Anti-vax doctor hires anti-vax lawyer to threaten Dallas publication with ‘libel’ lawsuit
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Spotify – the world most popular music streaming service – at hitched his wagon to Joe Rogana former comedian and reality TV host whose particular take on world events compels him to invite highly controversial guests onto his podcast and then simply mutter “that’s wild” when they invoke nonsensical conspiracy theories.
Rogan caught the heat beforebut not as hot as it was generated by inviting Dallas cardiologist Peter McCullough, who “explained” that the response to the COVID pandemic was primarily a “mass psychosis event” and than a dewormer for horses would be a better option than one of the multiple vaccines available.
Rogan was duly mocked for harboring this man and his really stupid ideas. Boycotts have been called, targeting Spotify for making Rogan the face of its podcasting wing by giving him a hugely lucrative contract. Spotify wasn’t necessarily wrong when it opted to pay Rogan a little to provide exclusive content. But he had to know that Rogan would cause trouble, because Rogan always caused trouble.
The first to hit back at Rogan was Neil Young, a rock artist who knows a bit about music and streaming. But the significance of Young’s opinion is debatable, since he was the artist who thought people wanted nothing more than a triangular music player to place uncomfortably close to their crotch listening to recordings delivered in a proprietary format they couldn’t switch to less uncomfortable music players.
Other artists with less silly music delivery ideas followed suit. Soon Spotify was backtracking, but not far enough to voluntarily part ways with someone it saw as a worthwhile long-term investment. Page after page of internet reviews have pointed to the Dallas cardiologist’s stupidity as well as Rogan’s long track record of inviting silly conspiracy theorists to his show to spout silly, unchallenged conspiracy theories.
Magazine Da publication geared towards Dallas (TX) edited by Tim Rogerswas one of many critics of the Dallas-based cardiologist with a head full of bad wiring. His January post highlighted many questionable claims by the not-so-good doctorwho suggested that vaccinations were unnecessary because the spread of COVID was pretty much just a figment of the collective imagination.
One of McCullough’s main talking points is that the population is being “driven” into vaccination, rather than working on treating the disease. Rogan asks McCullough how so many doctors could accept what he calls poor treatment. “We think there are about 500 doctors who know what’s going on in the United States,” McCullough says, out of about 1 million nationally. “Nurses are more awake than doctors.”
“Doctors seem to be, like many of our leaders, in what’s called mass-forming psychosis,” McCullough said. This is when groupthink is so strong it leads to tragedy, the doctor says, citing cult-linked mass suicides. He adds that all prominent religious and international leaders are under the same spell. The stages of mass psychosis include isolation, withdrawal of pleasure, constant anxiety, and a single solution offered by an entity in authority. “Around the world, everyone should get vaccinated,” he says.
The article, written by Will Maddoxdove deep and provided links and statements from medical professionals that contradicted the Dallas doctor’s claims, which were unverified during his appearance on Rogan’s incredibly popular podcast.
Joe Rogan can presumably afford good lawyers, with his millions in contracts and endorsements. It seems that Dr. Peter McCullough cannot. Instead of a good lawyer, he would have retained the services of Parisa Fishbackwhich seems to be the sole proprietor and litigator of Fishback Law Group, a law firm specializing in handling bankruptcy cases. Fishback does not appear qualified to handle defamation claims, as Tim Rogers points out for D Magazine.
Dr. Peter McCullough is a lunatic, and the lawyer who sent us a cease and desist letter in her name, Parisa Fishback, has a wonderful name but is not good at writing cease and desist letters. Again: that’s it in my opinion. Fishback is the president and general counsel of a California-based anti-vaccination-mandate-for-kids organization called The unity project, whose advisory board sits McCullough (facts). In addition to this work, she is a bankruptcy attorney and real estate broker (done) who runs a charity that involves luxury cars (done), which she has described thus: “At Cars N’ Causes, we are determined to end slavery and we are racing to save the lives of victims of human trafficking right here in America” (pun intended!). Fishback was the wrong choice to send a cease and desist letter based on a defamation (opinion) complaint because, among other reasons, she spelled it “libel.” (To laugh hard.)
Yes, according to Fishback there is a new form of defamation and D Magazine has done it. Apparently, this involves liberal use of ASL and the middle finger. “Defamation” is when you are defamatoryas Twitter’s law graduates say.
the letter [PDF] at least try to list what bankruptcy attorney/misspelling Fishback considers defamatory. But the attempt is inadvertently hilarious, because all it conveys are what the courts call “conclusive statements” that cannot be treated as actionable. Fishback doesn’t even bother to point out how knowingly false this long statement from D Magazine is. The letter just assumes it’s before making legal threats.
The defamatory statements include, but are not limited to, the following: “Another of McCullough’s talking points, which he also detailed before the Texas Senate, is that healthy people under 50 do not need to be vaccinated. The question has been verified and debunked by many authorities and a lot of empirical evidence, but interestingly, Rogan hosted a guest earlier this month who talked about the risks of the vaccine versus the virus in young people… . McCullough continues to doubt the effectiveness of vaccines, saying those who have had COVID before should not get vaccinated and that there have been very few people who have had it twice. The omicron push proved that to be wrong yet again. In Dallas, 95% of deaths at Parkland Hospital are unvaccinated.
Fishback’s argument that these statements are false consists solely of a copy-and-paste of the legal definition of defamation in the C&D.
The other argument that Fishback deploys (barely) is an appeal to authority:
So, as a layman and not a medical professional, you have defamed Dr. McCullough.
MDR.
On the one hand, I desperately want the doctor to sue, especially if he retains Fishback to handle his “defamation” allegations. Hilarity is bound to ensue.
On the other hand, I don’t want D Magazine to have to spend real money defending against obvious bullshit. Fortunately, Texas (where the lawsuit would presumably be filed) has an anti-SLAPP law in place that would make it extremely risky to pursue libel suits against BS. Whatever legal fees D Magazine racks up to defend itself against Dr. McCullough’s attempt to convert butthurt into a lawsuit could very likely end up being expenses he has to pay out of his own pocket. Hopefully his attorney informed him of this possibility and hopefully did so after allowing the spellcheck to do its job.
Filed Under: defamation, joe rogan, misinformation, parisa fishback, peter mccullough, tim rogers, vaccines, will maddox
Companies: d magazine, the unitary project
