'COMPLETELY UNETHICAL!' Jimmy Kimmel Slammed By Doctor Over Covid Joke

Jimmy Kimmel "joked" about how to deal with the Covid crisis: "Vaccinated person having a heart attack? Yes, come right in. We'll take care of you. Unvaccinated guy who gobbled horse goo? Rest in peace, wheezy." The problem is that while Kimmel may have been joking, his contempt for those who are not vaccinated (many of whom are not anti-vaxxers or Trump supporters) is real and the argument he's making is one that is being made in all seriousness by "serious" people in places like The Washington Post. Dr. Adam Gaffney (@awgaffney), a physician who practices pulmonary and critical care medicine calls out this thinking as "completely unethical," saying, "I am truly, as pro-vaccine as, as one can be and I want everyone to be vaccinated so that we stop seeing hundreds of people dying every day for nothing. But the fact is, this is completely immoral, completely unethical to talk about denying healthcare to people because they made a bad decision. From my perspective, we're all sinners. When it comes to health, we all make good choices. We all make bad choices. The job of doctors or nurses is not to dole out medical care based on perceptions of worthiness. From a health perspective, I completely disagree with that from an ethical perspective.

People who aren't vaccinated are disproportionately lower income and lower educated. So you would be adding further injury to disadvantaged people. Um, and, and, and, and in any event, um, there's just simply no ethical justification for, we don't do that in medicine. That's not our jobs and nor should it be. And the people who keep making the case for it really don't know what the hell they're talking about."

Adam Gaffney is a writer, public health researcher, and advocate. He practices pulmonary and critical care medicine at the Cambridge Health Alliance and is an Assistant Professor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School. His research focuses on healthcare financing, reform, and equity, and disparities in lung health. He writes about the policy, politics, and history of health care. He is the immediate past president of Physicians for a National Health Program, a non-profit organization that advocates for Medicare-for-All healthcare reform. He is on twitter @awgaffney.

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