‘Allow People to Exercise Their Natural Immunity’: Former HHS Adviser

Crowd gathers at Lincoln Memorial for the "Defeat the Mandates" rally in Washington on Jan. 23, 2022. Lynn Lin/NTD

Several prominent doctors joined about 30,000 demonstrators in the “Defeat the Mandates” march in Washington on Jan. 23. Among them was former federal government adviser Dr. Paul Alexander, who declared that COVID-19 mandates and rules have failed to prevent transmission of the virus.

“Society has been so terrorized for two years,” Alexander told EpochTV’s “American Thought Leaders” program. “We found the science shows us lockdowns, school closures, mask mandates; they all failed. Those policies have failed.

“And it’s time now to end this pandemic emergency. The time has come now for us to move forward.”

In some highly vaccinated places, such as Israel, which also has a vaccine passport system in place for restaurants and similar businesses, COVID-19 cases have soared. On Jan. 22, the country set its all-time record for cases, despite having one of the highest vaccination rates in the world.

In New York and Los Angeles, which similarly employ vaccine passport systems, COVID-19 cases driven by the relatively mild Omicron coronavirus variant have spiked to all-time highs, according to government data.

“If the vaccine does not prevent transmission, and if we are seeing ... the vaccinated person is harboring infection, becoming grossly infected, and even transmitting to the vaccinated ... why would we have a mandate?” said Alexander, who was an adviser to the Department of Health and Human Services during the Trump administration.

“It’s only functioning to tear the society apart. We should allow people to exercise their natural immunity, because natural immunity is far superior.”

According to some estimates, as many as 35,000 people attended the march in Washington. Many of the protesters demanded an end to compulsory vaccination policies, including rules handed down by various federal agencies tying workers’ vaccination status to their employment.

Several other doctors who attended the rally also spoke with “American Thought Leaders.”

During the COVID-19 pandemic, “the ability to know what is the truth and what isn’t the truth” has been subverted by U.S. institutions and legacy media outlets, according to Dr. Paul Marik, who has served as chair of the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk, Virginia.

“Most people who read the newspaper or listen to the TV are absolutely clueless and believe what they’re being told,” Marik told “American Thought Leaders” on Jan. 23. “The lies are so convincing that they are convinced by these lies.”

He stated that “these lies” have been disseminated by the federal government and various state agencies on COVID-19.

“They are filling Americans with misinformation and mistruth ... to control Americans,” Marik said.

Another physician, Dr. Richard Amerling, a nephrologist, told “American Thought Leaders” that he lost his job “because of the mandate.”

“I’m still a doctor. I should still practice, and I will always land on my feet, but [that’s] not true for a lot of other people who were actually destroyed [by COVID-19 vaccine mandates],” he said. “[The mandates have] been extremely destructive. It obviously has not stopped this viral spread. ... It’s a horrendous public health and medical policy.”