our economy, schools, businesses, and churches. Masks and under-tested vaccines were mandated. Livelihoods for those who refused to go along were threatened.

These measures have not aged well. It’s no wonder the public yearns for normalcy.

Consider the vaccines. After the federal government used its full force to spearhead a mass vaccine effort, serious questions have arisen about the products’ safety. Never mind that the vaccines fell woefully short of preventing infection or transmission of the disease. According to a report from Journal of Food and Chemical Toxicology, mRNA injections can weaken the natural immune system, fueling deadly diseases such as heart problems and blood clots.

Pfizer and Moderna, which have received billions of dollars from the U.S. government for COVID products, have now launched trials to determine whether there are any long-term negative health impacts caused by the vaccines that public health officials assured us were safe and forced many to get.

Those who sounded the first alarms on the long-term dangers of the vaccines have been vindicated by solid, reproducible scientific data. Rigorous science doesn’t lie. So now we know that after being dismissed, the physicians and researchers who mustered the courage to speak truth to power were right all along. They put patients first, at great personal risk.

From the outset of the pandemic, the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC) embraced and nourished an ethical ethos of medicine that rooted itself in the welfare of humanity. Our physicians, clinical advisors, alliance associates, staff, volunteers, patients, families, supporters, and colleagues who have locked arms to defend the Hippocratic Oath to ‘do no harm’ — along with legions around the world — have always put patients first.

Unfortunately, we were not rewarded for our efforts. Quite the opposite. California even passed a law that could strip medical professionals of their licenses to practice if deemed guilty of spreading “misinformation” — that is, anything that deviates from official “contemporary scientific consensus.” Of course, today’s consensus is tomorrow’s debunked information, but that has not stopped California bureaucrats in their quest to silence the scientific process. It has gotten so bad that the ACLU has intervened.

Despite these roadblocks, we applied our patient-first principles and built a coalition of physicians, patients, and concerned citizens while fending off censorship and cancellation efforts. But as the world prepares to move beyond the COVID emergency, our shared ethical ethos of medicine and its core imperatives — to act with morality, compassion, and integrity — must endure. In its embrace, one and all are welcome.

The holiday season is a time for healing, giving thanks, and reflecting. As we do so, we must open our eyes and clearly assess the havoc caused by the pandemic and respond with the highest degree of medical integrity to the ever-changing healthcare landscape it has created.

Since COVID won’t be our last global public health emergency, we must learn from our mistakes and build on our successes to better prepare. We have already issued new protocols for navigating the three-headed respiratory threat overrunning hospitals today – and it’s a comprehensive strategy that goes beyond simply vaccines.

It is time to open our hearts and loudly proclaim that patients must always be our priority — not power or profits.

Isn’t it time to put patients — and all the citizens of the world — first?

Pierre Kory, M.D. is President and Chief Medical Officer of the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance.

The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Daily Wire.

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Patients Must Be A Doctor’s Priority, Not Power Or Profits