The Dr. Peter Breggin Hour

By Progressive Radio Network

Psychiatrist Peter R. Breggin, MD believes you can make a marvelous life. Great guests, callers and conversations to inspire you.... more

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Number 1: Dr. Breggin Hour 8-19-26
In the past months, the world has watched as the people of New York City elected Zohran Mamdani to office as mayor of the largest city in the United States, with over 8 million residents and international cultural and economic centers such as the financial sector and performing arts realm. Youthful, charismatic, and bold, he won the election by over 50% in a 3-way race. Mayor Mamdani started making changes from his first day in office. His political philosophy, however, is the same old package the world has seen fail in socialist countries around the world, including Cuba and Venezuela in our own hemisphere. In the name of fairness, Mamdani planned to pay for the universal daycare, the subsidized housing, the price-controlled groceries, the public transportation through various taxes and other fees, especially on the very rich, the celebrities and billionaires who call New York City home, or own property there. Despite being targeted as the cash cows that would pay for the party, the wealthy did not just pack up and leave on the day that Mayor Mamdani was sworn in. They appeared to be holding their breath, waiting to see if they could afford to stay. Then Taylor Swift posted two short social media items, neither one long and neither one declaring she was leaving New York City, but containing an air of wistfulness and a hint that leaving might be an option. Within 48 hours, there was a surge unlike any seen in living memory in new listings of high-end residences for sale. Values of the listings totaled $2.3 billion. Should even a portion of those owners who are listing depart from the city, the financial repercussions for New York City and for New York State will be enormous. Meanwhile, on the heels of the Mamdani victory, new political hopefuls who are declared far-left socialists, many under the banner of Democrat Socialists of America(DSA) are running in primaries around the US. The DSA party and the DSA National Election Commission are hip, excited, and trying hard to be fun. But all the charisma, the self-declared desire to be kind, to be fair, and all the taxes in the world will not create a more productive, liberty-oriented, vibrant environment able to nurture ingenuity, growth, and opportunity for all. The Democratic Socialists of America have totalitarian goals that they share with their sibling revolutionaries, Communists, Socialists, and the Woke Left Under all the hype and the slogans of the Democratic Socialists of America and other far-left groups is a desire to tear down the America we grew up in. They want another American revolution. Like basic Communist tenants the far left wants to abolish private property (or tax it to death), put religion in a closet or abolish it altogether, make everyone “equal” – not in opportunity, but in outcome, and embrace the policies promoted by globalist entities such as the United Nations and the World Health Organization which have lots of goals and targets aiming at fairness and equality on an international scale and at the expense especially of the United States. We have tried in the West to be so kind, so tolerant, so darn nice in the face of destructive policies and hate-filled rhetoric and actions that we have allowed the destruction of our own culture. So, we invited a genuine survivor of the totalitarian communist USSR who was born in Moscow and immigrated with his family as a young child to Canada. Our guest brought his memories of long food lines, the fear that sits like a stone in a family of dissidents, and his awareness that those who make trouble can be shipped off to Siberia. We met with Jamie Glazov for an episode of The Breggin Hour. It was one of those rare conversations that feels less like an interview and more like speaking with family. Jamie’s presence, his clarity, and the depth of his lifelong study of totalitarianism left us both strengthened and sobered. The perspectives Jamie shares are fresh, straight from the news headlines. Jamie is the Russian-born Canadian author, historian, and managing editor of FrontPage Magazine. His updated and expanded book, United in Hate: The Left’s Romance with Tyranny, Terror, and Hamas, is not merely a must-read. It is a work of truth-telling that explains phenomena many of us have watched with growing alarm but struggled to fully name. The Left’s Romance with Murderous Regimes and Movements In United in Hate, Jamie traces a continuous thread through the twentieth and twenty-first centuries: the Western Left’s repeated romance with the most murderous regimes and movements of their time. The first half of the book examines the “political pilgrims” and fellow travelers who traveled to Stalin’s Soviet Union, Mao’s China, Castro’s Cuba, and the killing fields of Cambodia and Vietnam, returning to praise the very systems that produced mass graves. The second half shows how that same psychological and ideological pattern transferred, almost seamlessly, to embracing radical Islam and groups such as Hamas. After the collapse of Soviet communism, the Left did not abandon its hunger for a totalitarian alternative to the West. It found a new object of adoration. October 7, 2023, became the catalyst for the revised edition of United in Hate. Jamie told us that the moment he saw the celebrations and justifications erupting across Western campuses, streets, and media, he knew the book had to be updated and expanded. The ecstasy some on the Left displayed at the rape, mutilation, and murder of Jews was not an aberration. It was the logical continuation of a long romance with tyranny and terror. A Profound Alienation from the West Jamie does not stop at documentation. He examines the inner life of what he calls “the Believer.” The hard Left, he argues, is driven by a profound alienation from the West, a self-hatred that seeks external enemies to destroy, and a quasi-religious need for a purifying utopia that requires blood sacrifice. Communism once supplied that vision. When it failed, radical Islam offered a new version: a death cult that openly rejects the Judeo-Christian foundations of the civilization the Left already despises. In our conversation, he described two layers of the problem. There are the malicious actors who knowingly work to dismantle Western civilization. And there are the many more who simply cannot emotionally bear the truth. To acknowledge what radical Islam teaches and practices would shatter the comforting narrative that “everything will be okay if we just show more tolerance.” So, they choose willful blindness. They sacrifice Jewish and Christian victims on the altar of their own psychological comfort. Peter, who has spent decades studying the psychology of power and vulnerability, was particularly struck by how accurately Jamie captures the leftist mindset of alienation turning into passionate identification with those who attack the West. A Spiritual Battle Jamie spoke openly about the spiritual dimension of what we face. He reminded us that we are in a battle that cannot be reduced to politics alone. The hatred directed at Jews and at the Christian West has a demonic quality. The same forces that once celebrated Stalin and Mao now celebrate those who butchered families on October 7 and who openly seek the destruction of Israel, Christianity, and, ultimately, Western civilization. Peter and I felt an immediate kinship with Jamie. He is the son of Soviet dissidents. His heart has always been with the persecuted. That same impulse—the refusal to look away from suffering—has driven our own work for decades. When Jamie said he felt he was among family while speaking with us, we felt the same. Listen and Read I urge you to listen to the full interview. Jamie’s passion, his refusal to soft-pedal, and his moral clarity come through powerfully. Then get the book. United in Hate will equip you to understand not only the present moment but the deeper currents that have brought us here. We are living in a time when large portions of our cultural and institutional elite have chosen sides against the civilization that produced them. Jamie Glazov has given us a map of that betrayal. The least we can do is study it carefully and refuse to look away. Order United in Hate: The Left’s Romance with Tyranny, Terror, and Hamas by Jamie Glazov.
August 19, 202657min
Number 2: The Dr. Peter Breggin Hour - 8-26-26
We thought we would discuss critical thinking and how it applies to today’s propaganda-laden world. And we did. But the conversation quickly turned into a luminous, expansive exchange of knowledge, opinions, and faith, especially between Dr. Fox and Dr. Breggin. Dr. Fox has an open and warm demeanor that radiates care and affection when he greeted us. Dr. Andrew Fox is an Anglican priest who now lives with his wife in the heart of Texas, where he has settled after immigrating from the United Kingdom. He became an American citizen and shared with us about how happy he is to be here in the United States. We exchanged stories about the unexpected and delightful joy with which recent World Cup tourists coming to America for the first time shared their experiences on social media. Europeans discovered how beautiful, engaging, friendly, welcoming, fun, and (the food!) delicious America is. Then they shared all of that on social media, red-pilling their friends and families and helping Americans feel proud again after these terrible post-COVID years. After the show, I enjoyed reading Dr. Fox’s blog on this topic, “The World Cup: America’s Greatest Untapped Form of Diplomacy.” Dr. Fox introduced his forthcoming book: Truth in the Age of Applause: How Stupidity Is Ruining the American Dream. We discussed critical thinking and how it and civil dialogue are essential for challenging harmful ideologies while maintaining respect for authority—particularly said Dr. Fox– in scriptural contexts. The conversation explored the differences between Old and New Testament perspectives on Jews as the Chosen people, with Dr. Fox commenting that while the Old Testament focused on a specific tribe’s witness to one God, the New Testament emphasizes an egalitarian approach where all people are children of God. We discussed how modern concepts of relativism [the philosophical belief that nothing is objectively true or universally applicable] have been misused to undermine truth, particularly in debates about biological reality and gender identity, with Dr. Fox noting that reality doesn’t change regardless of opinions. I discovered after the interview that Dr. Fox has spoken the truth very actively rather than seeking applause. Dr. Fox had served eight years as Austin City Fire Chaplain when, in 2021, he wrote a blog arguing that men should not compete in women’s sports due to biological differences between the two sexes. According to the Christian Post: Months later, Fox was dismissed when officials decided that his efforts to apologize to unnamed offended parties were not sufficient, as he refused to recant his views on LGBT issues. In August 2022, Fox filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, alleging that AFD officials “retaliated against him for exercising his First Amendment rights, violated his First Amendment right to free speech and free exercise of religion, and violated the Texas Constitution.” On March 3, 2026, the city of Austin reached a $78,000 settlement with former Austin City Fire Chaplain Andrew Fox, according to the Alliance Defending Freedom. Dr. Fox does not seek applause. He seeks truth. We are sure his book will be as engaging as our hour visit with Dr. Andrew Fox!
August 26, 202657min
Number 3: The Dr. Peter Breggin Hour - 9-2-26
In a world quick to prescribe electrical violence to the brain under the guise of “treatment,” it is a profound relief—and a moral imperative—to sit down with one of the clearest voices challenging this relic of psychiatric barbarism. On The Breggin Hour, my husband Peter Breggin and I spoke at length with Professor John Read, a clinical psychologist from the University of East London whose work has helped pierce the veil of denial surrounding electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). Professor Read is no outsider throwing stones. He comes from the heart of the clinical psychology establishment, yet he has become one of its most formidable critics on ECT. His recent international survey—the largest ever, with 1,100 participants from 44 countries—gives voice to the lived reality of those who have endured this procedure. The findings are damning. What the Largest ECT Survivor Survey Reveals The research team, which included ECT survivors like our colleague Sarah Hancock, asked hard questions about efficacy, memory loss, and informed consent. The results: On five different measures of effectiveness, the “majority” of recipients reported “no improvement” or that their condition was “made worse”. Two-thirds experienced significant memory loss—both retrograde (losing past memories) and anterograde (inability to form new ones). For most, this persisted for at least three years, which in practical terms means it is often permanent. The vast majority were not adequately informed about these risks. Neither were their families. Women continue to receive ECT at twice the rate of men, with 82% of the psychiatrists administering it being male—an observation that raises uncomfortable questions about power, empathy, and whose distress we choose to “treat” with electricity. These are not abstract statistics. They represent shattered lives, erased memories, and families left picking up the pieces. As Peter has long documented, ECT is essentially a closed-head electrical lobotomy that exceeds OSHA safety thresholds for electrical brain injury. The brain is not “reset”—it is traumatized. Professor Read put it plainly: we are inducing grand mal seizures in people while another branch of medicine works desperately to prevent them. The original 1930s theory—that schizophrenia and epilepsy were mutually exclusive, so inducing seizures could cure the former—was bizarre even then. That we continue this practice ninety years later, with so little rigorous evidence, is a scandal. Legal Victories: Hitting Them Where It Hurts Professor Read has served as an expert witness in key cases that are finally forcing accountability. In a 2023 Florida jury trial, manufacturer Somatics was found liable for failing to adequately warn about brain damage and permanent memory loss. A 2024 California case against individual psychiatrists and a psychiatric center—alleging negligence, fraud, malpractice, and battery—settled just before trial after surviving all dismissal attempts. MECTA, another major manufacturer, has filed for bankruptcy amid mounting litigation and withdrawn its Spectrum device, only to introduce a near-identical “Sigma” model. The industry adapts, but the human cost remains. Peter shared his own observations from decades of work, including the first successful ECT malpractice case (Salters, 2005). He described the visible horror: patients emerging confused, amnesic, and disoriented—much like victims of repeated concussions. This is traumatic brain injury, period. The temporary “euphoria” some experience is often the brain’s response to injury, not genuine healing. The Deeper Problem: Over-Medicalization of Human Suffering John Read situates ECT within a larger tragedy—the reduction of complex human distress to a purely biological problem solvable by pills or electricity. Poverty, trauma, abuse, loneliness, and loss are pushed aside while white coats reach for the shock machine. Many psychiatrists, he notes, lack the skills or willingness to sit with profound emotional pain, especially in women and older patients. This resonates deeply with our work exposing psychiatric harm. Whether antidepressants, antipsychotics, or ECT, the pattern is the same: interventions that promise quick fixes but deliver dependency, disability, and despair. The public understands that life circumstances drive mental suffering. Too many professionals still do not. A Call to Survivors, Families, and Truth-Seekers If you or a loved one has been harmed by ECT, know that you are not alone. Professor Read’s survey papers are open access—search “John Read ECT survey” to read them directly. Share your story. Support organizations fighting for informed consent and bans on this outdated practice. We must demand real informed consent, rigorous science, and an end to the normalization of brain damage as “therapy.” Peter and I continue this fight because human rights do not end at the psychiatrist’s door. The brain is not a machine to be jolted into submission. Listen to the full conversation on The Breggin Hour (available on America Out Loud and major podcast platforms). Professor Read’s humility, clarity, and dedication shine through. We are grateful for his partnership in this long struggle and look forward to future collaborations. Download and print this free brochure “No One Should Be Given Shock Treatment“ To all who have suffered: Your experiences matter. Your memories—however fragmented—are worth fighting for. The truth is emerging, one voice, one lawsuit, one honest conversation at a time. Share this widely. The more light we shine, the harder it becomes for these practices to hide in the shadows. Peter and Ginger Breggin have spent decades exposing psychiatric harms. Subscribe for more unfiltered truth on mental health, freedom, and the defense of the human spirit. About our Guest Dr. John Read is Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of East London. He has published over 200 research papers, primarily on the relationship between adverse life events and psychosis; the negative effects of bio-genetic causal explanations on prejudice; anti-psychotic and anti-depressant medication; electroconvulsive therapy; and the toxic influence of the pharmaceutical industry on clinical research and practice. John is Chair of the International Institute for Psychiatric Drug Withdrawal [https://iipdw.org] and is on the Board of Hearing Voices Network, England He has been the editor of the scientific journal ‘Psychosis’ since 2009, and is the editor/author of several books, including: Read J, Sanders P. (2022) ‘A straight talking introduction to the causes of mental health problems’. PCCS Books. Read J, Dillon J. (eds) (2013) ‘Models of Madness’, Routledge. Further Reading/Resources: Professor John Read’s publications: A large exploratory survey of electroconvulsive therapy recipients, family members, and friends: what information do they recall being given? Journal of Medical Ethics A Survey of 1144 ECT Recipients, Family Members and Friends: Does ECT Work?, National Institutes of Health Largest-ever survey questions ECT’s effectiveness, University of East London Survey Findings on Electroconvulsive Therapy, Psychology Today Models of Madness and Other Works by John Read By Peter R. Breggin, MD: Download and print this free brochure “No One Should Be Given Shock Treatment“ Free Resource Center: Dr. Peter Breggin’s ECT and Deep Brain Stimulation Resources Center Dr. Breggin’s two overview scientific articles: Breggin 1998 and Breggin 2010. The 2010 article contains a brief summary of ECT’s harmful effects, written to inform the FDA. Also read Jones and Baldwin 1992 for a powerful overview. Read Dr. Breggin’s blogs on ECT. Like the brochure, these are also useful as an introduction for anyone who is just learning about ECT. See his blogs: “New Study Confirms Electroshock (ECT) Causes Brain Damage,” “The Stealth ECT Psychiatrist in Psychiatric Reform,” “FDA Panel Recommends Testing of ECT Machines,” “Electroshock for Children and Involuntary Adults.”
September 02, 202657min
Number 4: Dr. Breggin Hour 8-12-26
The story told by our guest Patrick Hahn of how the medical industry has taken advantage of people who wish they had been born a different sex is appalling, heartrending, and a lesson from the extremes to which modern medicine can become perverted against the very people it is supposed to serve. Anyone who thinks they were mistakenly born into the wrong body has a tragic story to tell about how they became alienated from themselves while growing up. Instead of helping people recover their identity as a male or female human, in all its glory, and with all its complications, modern medicine is making billions of dollars by taking advantage of this vulnerability and pretending that the proper approach is to medically attempt to change their sexual identity by mutilating their bodies through highly dangerous and permanent surgical and medical interventions. In an especially tragic twist, the sex change industry has now targeted children, some as young as toddlers, beginning with indoctrination and leading to “puberty blocker” hormones to prevent the natural maturation of the individual. These early medical interventions often lead to surgery to remove breasts, vaginas, or penises as if in collaboration with the psychological demons that these individuals need to overcome. It’s gotten so bad that one state has just authorized interchangeable body parts in an “anatomically correct doll to be used in public school sex education. The industry of so-called “gender affirmation” continues to be a “third rail”—dangerous to touch in any critical manner. People are stifled publicly and privately from speaking about this issue in a critical manner because they have been told they will cause so much pain and prejudice if they do. But the real suffering is being perpetrated by medical professionals, hospitals, and therapists who encourage the fantasy that one can change their sex to improve their quality of life. The reality is quite dismal in terms of outcomes. In every area in which our guest Patrick Hahn addresses the real science behind medical and psychiatric interventions, including his most recent book on the sex change industry, Patrick Hahn writes the most comprehensive, interesting analyses available. Where our books dovetail with his, and they often do, we nonetheless learn a great deal from him. If you’ve never heard him speak before, listen to this show simply for the pleasure of hearing one of the most brilliant and thoughtful critical researchers in the field of medicine and psychiatry today. This week on The Breggin Hour, Patrick Hahn joins us to discuss his powerful new book, Irreversible. Patrick is a careful researcher and a clear writer who has spent years documenting the medicalization of ordinary human suffering. His latest work traces how the obsession with “sex change” moved from a tiny fringe subculture to a multi-billion-dollar industry in the United States alone—and how that industry rests on a mountain of lies and deceptions. Patrick does not mince words. “There is nothing good about this industry. Nothing,” he told us. “The whole industry is based on lies.” In biology and medicine, he reminds us, nothing is more certain than this: there are two, and only two, sexes. It is impossible to turn a man into a woman with a surgeon’s knife. When an entire medical enterprise begins with that lie, the rest of the story unravels into incoherence. Activists insist that “trans women are women,” then demand fantastically expensive surgeries and lifelong cross-sex hormones precisely so those same individuals can resemble women. If they already are women, why the need for the knife and the drugs? The most comprehensive long-term study ever conducted, from Sweden (one of the most “trans-friendly” countries on earth), found that after surgical transition the suicide rate was elevated by a staggering nineteen times compared with matched controls from the general population. Not nineteen percent higher—nineteen times as many suicides. There is no credible data showing that these procedures reduce suicide risk. The “transition or die” claim pushed on desperate parents is itself a lethal lie. As Patrick put it, “Trans and die” would be more accurate. Most gender-distressed children simply outgrow the distress if they are allowed to go through natural puberty. That is why the industry is so eager to block puberty. The “cure,” as Patrick observed, is puberty itself. When clinics rush children onto blockers and then hormones, they are manufacturing lifelong medical patients out of young people who would otherwise have resolved their confusion. How did this twisted field get its beginning? The founding figures—Harry Benjamin, John Money, the early directors of the Johns Hopkins clinic—were often more candid than today’s activists about the role of childhood trauma, family dynamics, and social rejection. The first gender clinics in the United States and Europe eventually closed after their own research failed to show meaningful improvement. Those early practitioners had the intellectual honesty to admit failure. Their successors had a simple self-serving answer: if adults do not improve, start younger. The human toll in the sex change medical industry is incalculable. And the financial remuneration is staggering. An industry estimate of two billion dollars a year in the United States is almost certainly a gross undercount; it leaves out hormones, blockers, the cascade of complications, the “affirming” therapy that keeps families compliant, and the repeat surgeries required to repair damage from previous ones. Projections of five billion by 2030 still understate the true cost—human as well as monetary. We heard heartbreaking stories of families torn apart in court when one parent seeks to medicalize a child, and the other resists. We discussed the strange cultural power of celebrities who treat their children’s bodies as fashion statements. And we noted the encouraging signs that the political tide is finally turning– federal funding streams are being cut, and people are less afraid to speak the obvious truth. Patrick’s larger point is one we have long shared. The sex-change industry is only the sharpest edge of a broader medicalization of life. Once institutions stop caring whether people are productive and start treating them primarily as consumers of medical interventions, almost any human distress can be turned into a lifelong customer base. The damage done to children in the name of “gender affirmation” is irreversible. That is why the book is titled as it is. We urge you to read Irreversible. It is thorough, carefully documented, and written with genuine compassion for the people caught in this industry. You can find it, along with Patrick’s earlier books on psychiatric drugs, ADHD, COVID policy, and genetic determinism, at patrickhahn.net.
August 12, 202657min
Number 5: Dr. Breggin Hour 8-5-26
In 2021, Dr. Ron Elfenbein, MD, operated urgent care centers in Maryland, testing and treating COVID patients with monoclonal antibodies. The treatment was so successful that he was able to test and treat patients, see them recover, and watch them go home. Dr. Elfenbein went on Fox News sharing the great news of how successful the treatment of monoclonal antibodies was for COVID. Four months later, he was criminally indicted on 5 counts of fraudulent coding and billing at his clinics. A matter that should have never been brought in criminal court—at most deserving of some administrative action. He is still fighting these charges today. That is the stark outline of what happened to a good doctor. The fuller story is even more revealing—and more troubling. He is the kind of doctor you would want for your own care or for the care of your family. Dr. Elfenbein is an emergency physician with more than two decades of experience. When COVID arrived, he did what physicians are trained to do: he looked at the evidence in front of him and treated the patients in front of him. Monoclonal antibody infusions—technology that has been used safely since the 1970s for a range of conditions—produced dramatic results. Patients who arrived looking “on death’s door” often improved while still sitting in the infusion chair, with rapid turnarounds during the treatment itself. Lives saved. Hospitalizations prevented. Families spared further illness. No ventilators. No funerals. Displaying ingenuity and personal drive along with organizational skills, he built infusion centers and quickly became one of the largest providers in the Mid-Atlantic region. Patients traveled from neighboring states because they could not obtain the treatment closer to home. He saw the technology work with his own eyes. So did the patients and their families. Who needed any mRNA vaccines? Patients were being treated inexpensively and were able to return home. But there was a pandemic and a vaccine blueprint we documented in our book COVID-19 and the Global Predators: We are the Prey that had been developed for more than a decade, involving many billions of dollars in profits and offering the potential to finally exercise control over free and feisty American citizens. Led by Bill Gates and Klaus Schwab, both working with Dr. Anthony Fauci and the Deep State, careers and billions in research had been invested in shoehorning the “next generation” of vaccine technology past FDA approval requirements and into the marketplace. The “Universal Vaccine” was the holy grail before 2020. The mRNA vaccine model was considered a strong candidate with tremendous support from Bill Gates and others. “Why don’t we blow the system up? Obviously, we can’t just turn off the spigot on the system we have and then say, ‘hey, everyone in the world should get this new vaccine we haven’t given to anyone yet.’ But there must be some way…” Michael Specter, Staff Writer, The New Yorker; Moderator at the Milkin Institute’s Future Health Summit 2019 panel titled “Making Influenza History: The Quest for a Universal Vaccine.” When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, an Emergency Use Authorization was issued for the mRNA COVID vaccines. It was based on the legislative condition that there were no preexisting “adequate, approved and available alternatives.” And that was the wrinkle. There were adequate, approved, and available alternatives to a rushed, unapproved, mRNA vaccine system already documented to be toxic. Hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin, monoclonal antibodies, and even the basic medical treatments for respiratory viral conditions that are a part of any general practitioner’s armamentarium (albuterol and Budesonide inhalers, analgesics, oral steroids, cough suppressants, and antibiotics for secondary infections or other available tools that were not being recommended by the government when patients began to exhibit viral respiratory symptoms thought to be caused by COVID). None of these treatments were recommended for COVID by the CDC. Bill Gates, Dr. Anthony Fauci, and the pharmaceutical industry pushed a multi-billion-dollar boondoggle for experimental vaccines, all of which depended upon the absence of early effective treatments. But there were good doctors who stood against the pressure on behalf of their patients and patients everywhere, speaking truthfully through media outlets to inform citizens about their care options and treating their own patients. Dr. Elfenbein is one of those good doctors, and the Biden administration noticed, especially after he made a couple of media appearances talking about the successful treatment of COVID with monoclonal antibodies. A simple, outpatient monoclonal antibody treatment that could be provided in test/treat facilities and scaled up to provide care to thousands in a community should have provided strong evidence against any need for “vaccines.” But the Biden government was in the middle of their single-minded drive to get mRNA vaccines for Covid into “every arm.” Then federal authorities shut the monoclonal antibody program down nationally, citing that it was less effective with the newer Omicron variant. Dr. Elfenbein went on national television and said what many physicians believed, but few dared state publicly: people would die as a result of that decision. He was right. Hospitalizations and deaths followed. The monoclonal antibodies were eventually pulled from the market entirely, while the mRNA vaccines remained available. Four months after Dr. Elfenbein’s public criticism of COVID policy and the mRNA vaccines, the Department of Justice indicted him. The charges were not that he invented patients or fabricated services. The charges concerned how certain COVID-related evaluation and management visits had been coded for insurance reimbursement—technical billing questions that arise routinely in medical practice and are normally handled, when necessary, through civil or administrative channels. A jury convicted him in August 2023. Then something almost unheard of occurred. Chief Judge James K. Bredar of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland—the same judge who had presided over the trial—issued a detailed 93-page opinion vacating the convictions and entering a judgment of acquittal on all five counts. The judge found that the relevant CPT coding guidance was ambiguous, that the government had failed to prove the Level 4 codes were false beyond a reasonable doubt, and that no reasonable jury could have reached a guilty verdict on the evidence presented. He also conditionally granted a new trial because the evidence weighed so heavily against the verdict that it would be unjust to enter judgment. The government appealed. The Fourth Circuit later reversed the pure judgment of acquittal while acknowledging the evidence was “thin,” leaving the new-trial order in place. Judge Bredar subsequently recused himself from the case with a one-line notice and no explanation. Dr. Elfenbein now faces a second trial. The legal costs of the first prosecution nearly bankrupted him and his family. A second trial threatens to finish what the first began. Major physician organizations have stood with him. The American Medical Association—the very body that authors and maintains the CPT code set the government claims he violated—filed an amicus brief in his support. So did the Maryland State Medical Society, the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, and the Independent Medical Alliance. These groups have made clear that differences of interpretation over complex, pandemic-era billing rules should not be criminalized, especially when the underlying medical services were actually provided, and no patient harm is alleged. This case is not an isolated bureaucratic error. It fits a larger pattern we have watched for years: physicians who questioned official COVID narratives, who prioritized early treatment, or who spoke publicly about what they were seeing in their clinics often found themselves investigated, deplatformed, or professionally attacked. When a doctor can face decades in federal prison over disputed coding of real services, the message to the entire profession is unmistakable. Dr. Elfenbein’s website is dropthecase.com. There you will find information about his legal defense fund. If you are able to help, please do. If you cannot give financially, share his story. Write to the Department of Justice. Let the current administration know that continuing this prosecution does not serve justice, public health, or the integrity of medicine. We have seen too many good physicians pay a heavy price for putting patients first and telling the truth as they saw it. Ron Elfenbein is one of them. He is a good and great man who should not have to stand alone. Go to Dr. Elfenbein’s website, DroptheCase.com, and contribute to his legal costs through GiveSendGo.
August 05, 202657min