Rejecting Decades of Healthcare Dictates

In this op-ed, Dr. Joseph Varon examines how the New York Times turned doctor–patient decision-making into a scandal—and why Americans are pushing back.

By Dr. Joseph Varon, IMA President and Chief Medical Officer

The New York Times has published a hit piece on CDC’s vaccine advisory panel Chairman, Dr. Kirk Milhoan, for holding a truly radical position in modern medicine: that patients and doctors should decide medical care together.

Yes. That is the offense.

According to the Times, it is “startling” that a physician heading up the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) would believe vaccines should be “offered only in consultation with a clinician.”

Offered. In consultation. With a doctor.

This apparently now qualifies as extremism.

It is worth noting that Big Pharma spent an estimated $16 to $20 billion on advertising in 2025 alone, much of it across legacy media outlets including the New York Times, where full-coverage pharmaceutical ads routinely splashed across its pages. One imagines this context might be relevant when the paper expresses outrage at the suggestion that medical decisions belong in the exam room rather than the federal lobbyist register.

The implication from the Times is clear: everyone, everywhere, should get every shot. No nuance. No individual circumstances. No dissent. The irony is hard to miss. The New York Times champions diversity in every domain it can name, except medicine. When it comes to vaccines, diversity of biology, risk, age, sex, and circumstance is dismissed entirely. Everyone is expected to comply, uniformly, unquestioningly. Apparently, diversity is a virtue until it complicates a government mandate.

But since when does the Constitution authorize the federal government to dictate medical procedures? Here’s a helpful reminder: it does not.

That principle of individual liberty is precisely what has long distinguished the United States from authoritarian regimes that impose state control over bodies and families. History offers sobering examples. China’s one child policy, enforced for decades through coerced abortions and sterilizations, comes to mind.

Dr. Milhoan believes that a person’s right to refuse a medical intervention outweighs hypothetical population level risk calculations. “If there is no choice, then informed consent is an illusion,” he told the Times. “Without consent, it is medical battery.”

Cue the fainting couches. An accomplished pediatric cardiologist and former U.S. Air Force physician believes the Constitution protects citizens from government intrusion into personal medical decisions. Oh, the horror!

The Times treats this position as scandalous, as though belief in individual liberty were a rogue ideology rather than the foundation of American law. One half expects a grand jury to be convened at any moment.

To be clear, Dr. Milhoan is not anti-vaccine. He does not deny the success of the polio or smallpox vaccines. He is not calling for bans, rollbacks, or mass refusals. He is simply saying something far more dangerous to centralized power: that patients should decide, in consultation with their doctors.

That’s it. That’s the crime.

Yet this modest, constitutionally grounded view was enough to trigger a lengthy attack piece. God forbid someone in modern medicine actually take the Bill of Rights seriously.

COVID and the mRNA rollout changed everything. As former CDC Director Robert Redfield has acknowledged, mRNA injections are not traditional vaccines. They are bioengineered gene-based therapies. The consequences of mandating them are still unfolding, particularly among young men, including former student athletes who have suffered sudden cardiac events on playing fields across the country.

Ask them how “take the shot or take a hike” worked out.

That period now stands as one of the ugliest chapters in modern medical history, rivaling the era when “Mr. Cig,” a human sized cigarette mascot funded by Big Tobacco, was welcomed into hospitals to hand out free cigarettes to patients in the 1940s and 1950s. Yes, that really happened. And it was considered public health at the time.

All Dr. Milhoan is advocating is that government bureaucrats stay out of the exam room.

That position, however, did not stop the Times from parading a familiar lineup of so-called experts, many drawn from organizations heavily funded by pharmaceutical companies, dutifully repeating industry approved talking points.

One official from the American Academy of Pediatrics dismissed Dr. Milhoan outright. The AAP, it bears mentioning, lists Eli Lilly, Genentech, GlaxoSmithKline, Sanofi, Regeneron, and SOBI among its top contributors. But pay no attention to the funding behind the curtain, with apologies to the Wizard of Oz.

“It’s very frustrating for those of us who spend our careers trying to improve the health of children,” the spokesman said. What is truly frustrating, one suspects, is the possibility that pharmaceutical funding streams may face scrutiny.

Dr. Helen Chu, a former ACIP member from the University of Washington, argued that the very idea of tension between individual choice and public health was false. The University of Washington received $1.87 billion in contributions in 2023 and lists Pfizer, Merck, Roche, AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly, GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis, Abbott Laboratories, Allergan, and Genentech among its major donors.

Naturally, they believe government directives should override personal choice.

The Times also noted that “Milhoan seemed to approach the committee’s work from his perspective as a medical doctor, rather than as a champion of public health.”

Exactly.

Public health told Americans to take the COVID shot. Public health told Americans to lock down for weeks, which became months, which became years. Public health closed schools. Public health demanded kindergarteners be vaccinated against a virus that posed them virtually no risk.

What America needs now are doctors, not bureaucrats.

How ironic that the New York Times manages to make this argument without realizing it is making this argument.

And let’s be clear: Americans have noticed. The 2024 election was driven in no small part by suburban moms, the most motivated voting bloc in the country, who watched government mandates harm their children and families.

They are done being told that compliance is care.

And they agree with Dr. Milhoan.

Dr. Joseph Varon is a critical care physician, professor, and president and chief medical officer of the Independent Medical Alliance. He has authored over 1000 peer-reviewed publications and serves as editor-in-chief of the Journal of Independent Medicine. You can read more of Dr. Varon’s IMA posts here.

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