Andrew Boyd, MD

Appalachian FQHC. “Good medical care is to do as much nothing as possible.” Safetyism is infinite. Unfettered executive power is a threat to democracy.

[Andrew Boyd, MD @VC_Doc]

WHO Director 3/3/20:
“We don’t even talk about containment for flu - it’s just not possible. But COVID spreads less efficiently than flu and it can be contained.”

We soon learned COVID is MORE contagious, but still tried containment at huge social cost.

https://t.co/BouMADAKPI

[Andrew Boyd, MD @VC_Doc]

Remember when the U.S. spent as much as the entire annual budget trying to contain a highly transmissible respiratory virus?

[Andrew Boyd, MD @VC_Doc]

Given the current (and well-deserved) attention the public debt is receiving, it’s worth remembering that the U.S. squandered $5 trillion on pandemic relief measures.

The stimulus bills were archetypal grandstanding and grift, and we have nothing to show for them except an accelerating economic emergency.

[Andrew Boyd, MD @VC_Doc]

😷👀
Osterholm completely called out the directors of NIH and CDC and the Surgeon General regarding federal masking guidance.

“None of the studies the CDC uses to support its statement as to the significant protection of face cloth coverings stand up to scientific scrutiny.”

[Andrew Boyd, MD @VC_Doc]

Excellent thread.

As best I can I let my patients know what additional testing and treatment could mean, and that a palliative approach is always an option.

My mother was told she was “lucky” to be surgical candidate to treat cholangiocarcinoma. It was hell.

[Paul Schofield @pschofie79]

My dad died of glioblastoma on Friday. Two things that are significant when you get diagnosed with this at age 72: You're not going to live very long and much of the time you have left is going to be unpleasant. I've been struck my how *little* attention was paid to these things.

[Andrew Boyd, MD @VC_Doc]

@Chesschick01 Everyone’s for fighting crime until your first amendment right to assemble is criminalized.

[Andrew Boyd, MD @VC_Doc]

@Seanfrank It’s worse than you think.

Half of federal spending is indexed to inflation and can’t be “inflated away”.

What happens to bond prices and interest rates when debt buyers realize the U.S. is not committed to containing inflation?

[Andrew Boyd, MD @VC_Doc]

@rshereme This is blatantly false. There have been ZERO measles deaths in the U.S. this year.
How can a professor be this obtuse?
How can 6k people swallow such an obvious lie?

[Andrew Boyd, MD @VC_Doc]

@justin_hart Here’s @AmerAcadPeds reassuring everyone the obvious outcome wouldn’t happen.

[Andrew Boyd, MD @VC_Doc]

“No one takes them seriously, no one knows how to treat them, and there is no effort to study this.”

The dismissal and censorship of people who experienced adverse effects of the COVID vaccines were an affront not only to science, but also to human dignity.

[Andrew Boyd, MD @VC_Doc]

@DrJMarine It was sad to learn how many physicians are sheep at heart.

[Andrew Boyd, MD @VC_Doc]

This is an easy way to select for a smart doctor. Unfortunately, “smart” in this case really just means good at memorizing the information that others told them is important. The pandemic revealed this intelligence is quite different from critical thought and the application of knowledge to new scenarios.

[Andrew Boyd, MD @VC_Doc]

@KrugAlli The rarity of disease also makes it impossible to directly study vaccine efficacy.

I personally know 2 healthcare workers whose adolescent children died of meningococcal infection. They were both vaccinated.

[Andrew Boyd, MD @VC_Doc]

Just saw a new patient with intermittent chest pain and a murmur suspicious for AS. Has multiple risk factors for CVD. He was recently hospitalized and had inpatient echo (read as “normal” with no valve abnormalities) and stress test (reported as “unremarkable” in discharge summary).

In reality, his aortic valve area was 1.1 cm2 and he was only able to walk 107 seconds on the treadmill. I’m not reassured.

[Ferrariic, MD @ciirarref]

Read your own scans

[Andrew Boyd, MD @VC_Doc]

“All [healthcare] screening programs do harm: some do good as well, and of these, some do more good than harm at reasonable cost.”
Sir Muir Gray

[Andrew Boyd, MD @VC_Doc]

We keep hearing he did the best he could with what we knew at the time.

In reality, Fauci knew in early 2021 that variants were going to make the original vaccine useless against infection while still publicly claiming the vaccinated became a “dead-end” for the virus.

[Jeffrey A Tucker @jeffreytucker]

Exactly correct. Perfect article

The vaccine warnings hidden in Fauci's diary, by @MaryanneDemasi https://t.co/ix6yXz70zU

[Andrew Boyd, MD @VC_Doc]

I was trained to refer when the patient needs a procedure I can’t perform, not so someone else can do my thinking for me.

Excessive referrals fragment care; they are bad for the patient and bad for the system, and they make practicing medicine unrewarding.

I see many NP notes in which the assessment and plan are nothing more than the chief complaint and a referral.

[Andrew Boyd, MD @VC_Doc]

@BowTiedLoon @CoffeeBlackMD I see a lot of NP notes where the assessment and plan are nothing more than the chief complaint and a referral.

[Andrew Boyd, MD @VC_Doc]

Remember how Fauci used data to reassure young healthy vaccinated liberals that they didn’t have to clamor for Paxlovid to manage their COVID infections?

Me neither.

[Andrew Boyd, MD @VC_Doc]

I continue to become more convinced that the greatest good I can do for a patient is to help alleviate what is bothering them TODAY. However, western medicine continues to morph into a system of infinite screening and surveillance of asymptomatic “problems”, pharmaceuticals and procedures to replace lifestyle changes, all with the implicit belief that any bad outcome could have been avoided if doctors had looked hard enough.

[Andrew Boyd, MD @VC_Doc]

@RonDeSantis It is journalists’ job to question the narrative. Instead, they were used as mouthpieces.