Association of American Physicians and Surgeons
The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons is a conservative non-profit association founded in 1944. The group was reported to have about 5,000 members in 2014. The association has promoted a range of scientifically discredited hypotheses, including the belief that HIV does not cause AIDS, that being gay reduces life expectancy, that there is a link between abortion and breast cancer, and that there is a causal relationship between vaccines and autism. It is opposed to the Affordable Care Act and other forms of universal health insurance.
History
During the winter of 1943, the Lake County Medical Committee opposed the Wagner-Murray-Dingell Bill, proposed legislation that would provide government health care for most U.S. citizens. Also opposed to the bill was the conservative National Physicians Committee. The committee began a membership drive in February 1944. By May 1944, the AAPS claimed members from all 48 states. In 1944, Time reported that the group's aim was the "defeat of any Government group medicine."In 1966, The New York Times described AAPS as an "ultra-right-wing... political-economic rather than a medical group," and said some of its leaders were members of the John Birch Society.
In 2002, AAPS said that its members included Ron Paul and John Cooksey. Ron Paul's son, Rand Paul, was a member for over two decades until his election to the U.S. Senate.
The group was reported to have about 4,000 members in 2005, and 5,000 in 2014.
The executive director is Jane Orient, an internist and a member of the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine.
Positions
AAPS is generally recognized as politically conservative or ultra-conservative, and its positions are unorthodox and at wide variance with federal health policy.The Washington Post summarized their beliefs in February 2017 as "doctors should be autonomous in treating their patients — with far fewer government rules, medical quality standards, insurance coverage limits and legal penalties when they make mistakes". It opposed the Social Security Act of 1965 which established Medicare and Medicaid and encouraged member physicians to boycott Medicare and Medicaid. The organization requires its members to sign a "declaration of independence" pledging that they will not work with Medicare, Medicaid, or even private insurance companies.
AAPS opposes mandated evidence-based medicine and practice guidelines, opposes abortion and over-the-counter access to emergency contraception and opposes electronic medical records.
Political and legal activism
Gun control
The AAPS opposes gun control and does not recognize handgun violence as a public health problem. Instead, the AAPS insists that handguns save lives, and that gun research sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is politically motivated "junk science".Social Security
AAPS went to court to block enforcement of a Social Security amendment that would monitor the treatment given to Medicare and Medicaid patients; in November 1975 the Supreme Court let stand a lower-court decision upholding the Social Security legislation.Opposition to health-care reform
With several other groups, AAPS filed a lawsuit in 1993 against Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala over closed-door meetings related to the 1993 Clinton health care plan. The AAPS sued to gain access to the list of members of President Bill Clinton's health care taskforce. Judge Royce C. Lamberth initially found in favor of the plaintiffs and awarded $285,864 to the AAPS for legal costs; Lamberth also harshly criticized the Clinton administration and Clinton aide Ira Magaziner in his ruling. Subsequently, a federal appeals court overturned the award and the initial findings on the basis that Magaziner and the administration had not acted in bad faith.The AAPS was involved in litigation in 2001 against the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, arguing that it violated the Fourth Amendment by allowing government access to certain medical data without a warrant.
An AAPS lawsuit opposing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, and seeking to invalidate it, was dismissed in March 2014 for lack of standing and failure to state a valid cause of action.
Opposition to investigation of Rush Limbaugh's drug charges
In 2004, AAPS filed a brief on behalf of conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh in Florida's Fourth District Court of Appeal, opposing the seizure of his medical files in an investigation of drug charges for Limbaugh's alleged misuse of prescription drugs. The AAPS stated the seizure was a violation of state law and that "It is not a crime for a patient to be in pain and repeatedly seek relief, and doctors should not be turned against patients they tried to help."Other cases
In 2007, AAPS assisted in the appeal against the conviction of Virginia internist William Hurwitz, who was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison for prescribing excessive quantities of narcotic drugs after 16 former patients testified against him. Hurwitz was granted a retrial in 2006, and his 25-year prison sentence was reduced to 4 years and 9 months.''Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons''
The association's Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, from 1996 to 2003 named the Medical Sentinel, is not listed in academic literature databases such as MEDLINE/PubMed or the Web of Science. The quality and scientific validity of articles published in the journal have been criticized by medical experts, and some of the viewpoints advocated by AAPS are rejected by mainstream scientists and other medical groups. The U.S. National Library of Medicine declined repeated requests from AAPS to index the journal, citing unspecified concerns.As of September 2016, JPandS was listed on Beall's list of potential or probable predatory open-access journals. Quackwatch lists JPandS as an untrustworthy, non-recommended periodical. An editorial in Chemical & Engineering News described the journal as a "purveyor of utter nonsense." Investigative journalist Brian Deer wrote that the journal is the "house magazine of a right-wing American fringe group " and "is barely credible as an independent forum." Writing in The Guardian, science columnist Ben Goldacre described the journal as the "in-house magazine of a rightwing US pressure group well known for polemics on homosexuality, abortion and vaccines."
Publishing of non-mainstream or scientifically discredited claims
Articles and commentaries published in the journal have argued a number of non-mainstream or scientifically discredited claims, including:- that human activity has not contributed to climate change, and that global warming will be beneficial and thus is not a cause for concern.
- that HIV does not cause AIDS.
- that the "gay male lifestyle" shortens life expectancy by 20 years.
- that there is a link between abortion and the risk of breast cancer.
- that there are possible links between autism and vaccinations.
- that government efforts to encourage smoking cessation and emphasize the addictiveness of nicotine are misguided.
A 2003 paper published in the journal, claiming that vaccination was harmful, was criticized for poor methodology, lack of scientific rigor, and outright errors by the World Health Organization and the American Academy of Pediatrics. A National Public Radio piece mentioned inaccurate information published in the Journal and said: "The journal itself is not considered a leading publication, as it's put out by an advocacy group that opposes most government involvement in medical care."
The journal has also published articles advocating politically and socially conservative policy positions, including:
- that the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services are unconstitutional;
- that "humanists" have conspired to replace the "creation religion of Jehovah" with evolution;
- that "anchor babies" are valuable to undocumented immigrants, particularly if the babies are disabled.
Leprosy error
In a 2005 article published in the journal, Madeleine Cosman argued that illegal immigrants were carriers of disease, and that immigrants and "anchor babies" were launching a "stealthy assault on medicine." In the article, Cosman claimed that "Suddenly, in the past 3 years America has more than 7,000 cases of leprosy" because of illegal aliens. The journal's leprosy claim was cited and repeated by Lou Dobbs as evidence of the dangers of illegal immigration.Publicly available statistics show that the 7,000 cases of leprosy occurred during the past 30 years, not the past three as Cosman claimed. James L. Krahenbuhl, director of the U.S. government's leprosy program, stated that there had been no significant increase in leprosy cases, and that "It is not a public health problem—that’s the bottom line." National Public Radio reported that the Journal article "had footnotes that did not readily support allegations linking a recent rise in leprosy rates to illegal immigrants." The article's erroneous leprosy claim was pointed out by 60 Minutes, National Public Radio, and The New York Times. As of 2020, the article remains on the journal's website without having been corrected.