Doctors will monitor presidential debate to "fight misinformation": Yahoo Finance Senior Reporter Anjalee Khemlani
Yahoo Finance Senior Reporter Anjalee Khemlani breaks down the sudden rise in doctor groups forming to either support Biden, evaluate vaccines independently, or battle misinformation. It's the strongest political showing of the health profession, which has typically been quiet in the realm of politics during election cycles.
Video transcript
ANJALEE KHEMLANI: So what we've seen is that there are a number of groups forming of a for-- early on in the pandemic, we sort of saw this informal grouping, or just doctors getting to know each other and getting their-- elevating their voices, really, on social media platforms. And that has escalated into actual organized groups.
So, for example, we already know that there exists a group called the National Medical Association, they represent black doctors. And what they are doing is banding together to assess the vaccines, claiming that there is so much erosion of trust in the federal government bodies that are supposed to be looking at this-- the FDA specifically-- that they feel the need to look out for African-Americans and minorities, and assess the data from these vaccines.
We already heard today, for example, that Pfizer is being asked by a number of health experts to wait just another month to observe the effect of their vaccine. So, similarly, you're seeing that.
Meanwhile, there's other groups like Doctors for Biden that has formed to support Joe Biden. But they've also talked about, you know, crossing party lines or inviting Republicans, independents, et cetera, to get on board as well.
And then there's a group called DOCS, which is-- stands for Doctors Organized to Communicate Science. And their whole entire goal is to monitor debates, like the one tonight, as well as the conventions, and help to sort of fight back against the misinformation, especially when it comes to the health care space. And of course, we know that it is so relevant because of the global pandemic, and because of all the missteps that we've seen from the administration.