Oct 18, 2021 Peter McCullough, MD
The Republic of Texas (Spanish: República de Tejas) was a sovereign state in North America that existed from March 2, 1836, to February 19, 1846. To this day, Texas represents freedom and independence among American states and is in the spotlight often on the issue of sovereignty.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott issued another executive order cracking down on COVID-19 vaccine mandates — this time banning any entity in Texas, including private businesses, from requiring vaccinations for employees or customers. Abbott also called on the Legislature to pass a law with the same effect, promising to rescind the executive order once that happened. The Legislature is in this year’s third special legislative session, which ends October 19.
As with any negotiation, it is likely out of special session will come to a compromise, but certainly, any change in prevailing practice among employers will be considered a victory for medical freedom.The Senate State Affairs Committee’s vote 5-1 to advance Senate Bill 51 comes over the objections of medical and business advocacy groups, who pushed back against the legislation.Likely assurances for accepting medical and religious exemptions and other protections for employees will become law.
This is a welcome relief for what has been a runaway freight train that has been pummeling personal freedom and causing job loss for those who have chosen to defer or cannot take the COVID-19 vaccines. Other news includes increasing threats to doctors and scientists who speak out on COVID-19 or provide analyses and data to the public at large. Bianca Nogrady in Nature this month explains how survey data revealed the degree of reprisal scientists are experiencing in the COVID-19 crisis, and for many, this is the first time in their careers they have been under attack for carrying out their roles in biomedical research. We should all be concerned about these developments.
This week there is an excerpt from an interview with Dr. Robert Malone, one of the original mRNA developers, featured on the Children’s Health Defense website. We have a wonderful guest for the show this week, Dr. Katarina Lindley, who is a family physician actively engaged in COVID-19 treatment but also highly visible on the physician leadership front. It should come as no surprise she is now a proud Texan. She tells us how she is using medical organizations and their platforms to advocate for physician autonomy in the clinical arena and why that is paramount for high-quality patient care.