RFK Jr. criticizes medical persecution in Germany

US Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has sharply attacked the federal government for its treatment of doctors critical of the coronavirus.

In a video published on Platform X and in a letter to Federal Health Minister Nina Warken (CDU), Kennedy accused Germany of criminalizing and persecuting critical physicians who issued certificates exempting them from mask mandates or vaccinations during the pandemic. The federal government strongly rejects the allegations and speaks of misrepresentations.

Kennedy stated that he had learned that “more than 1,000 German doctors and thousands of their patients“ would be prosecuted and punished for issuing exemptions from masks or vaccinations during the coronavirus pandemic. “The reports from Germany show that the government is putting aside patients’ autonomy and limiting people’s ability to act according to their own beliefs when making medical decisions“, Kennedy said in the video.

When a government criminalizes doctors for advising their patients, it crosses “a line that free societies have always considered inviolable“ and destroys the relationship of trust between doctors and their patients. He also emphasized that patients “must always have the freedom to make medical decisions without coercion or political pressure“ and warned against a development that would turn doctors into “enforcers of state policy“.

ER: The link for the tweet is THIS but, at least to us in Europe, it does not open, simply saying ‘Hmm, this page does not exist”

‘Nicht gefunden’ = ‘not found’

Kennedy urged the German government “urgently“ to change course. Prosecutions that he described as “politically motivated“ must be ended and, in his view, medical licenses that had been wrongfully revoked must be restored. He also demanded that “the German people make their own informed medical decisions“.

However, the actual number of incidents and legal proceedings denounced by Kennedy remains unclear. Neither official statistics nor Kennedy’s statements indicate whether the number of affected physicians he cited “more than 1,000“ is reliable. German authorities have also not yet submitted a complete survey of ongoing or completed proceedings of this kind.

Regardless of the dimensions Kennedy may have exaggerated, it is clear that his criticism is based on at least one kernel of truth. In recent years, there have indeed been a number of convictions in Germany against doctors who allegedly issued false mask certificates to their patients. A doctor from Weinheim, for example, was not only banned from practicing her profession by the responsible district court in January 2023, but also sentenced to two years and nine months in prison.

In another high-profile case, in the summer of 2021, the private homes and offices of psychology professor Christian Kuhbandner and the two renowned virologists Ines Kappstein and Ulrike Kämmerer were searched and mobile phones, computers and various documents were confiscated. The reason for the house searches was her work as a scientific expert in a case before the Weimar District Court, in which Judge Christian Dettmar, who was later convicted of alleged perversion of justice, had made the decision to impose mask, social distancing and testing bans on two Weimar schools in order to avert a threat to the welfare of children (Apollo News reported).

Federal Health Minister Nina Warken rejected her American counterpart’s allegations as unfounded. Kennedy’s statements, [sic] who also spoke at Corona protests in Berlin during the pandemic, are “without any basis,“ “they are factually false and must be rejected“, she explained in a statement, adding: “I would be happy to explain this to him personally.“ Warken emphasized that in Germany “in principle the constitutionally protected freedom of medical therapy applies“. At no time during the pandemic was there an obligation for doctors to administer vaccinations. “Anyone who refused to offer vaccinations for medical, ethical, or personal reasons was neither committing a criminal offense nor faced sanctions.“ (ER: Hmm. Did history just get rewritten? We don’t remember that version.)

Criminal prosecution has only occurred in cases of fraud and forgery, such as the issuance of false vaccination passports or improper mask certificates, Warken continued. Doctors in Germany make decisions “independently and independently regarding the treatment of patients“. Patients are also free to decide which therapy to use.

Former Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) made similar comments. He rejected Kennedy’s criticism, citing the independence of the German judiciary. “In Germany, doctors would not be punished by the government for false certificates. Here, the courts are independent“, Lauterbach wrote on X. At the same time, he recommended that Kennedy pay more attention to the problems of the US healthcare system.

Source

Featured image source, RFK Jr.: https://www.epochtimes.de/politik/ausland/kennedy-kritisiert-deutschland-wegen-corona-verfahren-brief-an-warken-a5356710.html

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