“Early Treatment”, Anti-Vaccination, and Denialism: who are the Doctors for Life in the COVID-19 pandemic context in Brazil?

Abstract

The article aims to identify who the “Doctors for Life” are, their academic and professional information, which assumptions have been mobilized for the defense of “early treatment” and the denial of vaccines for COVID-19, and the representativeness of their discourses in the medical practice context in Brazil. The analysis is based on a list of 276 doctors’ names, cataloged from their website, and on academic and professional information obtained through research on the Federal Medical Conseil website and the Scientific and Technological Development Nacional Council platform. The content analysis points to the centrality of the medical specialties of homeopathy and acupuncture in the population of Doctors for Life when compared to the set of specialist doctors in Brazil. The significant accession of homeopaths and acupuncturists to the Doctors for Life movement can clarify the understanding of specific medical rationalities, allowing us to distinguish which categories and ideas about the health-disease process are in dispute. It is concluded that, more than describing the problem, it is needed to establish its correlations with a group of events, practices, political decisions, economic linkages, shared beliefs, and a chain of processes that configure its undeniably social characteristics.

Research on COVID-19

“…In this sense, public representation helps to produce allies. Moreover, as we have also pointed out, foes are also produced, many of which in the scientific community and allied professions (in Brazil, for example, a group of physicians, the 'Doctors for Life', which were against COVID-19 vaccination strategies, were highly influential in the federal government; Ferrari et al, 2022).…”