Dr. Simone Gold is the Los Angeles-based doctor who is leading a group called “America’s Frontline Doctors” that held a press conference on COVID-19 on July 27, sparking a controversial viral video that was removed from multiple social media platforms.
CNN confirmed that the group “is led by Dr. Simone Gold, a Los Angeles-based emergency medicine specialist who has previously been featured on Fox News for her views that stay-at-home orders are harmful.” CNBC described the group as “comprised of some doctors and some who are part of the anti-vaccination movement.”
The video was first published on the conservative Breitbart News platform. The doctors in the video are wearing white lab coats and are part of the organization calling itself “America’s Frontline Doctors.” They held a press conference in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, and the video quickly went viral before it was removed by multiple social media platforms for what they labeled misinformation and false claims. Dr. Stella Immanuel is a Houston doctor whose comments at the press conference were widely shared.
The video can still be viewed on Bitchute here.
“We’re here because we feel as though the American people have not heard from all of the expertise that’s out there all across our country,” Gold says, opening the press conference. “We’re America’s Frontline Doctors. We’re only here to help American patients and the American nation to heal. … Americans are riveted and captured by fear at the moment. We are not held down by the virus as much as we’re held down by the spider web of fear. That spider web is all around us.” She adds, “This does not make sense. … We can manage the virus intelligently, carefully.”
“This virus has a cure, it’s called hydroxychloroquine, zinc, and Zithromax,” a press conference participant says in the video. “You don’t need masks, there is a cure.” These claims are contradicted by the government and other scientists and doctors.
The video was first posted on Monday and by that evening had been removed by Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, CNN reported. “We’ve removed this video for sharing false information about cures and treatments for COVID-19,” Facebook told CNN, adding that the platform is “showing messages in News Feed to people who have reacted to, commented on or shared harmful COVID-19-related misinformation that we have removed, connecting them to myths debunked by the WHO.”
Twitter then upped the ante by suspending the account of Donald Trump Jr. after the president’s son and the president himself shared the video.
In June, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration revoked the emergency use of hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine, writing that the drugs were “unlikely to be effective in treating COVID-19 for the authorized uses in the EUA. Additionally, in light of ongoing serious cardiac adverse events and other serious side effects, the known and potential benefits of CQ and HCQ no longer outweigh the known and potential risks for the authorized use.”
“While additional clinical trials continue to evaluate the potential benefit of these drugs in treating or preventing COVID-19, we determined the emergency use authorization was no longer appropriate. This action was taken following a rigorous assessment by scientists in our Center for Drug Evaluation and Research,” said Patrizia Cavazzoni, M.D., acting director of the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation, in an FDA news release.
In July 2020, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention called on Americans “to wear masks to prevent COVID-19 spread.”
“We are not defenseless against COVID-19,” said CDC Director Dr. Robert R. Redfield in that news release. “Cloth face coverings are one of the most powerful weapons we have to slow and stop the spread of the virus – particularly when used universally within a community setting. All Americans have a responsibility to protect themselves, their families, and their communities.”
Here’s what you need to know:
1. Gold Has Said There Is ‘No Scientific Basis’ for Concern About COVID-19 & Organized a Letter to Push Donald Trump to End What the Signatories Called a ‘National Shutdown’
Is a lock-down legal?
Gold spoke out about COVID-19 to the Associated Press in May, saying that she was speaking against stay-at-home orders because there was “no scientific basis that the average American should be concerned” about the virus. The same article claimed that “Republican political operatives are recruiting ‘pro-Trump’ doctors to go on television to prescribe reviving the U.S. economy as quickly as possible,” adding that “the plan was discussed in a May 11 conference call with a senior staffer for the Trump reelection campaign organized by CNP Action, an affiliate of the GOP-aligned Council for National Policy.”
According to CNBC, Gold is “reportedly a Trump supporter who has advocated the use of hydroxychloroquine on Conservative talk radio and podcasts.” The AP article also states that Gold “denied she was coordinating her efforts with Trump’s reelection campaign” and said she had prescribed hydroxychloroquine to two patients with “good results” and believes that COVID-19 deaths mostly affect people who are elderly and have preexisting conditions, not working-age people.
On Twitter, Gold defines herself as “doctor-lawyer-writer-mom.” MD.com describes her as affiliated with Centinela Freeman Emergency Medical Associates in Inglewood, California. A representative of Centinela Hospital Medical Center told Heavy she is no longer on staff there.
She has a current medical license as a physician and surgeon, according to California state records:
State of California
Federal Election Commission records show she has donated money to Republican causes, including the campaign of Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine.
On July 26, she wrote on Twitter, “Join me live tomorrow via live stream for the America’s Front Line Doctors Summit from Washington DC. Monday July 27, 9am-12:30 & 3-6 pm. American Life has fallen casualty to massive disinformation & we need to stop living in fear!”
Fox News reported previously that Gold was “the head organizer of an open letter signed by more than 600 doctors who pushed President Trump to end what they called a ‘national shutdown.’” The letter argued that the state shutdowns of businesses and schools amounted to a “mass casualty incident” nationally with “exponentially growing health consequences,” Fox reported, adding that the signatories of the letter believe that people are missing routine checkups or forgoing medical treatment for other issues, that substance abuse is rising and that increasing poverty will affect health.
2. The Website for America’s Frontline Doctors Claims Americans Have Fallen ‘Casualty to a Massive Disinformation Campaign’
The website for America’s Frontline Doctors appears to have expired. However, Heavy reviewed the site before it was removed. The site read, “American life has fallen casualty to a massive disinformation campaign. We can speculate on how this has happened, and why it has continued, but the purpose of the inaugural White Coat Summit is to empower Americans to stop living in fear.”
The site continued: “If Americans continue to let so-called experts and media personalities make their decisions, the great American experiment of a Constitutional Republic with Representative Democracy, will cease.”
The website listed Gold as “Simone Gold, MD, JD, Founder.”
On Facebook, Gold’s visible political posts revolve around support for Israel.
On Facebook, Gold shared a photo that included Democratic Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib and wrote, “Antisemite Linda Sarsour with some of the antisemites (Congresswomen) of the Democrat Party.”
She shared this grid charting political views in the left/Libertarian realm.
In 2016, she wrote, “Start here. First, name the one country in the Middle East where Arabs are free. Second, see if you can even find Israel on the below picture of the Middle East, drawn to scale. Third, consider that this tiny desert country not only has become the world leader in several areas including water technology – the most important technology of all – Israel GIVES AWAY WATER TO THE PALESTINIANS. Israel is the solution to the problems in the Middle East.”
Other posts chronicle her travels to Israel. She wrote on Facebook that she lives in Arizona and is from New York.
Gold once shared a petition seeking signatures that argues that “professional psychology is failing targeted parents and their children who are experiencing the attachment-related pathology of ‘parental alienation’ following divorce.”
She posted this anti-Barack Obama cartoon.
Four years ago, she wrote on Facebook, “I am still working in the ED, I’m at Centinela (near LAX) which I like despite (because?!) the craziness.”
3. Gold Describes Herself as a ‘Board Certified Emergency Physician’ Who Graduated From Stanford University Law School & Chicago Medical School
Simone Gold’s blog describes her as “MD, JD, FABEM” and says she “is a board certified emergency physician.”
“She graduated from Chicago Medical School before attending Stanford University Law School to earn her Juris Doctorate degree. She completed her residency in Emergency Medicine at Stony Brook University Hospital in New York,” the bio says.
“Dr. Gold worked in Washington D.C. for the Surgeon General, as well as for the Chairman of the Labor & Human Resources Committee. She works as an emergency physician on the frontlines whether or not there is a pandemic. Her clinical work serves all Americans: from urban-inner city, to suburban and the Native American population. Her legal work has focused on inpatient vs. outpatient determinations.. She writes on a number of policy issues relating to law and medicine.”
4. Gold Worked as a Congressional Fellow, Her LinkedIn Page Says
Simone Gold
Gold’s LinkedIn page says she worked as a “congressional fellow” for the U.S. Senate for less than a year in 1997 in the Washington D.C. Metro area. “Research and analysis of health policy issues presented to the Committee. Speech-writing for Senator Jeffords,” her LinkedIn page says.
James Jeffords was a U.S. Senator from Vermont who started out as a Republican and then switched to being an Independent in 2001.
She also wrote that she has been a self-employed “Concierge Physician” for “www.DrSimoneGold.com” from 2012 to present.
“I offer clients the same high level of information and guidance that C-level executives expect in other areas of their lives. I work the same way as a highly effective Fortune 100 CEO. To find the best answer for each client-situation, I read the latest research, consult with the foremost experts, examine the scientific literature, and help my clients make the best choices. Taking the right steps at the critical moment can mean the difference between forever living with a serious impairment or enjoying good health,” she wrote.
Gold wrote that she worked as an editorial assistant from January through September 2009 in Washington D.C. “Assisted Ambassador Michael Oren with research, writing, editing on various assignments, including the Wall Street Journal and the New Republic,” she wrote. The Israeli embassy says “Michael B. Oren served as Israel’s ambassador to the United States from 2009 to 2010.”
She wrote that she was editor and co-Founder of Medicalife in Los Angeles from 2006 to 2008. “Unlike other physician-oriented publications, Medicalife Magazine puts the spotlight on physician lifestyles and what it means to be a doctor in the 21st century. Each quarterly issue contains original features about contemporary subjects of interest to physicians,” her LinkedIn page says. “From the human genome project, to corporate pharmaceutical policies, to space & medicine to robotic surgery, the articles keep readers informed with in-depth reporting, incisive analysis and thought-provoking criticism. The writing is smart, new, and fun.”
In addition, Gold wrote that she was a founder of GoldHealthcareSolutions, where she worked from 2017 to April 2020. “GoldHealthcareSolutions provides specialized software that enables hospitals to easily respond to an audit,” she wrote. “Typically our software is used to respond to a retrospective denial of payment by CMS or another payor. Our comprehensive appeals solution requires just one employee hour from the time of audit notification until the inpatient facility is ready to respond. There are no similar products on the market.”
She also wrote that she was the founder of a company named Virtual from 2011-present, writing, “We offer specific answers to complex or multifaceted questions that need researching and creative problem solving in the areas of medicine, medical ethics, law and government policy. Every question is unique and every question requires thorough research, broad curiosity and critical reasoning. Some examples of past queries: Who is the best surgeon in the world for a knee replacement? How much more money is spent by Medicare annually today compared to twenty years ago? Which states have passed anti-BDS laws?”
5. Gold Has Touted Hydroxychloroquine on Her Social Media Pages & Has a Blog
Dr. Simone Gold
Gold has spoken out in favor of hydroxychloroquine on Twitter, writing on July 15, “HCQ must be over the counter! Safe, FDA-approved 65 years, OK pregnant, breast-feeding, children, elderly, immune-compromised! Patients need access but the FDA, HHS, Governors, state medical boards and the media are all working against it. #whitecoatsummit.”
She claimed that USA Today censored her comments on masks, writing, “@USATODAY invited me to debate the usefulness of masks. Unfortunately what I submitted was different from what they printed in their paper. Shameful! I can’t link what they printed, bc the truth is so dangerous they wouldn’t publish online!!”
Gold has a blog called The Gold Opinion. On masks, she wrote, “The scientific usefulness of a mask has been so aggressively overstated, and the foundational importance of the Constitution has been so aggressively understated, that we have normalized people screaming obscenities at each other while hiking.”
She added: “The Covid virus was supposed to be contained in the kind of lab where people wear astronaut suits and go through triple sealed doors. It is a con of massive proportion to assert that now, having escaped those environs, a bandana will magically do the trick.”
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