Statement on Public Health Response to COVID-19 in North Carolina

The public health function in the state of North Carolina has routinely and repeatedly and systematically and severely violated the core ethical principles and “best practices” to which the field of public health is supposed to adhere.

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The field of public health is a highly developed, well-established discipline with longstanding accomplishments. Because of the potential for misuse of power, however, it is required to adhere to certain ethical standards. Every citizen is a patient of the public health system; and just as in the case of medical providers delivering care to individual patients, public health authorities must be mindful of the ethical obligations they owe their respective patient populations.

The ethical principles that are supposed to guide public health practice include:

Autonomy
Beneficence
Non-maleficence
Justice and
Informed Consent.

In addition, the proper functioning of public health requires that it adhere to certain “best practices”. For instance, public health authorities are supposed to employ restraint, and use the least restrictive option to address a given problem. Public health must have legitimate, rigorous oversight and accountability. It is supposed to be completely truthful and transparent. It also must communicate risk in an accurate, balanced manner. Trust is required to be established with its patient population—i.e., the entire citizenry.

Moreover, public health authorities are required to be mindful of the constitutional rights and civil liberties citizens enjoy. While public health has certain “police powers” (e.g., quarantine), and has the authority to issue certain orders, it must adhere to both the state and federal constitutions; and must employ a truthful, transparent, scientifically rigorous risk/benefit analysis.

Finally, when public health abuses its authority, the system of checks and balances built into the American form of government is supposed to address the issue. The legislative and/or judicial branches must then take corrective action.

North Carolina Physicians for Freedom finds that the public health function in the state of North Carolina has failed the citizenry. It has routinely and repeatedly and systematically and severely violated the core ethical principles and “best practices” to which the field of public health is supposed to adhere.

While North Carolina’s Department of Health and Human Services possesses a central, critical role with regard to the response to COVID-19, the North Carolina Board of Pharmacy and certain units of local government also have had important roles.

North Carolina Physicians for Freedom specifically finds that these agencies have brought harm to the people of North Carolina:

They have discouraged early treatment and encouraged delayed treatment;
They have discouraged or made illegal certain types of preventive treatment;
They have failed to oversee ineffective and medically harmful protocols for inpatient hospital treatment within the state;
They have encouraged or required vaccination of patients who have little to no risk of COVID complications, including children, thus exposing them to an unfavorable risk/benefit ratio and potentially disabling or lethal reactions, and undermining the sacred ethical requirement of informed consent;
They have failed to assure that treatment providers, hospital system executives and board members are exposed to valid continuing education on the matters of early treatment, preventive treatment, and hospital protocols for inpatient treatment, and the lack of benefit associated with immunizing children for COVID-19;
They pursued lockdown strategies that caused great harm to the certain subsectors of the population;
They have implemented widespread ineffective vaccination and masking strategies for populations that are not at great risk, while simultaneously sabotaging the potential for preventive, early and inpatient treatment for at-risk populations.

During September, 2021, a Global COVID Summit was held in Rome, Italy. This culminated in the publication of a Physician’s Declaration that stated such “…policies may actually constitute crimes against humanity.” More than 15,000 physicians and scientists worldwide have signed the declaration.

We believe that certain authorities with public health powers in North Carolina ought to be investigated because of the grave harm they have caused to their patients. We are concerned that multiple violations of public trust might have been committed including malfeasance, misfeasance, nonfeasance, negligence and fraud. For public officials, violating one’s oath of office is a crime in the state of North Carolina. We have reason to believe violations have been committed in the name of public health in North Carolina.

References:

Public Health and Preventive Medicine (authoritative text), John Last editor, 1986.

Jeffrey Dobken, MD, MPH (faculty previously in field of public health, Cornell Medical School and New York Medical College, YouTube, 5/16/20).

https://brownstone.org/articles/more-than-400-studies-on-the-failure-of-compulsory-covid-interventions/

https://earlycovidcare.org/review-the-evidence/