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HomeMy WebLinkAbout09.29.26 Board Correspondence - FW_ Ron Johnson’s Bombshell Roundtable on Covid Hospital Protocols.ATTENTION: This message originated from outside Butte County. Please exercise judgment before opening attachments, clicking on links, or replying.. Did you happen to watch Senator Ron Johnson’s COVID-19 From:Clerk of the Board To:Mutony, Heather Cc:Lee, Lewis Subject:Board Correspondence - FW: Ron Johnson’s Bombshell Roundtable on Covid Hospital Protocols Date:Tuesday, September 29, 2026 10:00:40 AM Attachments:55PGmUJLxKk9.png aUC3mKqVnbBL.png image001.png Please see Board Correspondence - Lewis LeeAdministrative Technician - ConfidentialButte County Administration25 County Center Drive, Suite 200 • Oroville, CA 95965T: 530.552.3326www.buttecounty.ca.gov | lelee@buttecounty.ca.gov From: lance dreiss <lancedreiss@att.net> Sent: Tuesday, September 29, 2026 9:57 AM To: Shared Mailbox Clerk of the Board <pcbs@countyofplumas.com>; Senator.Dahle@senate.ca.gov; Assemblymember.Gallagher@assembly.ca.gov; sheriff@countyofplumas.com; District Attorney <District_Attorney@buttecounty.ca.gov>; Nicolereinert@countyofplumas.com; danpargee@countyofplumas.com; davidhollister@countyofplumas.com; Soderstrom, Monica <msoderstrom@buttecounty.ca.gov>; Durfee, Peter <PDurfee@buttecounty.ca.gov>; Ronald Owens <ronald@muzzledtruth.com>; Kimmelshue, Tod <TKimmelshue@buttecounty.ca.gov>; Pickett, Andy <APickett@buttecounty.ca.gov>; Connelly, Bill <BConnelly@buttecounty.ca.gov>; Teeter, Doug <DTeeter@buttecounty.ca.gov>; Beaudoin, Jarett <JBeaudoin@buttecounty.ca.gov>; Julie Threet <julie4butte5@gmail.com>; Waugh, Melanie <mwaugh@buttecounty.ca.gov>; Kitts, Melissa <mkitts@buttecounty.ca.gov>; Ritter, Tami <TRitter@buttecounty.ca.gov>; Teri DuBose <Teri.DuBose@mail.house.gov>; Clerk of the Board <clerkoftheboard@buttecounty.ca.gov>; Stephens, Brad J. <BStephens@buttecounty.ca.gov> Subject: Ron Johnson’s Bombshell Roundtable on Covid Hospital Protocols Public Record Hospital Protocols Roundtable yesterday? Wow. The testimony was powerful and heartbreaking. Let's jump right in. RON JOHNSON’S BOMBSHELL ROUNDTABLE ON COVID HOSPITAL PROTOCOLS Yesterday, a packed Kennedy Caucus Room on Capitol Hill heard hours of emotional testimony about what patients, families, doctors, nurses, and attorneys say happened inside American hospitals during the COVID-19 pandemic. Senator Ron Johnson convened “COVID-19 Hospital Protocols: Real Stories from Real People,” bringing together 21 witnesses to put their experiences on the public record. Johnson said the purpose was to hear directly from people who lived through these experiences and to help ensure that what they described “never happens again.” The stories were difficult to hear. Patients and family members described isolation from loved ones, battles over treatment decisions, restrictions on visitation, and desperate attempts to advocate for family members hospitalized with COVID. We heard stories of families having to fight just to make sure their loved ones received food and water. We heard about patients describe being held against their will. We heard story after story of hospitals withholding treatments families requested while enforcing rigid—and deadly—COVID protocols. What we heard was horrifying: hospitals went rogue, and far too many doctors, nurses, and administrators stayed silent and just followed directions. Trauma surgeon and ICU physician Dr. James P. Miller offered a disturbing account from inside the hospital system. Miller testified that, contrary to the images many Americans were seeing of hospitals supposedly overwhelmed by COVID patients, he never witnessed his hospital being overwhelmed or short-staffed. He described watching the culture inside the hospital change, saying masking protocols dehumanized both patients and healthcare workers and that he watched previously compassionate doctors and nurses become cruel and ambivalent toward patients. Miller also testified that hospital leadership endorsed the refusal to provide healthcare to unvaccinated patients and that physicians who questioned COVID policies faced enormous pressure. Perhaps most chillingly, Miller testified that the head of infectious disease medicine at his hospital privately told him he was working with state government officials on policies that would restrict the civil rights of unvaccinated people. Then came Brad and Gail Seiler's powerful testimoney. Gail described what she says happened after she entered the hospital. According to her testimony, an ICU doctor told her she was going to die because she was unvaccinated. She said she was isolated from her family and denied access to her priest, while the hospital repeatedly pressured her toward Remdesivir and ventilation and denied treatments she and her family wanted. Gail testified that she was denied food for twelve days and water for seven days. She spoke about being left naked, uncovered, and alone, and being verbally abused by nurses because she was unvaccinated. She was also designated a Do Not Resuscitate—DNR—against her wishes. She refused medications because she feared losing consciousness. If she lost consciousness, then she would no longer be able to advocate for herself, and decisions she had explicitly refused would be made for her. Meanwhile, her husband, Brad was fighting from outside to get his wife home. According to his testimony, Gail was conscious, mentally coherent, and repeatedly said she wanted to leave with him. Instead, hospital administrators called law enforcement, turning what Brad believed should have been a discharge into an approximately six-hour standoff. At one point, Gail looked at a police sergeant and asked the question that seemed to capture everything her family had experienced: “Am I a patient, or am I a prisoner?” Brad refused to leave without his wife and eventually got her out. He testified that as Gail was leaving, a nurse predicted she would be dead that night or before they even made it home. Instead of leaving through the hospital’s main entrance, Brad said he and Gail was taken down a freight elevator used to transport bodies to the morgue and escorted through doors used by funeral homes. But Gail went home—and she survived. With the help of Dr. Richard Bartlett, Brad continued caring for her at home with oxygen, Budesonide, antibiotics, Ivermectin, vitamins, and supportive care. According to the Seilers’ account, Gail steadily improved and, within approximately two months, she had made a full recovery. Throughout the pandemic, doctors and families across the country reported fighting hospitals over access to Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine, while some physicians described being warned that prescribing outside the institutional COVID protocols would result in disciplinary action. At the same time, Remdesivir became the primary treatment protocol for hospitalized COVID patients. And federal regulators were already aware of significant safety concerns. The FDA’s safety review identified hepatotoxicity as an important safety issue, requiring monitoring of liver function, while acute kidney injury was the most frequently reported serious adverse event in the clinical safety data reviewed for the drug. Early guidance also cautioned against using Remdesivir in patients with severely impaired kidney function unless the potential benefit outweighed the potential risk. And that raises another important question: Who made the decision to make Remdesivir the main hospital treatment protocol in the first place? And why was a drug with known liver toxicity concerns and significant kidney-related safety concerns given to patients who were already critically ill and struggling? Attorney Ralph Lorigo described what happened when families took that fight into court. Lorigo fought hard for patients and families desperately trying to obtain Ivermectin for hospitalized loved ones. He testified that he represented 212 cases. In 72 cases, he successfully got Ivermectin administered to the patient. Of those 72 patients, he said only 3 died—a 95.8% survival rate. Lorigo said he won additional cases in which ivermectin ultimately was not administered despite the court action. Then came the most devastating part of his testimony. Of the remaining 140 cases in which Lorigo said he either could not get into court quickly enough or lost his effort to obtain the treatment, he testified that every single patient died. Lorigo made clear that he believes the issue extends far beyond ivermectin. “This is about governmental suppression and how big giants like Big Pharma control our destiny,” he said. Dr. Pierre Kory, a pulmonary and critical care physician who worked on the front lines treating critically ill COVID patients during the initial New York City surge, also testified about what happened to physicians who challenged prevailing COVID treatment policies. Kory described doctors facing investigations and even the loss of their medical licenses for prescribing medications off-label. He questioned how physicians could face such severe professional consequences for off-label prescribing, particularly in cases where he said there was no evidence that the treatment harmed the patient. Kory co-founded the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC) alongside physician Dr. Paul Marik. Senator Johnson also shared testimony he had previously received from a nursing professor describing attitudes toward unvaccinated nursing students. According to the account, faculty members agreed they would not make special accommodations that would allow unvaccinated students to continue progressing through their programs. When the possibility of students losing their chosen careers was discussed, one faculty member reportedly responded, “Good luck finding a new career.” Then the group laughed. We heard the stories one after another—patients, husbands and wives, sons and daughters, doctors, nurses, attorneys, and families who fought desperately to protect the people they loved. Perhaps the hardest part is knowing that these were only some of the stories. There are so many more. Again and again, the testimony returned to the same fundamental questions: Who ultimately controlled treatment decisions? Why were families fighting hospitals and going to court to obtain treatments they wanted? How much freedom did individual physicians have to treat the patient in front of them? What happened to doctors and nurses who challenged the system? And what happened to a patient's Right to Try? For years, families across this country have been trying to tell us what happened to them inside hospitals during COVID. Yesterday, some of those families finally had the opportunity to tell their stories on Capitol Hill and put them into the public record. They all deserve to be heard. And they all deserve answers. If there is one important lesson we learned during COVID -- we all need a medically knowledgable and fierce advocate at our bedside.