I Could Believe This Was About Saving Lives If Iodine and Ivermectin Were On The Treatment Protocol

WaPo  |  U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued an advisory Thursday calling misinformation a threat to vaccination efforts and attempts to control the pandemic. “We live in a world where misinformation poses an imminent and insidious threat to our nation’s health,” he said at a news briefing.

Fed up, CoxHealth chief executive Steve Edwards, a frequent social media presence, tweeted July 1: “If you are making wildly disparaging comments about the vaccine, and have no public health expertise, you may be responsible for someone’s death. Shut up.”

32% symptomatic pos. rate, very concerning! (From 4%) 4 pediatric Covid inpatients yesterday. Age…a few weeks old to 18 y/o

If you are making wildly disparaging comments about the vaccine, and have no public health expertise, you may be responsible for someone’s death. Shut up. pic.twitter.com/TqkNbZKsYE

— Steve Edwards (@SDECoxHealth) July 1, 2021

That tweet won praise from people seeking catharsis when anti-vaccine voices have been loud and belligerent, but it also unleashed a backlash.

Nick Reed, a local conservative radio talk show host, devoted a show the next day to Edwards’s tweet. He said the message would erode community trust further and make patients with legitimate concerns about side effects more wary of getting honest answers from doctors at CoxHealth.

In an interview, Reed expressed sympathy for health-care workers frustrated from seeing the daily toll of the virus.

“It makes it difficult to understand there are people going about living their life and recognize what’s going on and recognize it can be very deadly and many have lost loved ones, but they have the luxury of standing back and evaluating the situation as a whole and wondering about the long-term effects of vaccines,” Reed said. “It’s two different worlds that people are in, and sometimes we don’t give grace and understanding to the other person’s world, and that can lead to this separation.”

Edwards stood by his tweet, which he said was clearly targeting people spreading false information and not those concerned about side effects.

“This is my hometown. I don’t treat it as a job. … When I’ve been in our covid ICU, I’ve seen people I know and it breaks my heart,” Edwards said in an interview. “I really don’t care about any kind of backlash I get by speaking the words that I do that I think will save lives.”