Bye bye disinformation guy

In the past, we've covered the Disinformation Dozen - a group of twelve people internationally who were/are responsible for promoting a lot of mis- and disinformation, who rose to particular prominence during the peak of the Covid pandemic.

Well recently, one of their number died - Dr Rashid Buttar, who was originally from the US, but had permanent residency in New Zealand, living in Tutukaka in Northland.

Now we don't usually gleefully write about the death or demise of those promoting misinformation - people can be honestly deceived - but there are those who promote this stuff so egregiously, often for profit motives, that it's hard to avoid some sense of schadenfreude.

Buttar returned to the US in early 2020, shortly before our borders were closed because of the pandemic, and remained there, reportedly dying there on May 18th. He was only 57 years old - pretty young (I have to say that as he's the same age as me, and I refuse to acknowledge my advanced age!)

As skeptics, we acknowledge it's never possible to know somebody's mind - whether they truly believe what they're saying or whether they actually know what they're saying is wrong, but do it anyway for whatever nefarious motives they may have.

But, in the case of Dr Buttar, I think we can make an exception here. He's very well documented as having evil intent, or at least, being motivated by money to spout misinformation and to actively harm people (I'll get to that further down).

During the peak of the pandemic, Buttar was spreading dangerous lies about Covid and vaccines. He had a follower count of over 1.2M people on various social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram (from which he was removed) and on Twitter.

Some of his various claims included that Covid was planned, that it was an act of genocide designed to reduce world population. He claimed that Dr Fauci was evil and compared him to Hitler, and that the death count from Covid vaccines themselves would exceed deaths caused in the holocaust by Nazis.

He claimed that most people who'd had the Covid vaccine would be dead by 2025. We've seen similar claims from vaccine deniers, variously claiming that we'd all be dead from it within two years. Though 2025 is still a few years away, I feel confident that my five shots that I've had have not done me any harm!

Buttar was interviewed on CNN's Anderson Cooper AC360 show - you can watch it on YouTube. They did a good job of pushing back on his misinformation, though frustratingly the comments on the video are littered with conspiracy theory promoters.

Interestingly, Buttar was in hospital in intensive care earlier this year, reportedly for heart issues being myocarditis or pericarditis. He claimed that he'd been poisoned after the CNN interview, and also claimed that the heart issues were because of vaccine shedding - having not taken the vaccine himself.

Of course, shedding is not a real concept. One of the side-effects of Covid itself is inflammation of the heart - myocarditis and pericarditis. Were I not such a skeptic, I'd say karma's a bitch!

Buttar was licensed as an osteopath, practising in his home state of North Carolina. The tenets of Osteopathic medicine seem to be rife for exploitation by charlatans, with claims that the body is a unit - that “the person is a unit of body, mind, and spirit.” I'm sure the majority of DOs (as they're known in the US, and contrasted with MDs) are well-meaning, but Buttar seems to have taken advantage of this in a particular evil way.

Back in 2009, the North Carolina Medical Board charged Buttar with exploiting cancer patients. Details of the case can be found on Stephen Barret's excellent Quackwatch site. That article makes for some eye-opening reading!

Essentially, Buttar was taking patients presenting with cancer diagnoses and pushing worthless and ineffective treatments on them essentially in an effort to drain them of money.

Here's an excerpt from the medical board charges against Buttar (emphasis mine):

4. Patients A through D presented to Dr. Butter with a diagnosis of cancer.

5. Patient A presented to Dr. Buttar with a diagnosis of cervical cancer.

6. Patient B presented to Dr. Buttar with a diagnosis of ovarian cancer.

7. Patient C presented to Dr. Buttar with a diagnosis of adrenal cell cancer.

8. Patient D presented to Dr. Buttar with a diagnosis of colon cancer.

9. Patients A, B, C and D would eventually succumb to their cancer.

10. Patients A, B, C and D, desperate for any hope to combat their disease, came to Dr. Buttar because of Dr. Buttar's representations that the therapies he offered would be effective in their battles against cancer. Dr. Buttar's representations were false, and were made by Dr. Buttar with full knowledge of their falsity.

11. Dr. Buttar provided therapies to Patients A, B, C and D that were unproven and wholly ineffective. The therapies consisted primarily of intravenous administration of a variety of substances, none of which has any known value for the treatment of cancer. The substances included EDTA (ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid), chromium, certain vitamins, and hydrogen-peroxide.

12. Dr. Buttar charged exorbitant fees for his ineffectual therapies. The total cost of the intravenous injections and other therapies for these cancer patients at times ranged in the thousands, sometimes tens of thousands, of dollars. Not only would Dr. Buttar order, and have administered, unproven and ineffectual therapies for Patients A, B, C and D in an attempt to drive up his billings, he would also order numerous tests and lab work for these patients that had no rational, medical relationship to the Patients cancer diagnosis. Moreover, any tests and lab work that were ordered by Dr. Buttar were never adequately justified in the medical records of the patients, were never linked to the patients' diagnosis or clinical condition, and in some instances never interpreted.

13. There is no evidence that any of the extensive and expensive laboratory data obtained on Patients A, B, C and D was used for treatment decisions. In essence, the medical records indicate that the extensive testing and lab work for Patients A, B, C and D were not ordered for any medical or clinical purpose, but were instead ordered in an attempt to drive up costs.

I think we can safely say that he was a thoroughly evil grifter, only in it for the money and perhaps notoriety. I, for one, am glad he's exited this world.