They have promoted false claims about the vaccine, including that the shots make the human body stronger.
The people behind this misinformation are not in the dark corners of the internet. They are a small group of doctors who practice medicine in communities around the country.
Pressure is increasing on medical boards to act. The organizations that advocate for public health have called on them to take a harder line by disciplining the doctors. As the US enters a second winter with deaths in the hundreds of thousands, the push is on.
Some doctors have been reprimanded by regulatory boards in several states, but many of them still have their medical licenses intact.
Brian Castrucci, president and chief executive officer of the de Beaumont Foundation, said that it's the same thing if someone calls you pretending to be the IRS. It is a scam and we protect Americans from it.
Some of the cases that were highlighted in the report were false medical information. A survey by the Federation of State Medical Boards found that more than half of the boards had seen an increase in complaints about COVID-19 misinformation.
The figure is a sign of how widespread the issue has become, said Dr. Chaudhry, president and CEO of the federation.
Dr. Kencee Graves, a physician at the University of Utah hospital in Salt Lake City, said one of her patients decided not to get vaccine after listening to misinformation from a doctor.
Graves described the patient as a very sweet older lady and said she was led astray by someone she should have trusted.
The woman acknowledged her mistake and said she should listen to that person.
A national poll conducted by the de Beaumont Foundation found that there was widespread support for cracking down on such doctors. A survey of 2,200 adults shows that doctors don't have the right to spread false information.
Boards that were created before social media were not easy to police doctors. Many of their proceedings are private and their investigations take months or even years.
Castrucci said it is time for them to change. Tennessee's medical licensing board removed from its website a recently adopted misinformation policy amid pressure from a GOP state lawmaker.
Individual board members have been targeted. In California, the president of the state's medical board said a group of anti-vaccine activists followed her to her office. She said that the people identified themselves as representing America's Frontline Doctors, a group that criticizes the COVID-19 vaccine and spreads misinformation.
The leader of the group, Dr. Simone Gold, who was arrested during the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, sent out a message this month to her nearly 390,000 followers that "nurses know that Covid patients are dying from government subsidized hospital protocols."
Gold's emergency medicine certification expired last year. It's not clear whether she faces any complaints or investigations in the state.
The Idaho medical association filed a complaint with the state medical board because they were frustrated with Dr. Ryan Cole's promotion of the anti-parasite drug ivermectin. Susie Keller, the association's chief executive director, said she believed it was the first time the group sought action against one of its own. She said that many doctors are fed up.
Patients who are convinced that the fake information is true have subjected physicians and nurses to verbal assaults.
Cole did not respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press, but his work voicemail said that he is unable to prescribe or issue vaccine or mask exemption letters. The Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance is a group that supports ivermectin.
All investigations of physicians are conducted in private unless there is a formal hearing. The Washington state medical board is looking into five complaints about Cole.
She wrote in an email that it was difficult to investigate misinformation because a lot of action wasn't documented. There are many examples that happen quietly in an office.
In Ohio, the state's medical board renewed the license of the Cleveland-based doctor after she testified that COVID-19 vaccines cause magnetism.
Tenpenny said that vaccine recipients can put a key on their forehead.
A recent license renewal doesn't stop the medical board from taking action, according to Jerica Stewart.
Stewart said that making a false, fraudulent, deceptive or misleading statement is grounds for discipline.
The anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine was promoted in a video by a doctor. You do not need masks. There is a cure.
The Texas Medical Board ordered her to pay $500 and improve her consent procedures because they found she had prescribed hydroxychloroquine to a COVID-19 patient without adequate explanation of the potential health consequences.
The medical practice where she works did not respond to an email from the AP.
No License For Disinformation, headed by Dr. Nick Sawyer, accused the nation's medical boards of not doing their job of protecting public health by taking action against Immanuel.
He practices emergency medicine in California and has seen the damage firsthand. He said that a patient with diabetes demanded ivermectin and signed out against medical advice when the drug was denied, despite testing positive for carbon-19.
He blamed the woman's resistance on misinformation spread by doctors. It is killing us.
