Sky News Australia clarifies its anti-masker ‘doctor’ isn’t the medical kind

One measure of the strength of your argument is how far down the list of experts you have to go before you find one who agrees with you. A correction issued on the Sky News website gives an example:

A segment of the Outsiders program broadcast on December 11, 2022 concerning a report released by the US Department of Health and Human Services about management of Long COVID and use of masks included an interview with US naturopathic doctor, Dr Mark Sherwood. The broadcast did not intend to suggest that Dr Sherwood was a medically trained doctor and any such inference is incorrect.

The views expressed by Dr Sherwood were expressed as a naturopath.

Sherwood — who compensates in enthusiasm for what he lacks in genuine medical qualifications — had told Sky News in December that mask mandates in the US are “not necessary”, encouraging people to “push back” against the government. He goes on to insist:

People that had lessened lockdown and lessened mask measures did much better in all cause and mortality.

It is now flu season, and now they’re pushing more of this flu, RSV, COVID combo now … this now trifecta virus that just magically mutated. Most of them push back and say well it didn’t work the first time, why would it work this time, and in this case they are right.

… When we are breathing in this mask, we’re seeing dampness come out, creating a literal magnet of germs.

Nothing says “medical insight” like expressing shock at the thought of a virus mutating, and we might want a citation on the claim that fewer masks and lockdowns allowed populations to do “much better in all cause and mortality”.

Panelist Rowan Dean does introduce Sherwood as a “naturopathic doctor”, but James Morrow calls him “doctor” throughout and asks Sherwood’s “medical opinion” on the effect masks have on the immune system. So it’s not surprising someone at Sky really wants the distinction between “actual doctor” and “naturopathic doctor” made clear — as do a lot of medical regulators, incidentally. The segment features a chyron caption reading “Mask Madness: based on so-called science”. Which is pretty funny.

In the US you can be a “naturopathic doctor”, which means you have graduated from a four-year naturopathic school and passed a licensing exam given by the Council on Naturopathic Medical Education. It varies from state to state whether they can legally, say, write prescriptions or order X-rays.

So, where did they find Sherwood? Presumably the Outsiders team knew they had to get him on once they saw his powerful performance at an anti-mask event in Grand Rapids in 2021:

One point neither the correction nor the segment mentions is Sherwood’s other recent gig as a former Republican gubernatorial candidate in Oklahoma. During his campaign in 2022, he attacked sitting Republican Governor Kevin Stitt for his apathy in the face of an apparent “attack from the rogue BIDEN COMMUNIST REGIME!!” as Sherwood wrote in his campaign launch.

Apart from his views on the institutional response to COVID, Sherwood has also spread the baseless theory that the 2020 presidential election that unseated Donald Trump was “fraudulent”.

Sherwood lost the primary, and Stitt was returned as governor.