The title of this article is no exaggeration. 2020 is the year I officially broke up with the medical establishment. Let me explain why.

The pandemic has been a rollercoaster for most of us in medicine. The efforts of doctors and nurses at the frontlines, has been nothing short of heroic. I couldn’t be more honored and privileged to work with all the frontline professionals around me.

Having said that, I find myself dismayed with much of what has gone on within the medical community when it comes to our collective COVID response at a leadership policy level. I wrote a few weeks ago about some of the ways we have gone wrong, and my concerns about aggressive lockdown strategies for controlling this virus—especially when it comes to the knock-on physical and mental health effects on millions of people.

I have tried since the beginning of this pandemic, through my writing and videos, to be a more reasoned and calm medical voice than what has typically been seen on the news and social media. Here’s a summation of my thoughts:

Let’s start off by saying that COVID-19 is of course a serious illness in many people—I have witnessed this at the frontlines myself. We already know the major risk factors that predispose anybody to a more severe case (chiefly age and underlying chronic comorbidities), and the patients who are more likely to be hospitalized. These vulnerable people need to be protected above all others. Thankfully though when one looks at the full picture, COVID is a mild respiratory tract infection in most of those who do exhibit symptoms, from which they can recover at home. And the majority of people exposed or carrying it—are completely asymptomatic (the younger you are, the more likely this is).

While this pandemic is something serious that we absolutely need to act upon, it’s not a Zombie Apocalypse or the Black Death (the latter of which killed 50% of people infected). The amount of hysteria and sensationalism generated by some of the news media, has been ill thought-out, counterproductive, deliberate fear-provoking clickbait. Society would have responded very differently 15 years ago before smartphones.

The overall death rate is likely to be well under 1 percent of all those affected—not far off that of the Flu (although it has made many people sicker than with the typical Flu). Every death is of course tragic, but it’s thankfully much less than the original 3 percent that was touted back in March. Especially when you factor in the millions of people worldwide who have been asymptomatic or had minimal symptoms, and never got tested. The average age of death from COVID in many western nations, including the United States, is around 80-years-old according to latest statistics.

At a biological level, once a droplet-spread respiratory virus is widely disseminated, it is impossible to contain. The fact that different states and countries with vastly different strategies have all equally struggled, affirms the reality that it’s the virus in control, and not us. The goal of “eradicating COVID” may be no more realistic than the goal of “eradicating Flu”. The vaccine at best may have a modest effect on a virus which will inevitably mutate (like all viruses do) and become a seasonal thing. It will unlikely stop anybody from carrying the virus, only possibly mitigate symptoms in those who do exhibit them. We don’t yet know how much a vaccine will work in the general population, or how long any immunity will last. There are also big questions about how we should best proceed with testing asymptomatic people—and the amount of false negatives and false positive tests we may be getting.

We already know from data that lockdowns come at a cost, with huge deleterious effects on the mental and physical health of any population—and the economic effects have not only been felt in rich western nations—but also poorer countries where mass poverty and hunger are set to soar. And most worryingly, the effects on our children are yet to be felt if this goes on for a significant length of time. Many US states have still shut in-person schooling, and this is having a particularly devastating impact on poorer and less-privileged children. Lockdowns are an affordable and minimally impactful luxury enjoyed only by the upper middle and richer classes of society.

The above are fundamental scientific and factual observations and concerns, but any doctor who tries to voice them—is often castigated and isolated collectively by their professional colleagues and the media. Groupthink and a mob-like mentality is human nature (and a rather ugly side of human nature at that). Doctors and scientists, being human—are therefore not immune (no pun intended) and sadly often the worst offenders.

Science is about vigorous debate, taking on difficult questions, staying open-minded, listening to any new theories—and yes, frequently being made to feel uncomfortable. Sadly, the collective behavior of the medical establishment—led by academic institutions and our major publications—has been far from that in 2020.

Take Dr Anthony Fauci, by all measures a very learned and distinguished professional. I’ve never met him, but he seems like a well-meaning and knowledgeable person. To me he’s a caricature of a decorated academic research physician—in both appearance and communication style. His list of publications could fill a book. He has led the COVID response and become the major medical voice. Among physicians and scientists, there has been an almost religious-like following of whatever he has said, being taken as Gospel. Yet in actuality, he is human—and there isn’t a scientific leader out there who is above question or debate. Barely a single media physician voice or medical publication, has even remotely questioned anything he has said. How is this possible, at such an uncertain time, when any policy could directly affect hundreds of millions of people?

In case anyone isn’t well-versed in history, the medical and scientific establishment has a long history of not only being wrong on major issues, but also actively suppressing anybody who goes against entrenched beliefs and feelings. From Galileo being castigated and banished by his peers for saying the earth revolves around the sun, Semmelweis being made to feel crazy when he told his fellow physicians to disinfect before doing medical birthing procedures, or Dr John Snow being overwhelmingly rejected by his colleagues for saying that cholera was spread by dirty London water—the now celebrated list of historically shunned doctors and scientists is endless. What’s worse is the mob-like behavior of their educated colleagues towards them, in ridiculing them, which drove many of them to the brink of despair! Later, sometimes sadly posthumously, they were found to be right. But during their lifetimes, they didn’t budge from their logical theories or try to be more popular with their colleagues.

There’s a reason why so many blockbuster movies which involve catastrophes—whether it’s Jurassic Park or Independence Day—nearly always have that one lone scientist who has gone against the establishment, being found to have the correct answer. It’s because this is a recurrent theme in human history! Groupthink in uncertain times is rarely correct.

I am not comparing myself to Galileo (although that would be nice), but you catch the drift. There is always an establishment viewpoint out there, and anybody who says anything different is at risk of reprisals. It’s one thing if what is being said is a complete crackpot theory or outrageous suggestion—but legitimate logical theories from educated professionals should be listened to and not silenced. Taking the example of the current mode of medical establishment groupthink:

• Lockdown as much as possible and for as long as possible
• Wait for a vaccine, which is the holy grail for a return back to normalcy

The above line of thinking has swept across the western science world and medical community—and only physicians and scientists who agree with this are generally given a platform by the media (usually the ones with the most doomsday-like predictions). But I can tell you with certainty that there are thousands of doctors and scientists who disagree with this strategy, and have very rational arguments for why we should be taking a somewhat different and more realistic approach (and this doesn’t mean just letting the virus “run wild” unchecked).

Lockdowns are a very medieval way of trying to control infections. Of course locking people away works to stop a respiratory virus! But that comes with enormous other health and economic consequences and is a temporary unsustainable fix. Moreover, what are the metrics for ending the cycle of lockdowns? If COVID eventually causes up to 100,000 deaths a year in the US (closer to influenza numbers), will that suddenly be okay?

Over the last several months I have received many messages from fellow colleagues who have read my articles and watched my videos. Some have almost tried to intimidate me because I am not in line with the medical establishment. Thank goodness I have no plans to work at an academic university hospital—because those are the last places that would encourage free scientific debate or any alternative viewpoints, and would have likely sought to get rid of me a long time ago! At the other end of the spectrum, I have received messages from medical professionals thanking me for being “brave and corageous” and “speaking the truth to authority”. I think “truth” is a very subjective term, but what I do know for sure is that scientific truth always involves asking questions and never accepting authority beliefs “just because they said so”.

What happened to us America? We are supposed to be a free country that was founded by brave souls who stood up against an authoritarian distant King. How did we become a nation that is afraid of simply asking any questions or being hostile to spirited debate?

Centuries ago, it was religion that held control over science—with disastrous effects. Now it’s become more political and emotional. That’s dangerous. Medicine and science should be totally separated from emotion and politics, and I am willing to die on the hill of science always being open to debate, and never influenced by dogma or feelings. Case in point of how much we’ve drifted: the New England Journal of Medicine. I used to practically worship this journal a decade ago. I tossed my subscription away a couple of years ago, but my jaw has dropped this year at how political and dogmatic it has become. What happened to it being all about publishing medical trials for doctors to review and discuss? Take a look at it now—it’s clearly been taken over by young budding political activists. When this happens to our premier medical science journal, we are in trouble.

Personally, I have been shunned this year by many of the usual medicine publications which publish my work. The point is not that my articles were rejected—I’m fine with that—it’s that there is a groupthink mentality to not even hear or give any sort of platform to, what thousands of physicians are saying outside of the medical establishment. I’ve lost followers and been whispered to by several professional colleagues—to basically SHUT UP! But here’s the thing: I am not going to be silenced or intimidated, and am comfortable debating with absolutely any physician who feels differently—because that is exactly what we need: an open honest and respectful debate about how we move forward with COVID and get society started up again. I am confident that I could hold up with logic and reason against any establishment voice out there. So much of what we have done so far has been the polar opposite of common sense and following the science. This needs to be rectified, and the knee-jerk reactions for the sake of “just doing something” to respond to the latest social media headline, stopped. And purely from a medicine and saving lives perspective—I believe a lot of what we are doing, especially in failing to protect the elderly and vulnerable (and instead spending many times more resources on things such as closing schools and colleges), has actually cost additional lives.

There are numerous additional questions that need answering—from the accuracy of the tests we are doing (I’ve witnessed very strange scenarios of results returning positive on a patient’s 3^rd or 4^th swab test, and also consecutive tests being positive and negative with no rhyme or reason). With the vaccine trial results, there are further legitimate questions, including the fact that the average age of those given the vaccine, was way younger than those people who are affected the worst by the virus, and the numbers diagnosed with COVID in each trial arm were relatively tiny (even in the placebo arm, 99.3 percent of people, did not get COVID). All of these concerns would get more discussion in a typical residency weekly Journal Club meeting than they have in this real-life unfolding pandemic. Physicians have jumped on a bandwagon more powered by emotion and euphoria than anything else. Of all the doctors I have spoken to about the new vaccines, a bare minimum have actually read the paper! What the devil is going on. If they aren’t familiar with real data, what hope is there for the rest of the population?

My 4 immediate questions for the medical establishment (and by extension, the media) are:

1.Why is it taboo to talk about the tremendous physical and mental health effects of lockdowns, of which physicians like myself have seen so much additional suffering at the frontlines? The missed or delayed diagnoses and treatments, depression, alcoholism, even suicidality…

2.What is the plan for when new strains of coronaviruses inevitably come along (viruses mutate, that’s what they do)? And what is Plan B if the vaccine doesn’t reduce symptomatic cases and hospitalizations—especially in vulnerable people?

3.What is the utility of asymptomatic COVID testing, and what are the future plans and goals of any mass-testing strategy, especially if asymptomatic vaccinated people still test positive?

4.Why the total lack of discourse on lifestyle medicine? The fact that the US was always in a much worse position than many western nations, including Japan, South Korea and many European countries, because of our astronomical rates of obesity and lifestyle-related diseases? What a golden opportunity the last year was to gently and sensitively reinforce this health message with the general public. We may not be able to control the virus spreading, but we do have significant control to make our own bodies stronger and immune systems more robust. The almost radio-silence from the medical community is shameful.

I believe in always telling my patients the truth, and I would tell anyone when it comes to COVID that: this virus is likely here to stay, the tests we do are not as accurate as they should be, the vaccine may not be the game-changer that medical leaders are making it out to be, and we need to prepare for options to re-open society and general life, while doing our best to mitigate risk (especially in the vulnerable)—and accepting that COVID could become seasonal like the Flu virus—so we need to keep healthcare facilities prepared, well-staffed, and ready. Leaders should be more honest about this with the general public.

My antipathy towards the medical establishment is nothing against anybody personally—even the most hardcore lockdown-happy academic MD who hasn’t even treated a COVID patient. Too often when we disagree with people nowadays, we label them as “bad”. Nobody is “bad” and nobody is “good” here.  But I will say this: the medical establishment for sometime has been a gigantic swamp, entrenched with insurance companies, Big Pharma, and healthcare IT. My concern for a few years now has also been the increasingly cosy relationship between medical academia and big business. At least up until 2020 however, the world of medicine still seemed willing to engage in rigorous medical debate. That’s now gone.

I hope anybody who has read my work, knows I am always open to hearing different opinions and good scientific logical discussion. What’s happened within the medical establishment this year, despite the individual heroics of frontline clinicians—has dismayed me enough to be comfortable turning my back on them.

I look forward to a better 2021 for all of medicine and the world. And I wish everyone, whether you agree or disagree with my medical viewpoints, a very healthy and happy New Year.

Suneel Dhand is a physician, writer, and YouTuber. He is Founder at MedStoic Lifestyle Medicine and DocsDox . Follow him on YouTube and Instagram