A Minnesota Doctor Says He Is Being Targeted for His Viewpoints on COVID-19

Doctors and nurses confer in the Intensive Care Unit of MedStar St. Mary's Hospital in Leonardtown, Maryland, April 8, 2020. Win McNamee/Getty Images

A Minnesota doctor says he is under investigation by the Minnesota Board of Medical Practice for his vocal views about the CCP virus and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) guidelines on certifying COVID-19 deaths.

Dr. Scott Jensen, a family physician and a Republican state senator, took to social media to share that the Board of Medical Practice in Minnesota was investigating him for “spreading misinformation in regards to the completion of death certificates on a news program” and providing “reckless advice” by comparing COVID-19 to influenza following two public complaints filed to the Board.

“I should have seen it coming because I saw the threats on social media; I’ve seen them for the last two or three months,” Jensen said. “They didn’t agree with me. They didn’t like that I was trying to provide some context for the flu, for COVID-19.”

Jensen claims that the threats came from “people in all walks of life” including physicians. He says he’ll never know who made the complaints.

“I don’t know if they’re routinely in a political camp if they’re activists. I’ve gone online and looked at what it takes to complete a complaint that the Board of Medical Practice has to follow up on,” Jensen said. “It’s a one-page deal. You can say what you want, you could be a huge donor for the other party.”

According to the “pursuant to the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act, complaint and investigative data, including the source of a complaint, are classified as confidential during an active investigation,” Ruth Martinez, MA and the executive director of the Minnesota Board of Medical Practice, told The Epoch Times in an email. “Because the complaint information is not public, the Board is unable to confirm an investigation or share any information.”

In April, Jensen appeared on Chris Berg’s show to voice his concern of how the CDC’s guidelines on how to complete COVID-19 death certificates (pdf) may influence doctors to inflate the number of COVID deaths since they don’t have to confirm them with a test. After his appearance on Fox News, the Minnesota Department of Health came out several times to clarify that they would not list unconfirmed cases as deaths in the state.

Regarding his public statements comparing COVID-19 to the flu, Jensen says, “We’ve had some 35-40,000 cases of COVID-19 in Minnesota thus far. According to the department of health people, that might translate into 10 times that many. And if it does translate it to 10 times that many, that’s 350,000 cases. But in 2018, we have more than half a million Minnesotans with the flu. When I say that, am I recklessly giving you advice regarding COVID-19 and the flu?”

He says he is not saying anything different from Dr. Anthony Fauci or Dr. Robert Redfield.

In an article in the New England Journal of Medicine, regarding COVID-19, Fauci, Redfield, and another doctor said, “If one assumes that the number of asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic cases is several times as high as the number of reported cases, the case fatality rate may be considerably less than 1%. This suggests that the overall clinical consequences of Covid-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza (which has a case fatality rate of approximately 0.1%) or a pandemic influenza (similar to those in 1957 and 1968) rather than a disease similar to SARS or MERS, which have had case fatality rates of 9 to 10% and 36%, respectively.”

Jensen says he feels targeted for his differing viewpoints and will cooperate with the investigation. His family has given him strength and support during this time.

“If this could happen to me [because] of my views, it could happen to anyone,” Jensen said.