Med Board Chief Rebukes America's Frontline Doctors Over Ambush Video

Kristina Lawson, president of the California Medical Board, is again publicly fighting back against the controversial group America's Frontline Doctors and their leader, California licensee Simone Gold, MD, JD -- this time for releasing a 21-minute video in which Lawson is depicted as a whip-wielding Nazi.

The video also perpetuates misinformation about the safety of COVID-19 vaccines and about disproven treatments for the disease.

"It is disturbing to be targeted by anti-science zealots and the people they seek to manipulate," Lawson wrote in a statement that was released by her representative, Jason Overman. "Since the 'movie' was released, I have received a constant stream of emails and voicemail messages threatening me and demanding I resign from my position."

"As I shared previously, I will continue to do this work even when it is hard, and notwithstanding that there is an organized effort to scare me and other dedicated public servants away from it," Lawson's statement read. "These vile threats -- primarily aimed at women, which isn't a coincidence -- will not deter us from our work to protect patients and consumers in California and beyond."

The video is littered with misinformation and conspiracy theories targeting everyone from California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), NIAID Director Anthony Fauci, MD, and President Biden for allegedly hiding the truth about disproven COVID drugs ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine.

It features a clip from a widely reported incident last December in which four unnamed representatives from America's Frontline Doctors confronted Lawson in a parking garage as she was leaving her law firm office to return home. Earlier, they had staked out Lawson's home as she left for work.

In the parking garage encounter, the group portrayed themselves as reporters trying to interview her about efforts to discipline doctors who spread misinformation, an action strongly recommended by the Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB).

In the video clip, Lawson is seen calling the local police department to intervene in what she later called a "terrifying" ambush.

In her recent statement, Lawson said, "And now we see the result of that ambush: a twenty minute 'movie' filled with swastikas, images of dictators, and shot through with dangerous lies and disinformation."

The video begins with "Lady Gold," played by Gold, who recently pleaded guilty to one of five criminal counts filed against her in connection with her participation in the January 6 insurrection and making a speech in the Capitol building.

She is seated at a desk beneath a hanging interrogation lamp accusing government officials of tyranny and orchestrating a "mass psychosis campaign" that has resulted in "many of the world's best doctors being hunted, silenced, and terminated from their professions. Their alleged crime, the Orwellian charge of promoting 'disinformation.'"

"We now know that the so-called vaccines do nothing to stop the spread of infection, directly from the mouths of the CDC director, from Joe Biden, Boris Johnson, Anthony Fauci, the World Health Organization," Gold says.

The video then shifts to the show's star, Christopher Rake, MD, who is listed on the board's website as a licensed physician in Newbury Park, California. He plays a detective called "Doc Tracy," modeled perhaps after Dashiell Hammett's Sam Spade, whose mission is to hunt down Lawson for her misdeeds against doctors and exposing the "fake news and fraudulent experts that threaten our republic."

Throughout the video, Rake accuses Lawson -- who at one point is depicted wearing a uniform with a swastika and brandishing a whip -- of "actively hunting California physicians" who believe the discredited drug hydroxychloroquine can fight COVID, and for being a voting member of the FSMB.

In her statement, Lawson did not mention Gold or Rake by name, but she said leaders of America's Frontline Doctors "have been discredited for many reasons," including their anti-vaccine and anti-mask propaganda; promotion of unproven medical treatments for COVID-19; participation in the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol; and a "wide variety of other headline-grabbing stunts."

In a tweet in response to Lawson's statement Friday, Gold wrote, "This was truly shocking. Kristina Lawson, President of the California Medical Board, can't answer simple questions from a physician about her offices attack on hydroxychloroquine or threatening to revoke MD's licenses for prescribing it. Her corruption is rampant."

In a blog post, the organization is characterizing the Doc Tracy video as a new medical documentary series that is "turning the tables on the people and institutions who have been hunting and intimidating doctors for not following the COVID-19 narrative."

As of Sunday night, the Medical Board of California website shows that both Rake and Gold maintain state medical licenses in good standing.

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