Updated 9/11/22: Information & Analysis Added, Title Change
It was September 20th 2021 when Dr. Dhruv Khullar, who is a contributing writer at The New Yorker, a practicing physician, and an assistant professor at Weill Cornell Medical College, had a piece published in The New Yorker titled "The Struggle to Define Long COVID."¹ He wrote:
In April, 2020, Heidi Ferrer, Güthe’s wife and a former writer for “Dawson’s Creek,” felt shooting pains in her toes. Then she developed stomach pains and diarrhea. Ferrer and Güthe got rapid covid tests at a drive-through site, and they came back negative. (Rapid tests are less reliable than P.C.R. tests.) In the weeks that followed, Ferrer experienced palpitations, muscle pains, and a fatigue so profound that she had difficulty walking up stairs.
By the fall, Ferrer was convinced that she had long covid. She searched for doctors specializing in the condition, but couldn’t find any. She visited acupuncturists and alternative-medicine practitioners, and started taking ivermectin—the horse dewormer that has since been shown not to help with covid-19. By the spring, she’d developed dramatic, involuntary jerking movements. She felt an internal buzzing, and told Güthe that it was like her veins had champagne bubbles fizzing in them. Unable to sleep, Ferrer started taking enormous doses of Ambien, sometimes a pill every two hours. Because she’d never tested positive for the coronavirus, her doctor hesitated to refer her to a newly opened long-covid clinic. She consulted a neurologist, who, Güthe told me, tried “to imply it was all in her head.” Ferrer had no documented history of mental illness, but she did have a strong family history of depression: both her father and her grandmother had died by suicide. She had struggled with alcoholism, but had been sober since 2017.
On May 22nd, Güthe went to pick up their thirteen-year-old son, who was at a friend’s house. On the way back, Güthe said, “I have to talk to you about your mom. I want to believe she’s going to get better. But I have to be honest: I don’t know how this is going to turn out.”
Back home, he and his son went upstairs, where Güthe found Ferrer in the master bedroom, hanging by a drape from the four-poster bed. Güthe told his son to go to his room. He tried to ease Ferrer down, but couldn’t. He raced downstairs for scissors, and finally cut the drape.
...
As a physician wading into the world of patient advocacy, I couldn’t help but face the fact that I was part of the medical establishment—the group at which so much resentment is directed. I came away feeling that medicine would be kinder and more effective if patients had a stronger presence, not just as trial subjects or people in need of care but as authentic partners in the project of improving the human condition. Still, I winced whenever someone mentioned vitamins or ivermectin as a remedy for covid, or touted online anecdotes over peer-reviewed studies, or assailed the good intentions of doctors and nurses. I wondered whether the covid-survivors movement harbored the same anti-élite sentiment running through much of the country—a distrust of institutions and a disregard for expertise.
Before I really break this down, I want to point out something he said that set off alarm bells. He said: "... and started taking ivermectin—the horse dewormer ..." Anyone who refers to Ivermectin, especially a doctor no less, as horse dewormer is incredibly bias. Ivermectin is listed on the World Health Organization's website as one of the most important drugs, for humans.² Debating the efficacy is one thing, but calling it merely a horse dewormer is ridiculous.
Let's also just ignore the doctor's illogical and uncaring idea that those with Long Covid can wait years for peer-reviewed research while they suffer in misery, and do more damage to themselves. He probably believes the same for those Covid Vaccine Injured, if he doesn't gaslight them of course. That's pure utopian fantasy land. It seems science to him is the end all be all, when health is the end all be all for those who are sick. But I digress.
The key part of Dr. Khullar's piece is: "By the spring 'of 2021', she’d developed dramatic, involuntary jerking movements. She felt an internal buzzing, and told Güthe that it was like her veins had champagne bubbles fizzing in them. Unable to sleep, Ferrer started taking enormous doses of Ambien, sometimes a pill every two hours." This is key because on March 8, 2021, Heidi Ferrer received her 1 and only dose of the Moderna Covid Vaccine. Before that she had improved significantly from her Long Haul Covid, from July 2020 to February 2021. After the vaccine is when her health went quickly to hell. This of course would only be key if Dr. Khullar was told this prior to writing his massive article, that wasn't at a loss for words. According to Nick Guthe, Heidi's former husband, Dr. Khullar was told by him about Heidi's vaccine injury, but the doctor/journalist decided to omit it. I doubt he was trying to meet a word limit restriction. In the tweets below you can read Nick Guthe talking through Diana Zicklin Berrent stating that in The New Yorker piece the journalist omitted the part about Heidi's Moderna Covid Vaccine Injury.
This is a doctor who somehow won a FASPE medical ethics award for Ethical Leadership.³
They must have misspelled FARSE in this case. FASPE stated:
With this award we recognize a Fellow who has gone on to exemplify FASPE’s mission of ethical leadership. Khullar leads through his widely-read writings, which address a range of issues at the heart of medical ethics today and which challenge us to engage in thoughtful and transparent debate. We are proud to acknowledge Khullar’s important contributions in exploring traditional areas of medical ethics as well as those arising from the use of new technologies.
Thoughtful and transparent? Not something that comes to mind regarding Dr. Khullar from what I've seen. How prevalent is it that journalists lie by omission, or outright, if we know one that does it who received an ethics award for their writing?
Dr. Khullar perhaps there wouldn't be such distrust if it wasn't earned. You say you wince at the "good intentions" of doctors being assailed. Were you well intentioned when you left out the most important detail of Heidi Ferrer's death, her Moderna Covid Vaccine Injury? I don't see it as well intended or ethical that you purposefully, according to Nick Guthe, left out Heidi's Moderna Covid Vaccine Injury. While you whine about the distrust in the medical field, you in the same breath prove why it exists. Tell the truth, the whole truth, and then you can earn the respect you deserve. It's not anti-elitism, it's about anti-lying and anti-intellectualism. Lying, by omission or otherwise, and not using critical thought doesn't make you elite. It makes you the opposite. You earn your trust, you don't get it gifted. Expertise is great and is useful when the person who holds that expertise isn't being clouded by their opinions, politics, arrogance, and is being a fair-minded, logical, caring human being. It's not a bend the knee situation just because you're a doctor. Because guess what Dr. Khullar, you're a doctor who very conveniently didn't tell the entire story about Heidi Ferrer, even though you were told it by her husband, and even though it will harm many others that are in a similar position to her. You still made the decision to not put it in the story due to no doubt horrible reasoning, because it was the most vital part of her suicide. Trusting you simply because you're a doctor and talking about something health related, would have been a mistake in this instance. It's just so surprising that the one part that you left out was the Covid Vaccine Injury part. I'm sure it was a coincidence, but there have been a lot of "coincidences" lately. It's more likely you decided that you would allow your opinions to trump reality and they prevented you from telling the full story. Those suffering from Covid Vaccine Injuries face this time and time again, from doctors and many others. You make me wince at the irony of it all. I wonder how many more journalists have done the same as Dr. Khullar with Heidi's story. Heidi Ferrer deserves better, and so do others who suffer the same way she has.
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