Two Doctors Will Lose ABIM Certification for Allegedly Spreading False Information

The American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) will revoke the board certification of two physicians involved in the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC), according to a statement from the group.

ABIM’s Credentials and Certification Committee reportedly recommended — after a “year-long back-and-forth” — that Paul Marik, MD, and Pierre Kory, MD, have their certifications revoked for spreading “false or inaccurate medical information,” according to the statement.

The ABIM declined to confirm the recommendation regarding the physicians’ certifications due to its strict confidentiality policy. As of August 10, the ABIM’s online certification database showed that Kory maintains active certification, but Marik’s certification status is inactive.

Marik and Kory, who are co-founders of FLCCC, claim the ABIM committee is favoring politics over medicine with this decision.

“What ABIM is doing is basically telling doctors that we need to take our orders from bureaucrats in Washington and certain medical journals instead of making treatment decisions based on our training and expertise,” Kory, president and chief medical officer of the FLCCC, said in the statement. “Threatening doctors the way the ABIM is doing, simply degrades the practice of medicine to be something that is done out of fear rather than to heal our patients in the best way we know how.”

“The ABIM is doing this to us and other doctors who didn’t follow what the committee is calling ‘consensus’ as a way to scare others into silence,” Marik, the chairman and chief scientific officer of the FLCCC, said in the statement. “Following the ABIM’s ‘consensus’ will only deprive patients of important treatments that have saved lives all over the world.”

The FLCCC statement claims that the loss of certification will not affect Kory or Marik’s ability to practice medicine, conduct research, or work in educational settings.

In addition to the statement, other prominent figures who have been critical of public health measures throughout the COVID-19 pandemic also weighed in. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) publicly derided the ABIM committee’s recommendation on his X (formerly Twitter) account.

“Here’s an example from @Covid19Critical of how one member of the COVID Cartel, ABIM, uses their certification power to try to discredit two doctors who had the courage and compassion to successfully treat COVID patients,” he wrote.

The ABIM website details certain disciplinary sanctions available to the board, including “the suspension or revocation of Board Certification or participation in Certification or Maintenance of Certification processes.”

According to the website, the board can enact sanctions against a physician for several reasons, including when a physician fails “to maintain moral, ethical or professional behavior satisfactory to ABIM” or they engage “in misconduct that adversely affects professional competence or integrity.”

If the board determines that a physician has engaged in such behavior, it can start the disciplinary review process, which begins with notifying the physician of the available evidence. The disciplinary committee then begins the process of reviewing the evidence and determining the appropriate disciplinary action.

ABIM’s website also notes that the board believes that “[p]roviding false or inaccurate information to patients or the public is unprofessional and unethical, and violates the trust that the profession of medicine and the public have in ABIM Board Certification. Therefore, such conduct constitutes grounds for disciplinary sanctions.”

The FLCCC statement noted that Kory and Marik will appeal the committee’s recommendation.

Kory and Marik have been vocal proponents of anti-vaccine views and alternative treatments for COVID-19 in recent years, including promoting the use of ivermectin.

Last year, Marik resigned from his position at Eastern Virginia Medical School over a dispute related to his prescribing of ivermectin. He also allowed his medical license to expire.

The FLCCC was created in March 2020 by a group of physicians with the reported goal of researching and developing prophylactics and treatments for COVID-19, including the I-RECOVER: Long COVID Treatment Protocol. The organization has also focused much of its efforts on vaccine-related injuries connected to the COVID-19 vaccines.

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