To Drs. Rashid Buttar, Joseph Mercola, and Sherri Tenpenny,

We are osteopathic medical students, medical school faculty, medical school staff, and physicians. We condemn your efforts to delegitimize the safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines that are now available to the American public.

More than 600,000 people have died in the United States from COVID-19 and over 4 million people have died worldwide. The current increase in cases of COVID-19, fueled by the highly contagious Delta variant, has been characterized by CDC Director Rochelle Walensky as a “pandemic of the unvaccinated.” Data make clear that unvaccinated individuals comprise 99.9% of deaths from COVID-19. Areas with low vaccination rates are seeing a steep rise in cases.

As has been documented in numerous media reports, you are among the propagandists-- one quarter of the so-called “disinformation dozen”--responsible for this. To put the pandemic behind us, and save the lives of immuno-suppressed Americans and children not yet eligible for vaccination, it is the responsibility of all health professionals to urge unvaccinated Americans to join the ranks of the vaccinated.

As osteopathic physicians with large social media followings you have a responsibility to the public and to your profession to convey fact, not fiction. Your dangerous propaganda angers and embarrasses us. We must continually explain to family members and friends that you are irresponsible outliers taking these positions for personal gain, and do not represent the broader, educated osteopathic community.

Every osteopathic physician takes an oath to “be ever vigilant in aiding in the general welfare of the community, sustaining its laws and institutions, not engaging in those practices which will in any way bring shame upon myself or my profession.” You have violated that oath. You have harmed patients, the public, and your profession.

This dishonorable work stands in stark contrast with the honorable and even heroic work of those osteopathic physicians who have been on the frontlines of the U.S. COVID-19 response.  You still have an opportunity to not only save lives, but to positively shape how history will view the role that osteopathic physicians have played during the COVID-19 pandemic. We are calling on you to use your platforms to reduce vaccine hesitancy and encourage Americans to get vaccinated.

As osteopathic medical students, physicians, and educators whose careers are impacted by what you do with your public voice, we ask you to recognize the damage that your scurrilous claims about COVID-19 vaccinations have done to the public as well as to the reputation of the osteopathic profession.