Doctors slam COVID government censorship exposed in 'Twitter Files': 'On the road to totalitarianism'

Medical professionals sounded off after the latest "Twitter Files" release showed that both the Trump and Biden administrations made efforts to suppress views and ideas about COVID-19 that contradicted the White House’s official stance. 

Independent journalist David Zweig tweeted the findings Monday, explaining that certain ideas and questions about COVID-19 by doctors and scientists were suppressed during the pandemic.

"Dissident yet legitimate content was labeled as misinformation, and the accounts of doctors and others were suspended both for tweeting opinions and demonstrably true information," Zweig added.

Dr. Marc Siegel, a Fox News medical contributor, criticized the government’s  attempts to label legitimate concerns as "misinformation."

"Very disturbing," Siegel said on "Fox & Friends" Tuesday. "Censorship, especially coming from the government, is on the road to totalitarianism."

The Trump administration was reportedly trying to prevent panic when the pandemic emerged, a tactic Siegel argued doesn’t work.

"I don't think you can control panic by controlling information," Siegel told host Griff Jenkins. "You cause panic by doing that." 

The Biden administration reportedly focused on the spread of vaccine misinformation. Zweig shared an example of Dr. Martin Kulldorff, a professor at Harvard Medical School, who was flagged for his view that children and those who have already contracted COVID-19 don’t need to be vaccinated. 

Dr. Siegel stressed the importance of free and open debate, especially in such uncertain times as the pandemic. 

"I don't actually agree completely with [Kulldorff’s] statements on how he feels the vaccine works," Siegel clarified. "But you know what I do believe in? His right to say so. His right to say so on Twitter and anywhere else he wants."

Fox News contributor Dr. Marty Makary praised Kulldorff Tuesday as being one of the "smartest, most accurate minds" since the emergence of the pandemic. He noted that Kulldorff served on the CDC’s advisory group on child vaccinations but was then dismissed on Twitter for having a differing opinion.

"That’s unfortunately the state of repair that we need to engage in," Makary said on "Fox & Friends First." "I think public health officials look really bad for this. The public needs an apology."

Makary said the solution to this censorship issue is to remove the "gag rule" on government-employed scientists who are prohibited from speaking directly to members of the media. 

He then warned that the pandemic-era censorship negatively impacted science, and he called out the government for pushing its own misinformation. 

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"This has been going on for a long time, where state-controlled media censors all information that is not aligned with the leading political party in power. And that's sadly what we're seeing right here," he added.

"There's a long list of misinformation from the government. They just wanted to change the narrative."