With more than 270,000 members, the American Medical Association is by far the nation’s largest professional organization for physicians. A mighty political force, its lobbying harm helps shape federal policy around healthcare, and the group spends millions of dollars supporting candidates each election cycle. In recent months, some of its physician members have expressed concern with the absence of clear statements from the AMA on proposed actions by the Trump administration that would affect their work—including the nomination of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. for Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, which the Senate is voting for on Tuesday.
I spoke to a physician member—who requested to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation—about concerns many physicians share about the silence of their professional organization on proposed changes that would likely violate AMA policies. (The AMA did not respond immediately to a request for comment from Mother Jones.)
On the nomination of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. for HHS secretary: In November, we had an AMA meeting. We asked our AMA lobbyists if they thought RFK would be nominated, and they said, no, we do not think so, and that he probably would have some kind of advisory role. The whole idea of him being nominated made everybody laugh because he has no qualifications to run HHS.
I watched both of the [confirmation] hearings, and he’s absolutely unqualified to be in charge of HHS, and not only because he has promoted vaccine disinformation and that he’s promoting fluoride disinformation. But when he was asked about Medicare and Medicaid, he showed his incompetence.
RFK Jr. made a statement about [the abortion drug] mifepristone maybe not being safe. In one of the hearings, members showed him a lot of [scientific] articles. It feels like right now is the time to remind everybody that we have policies that physicians voted for, the [AMA’s] House of Delegates voted for, and we stand by those policies.
There are a lot of smaller organizations that have called RFK Jr. unqualified. But they have much less power and many fewer connections. The AMA has an advocacy office in DC with their lobbyists, their advocacy people—they could go to Congress and the Senate and have meetings under this umbrella of a national physicians organization who have the highest representation and the highest number of members.
RFK Jr. has participated in so many activities that are stating a lot of false information. For the AMA being afraid to say something—they say we don’t target personalities, we target policies. But these are his statements, which will become policies.
On AMA’s silence in the face of Trump’s violation of their standards: There is a policy that supports funding to the World Health Organization and a policy that supports participation in WHO. Trump pulled out of WHO, and AMA hasn’t said anything. And now there is this attack on transgender care. We also have policies supportive of transgender care, and the AMA has not said anything. Meanwhile Trump’s administration is trying to cancel those people and cancel physicians who are providing care.
On Trump’s removal of sanctuary status for hospitals: When Trump removed sanctuary status from hospitals, AMA did not come up with any kind of guidance for physicians. What are we supposed to do when ICE is at our door? When ICE is at the bedside? First of all, it’s a violation of physicians’ ethical practice of medicine. We have an AMA Code of Ethics so I don’t know what my patients’ immigration status is. If ICE shows up and starts asking me questions, at what point is there a HIPAA violation? I have a duty to the patient; I don’t have a duty to ICE. I don’t know what to do. I’m going to call my administrator and say I will refuse to speak with ICE. I will tell ICE to go to my administrator and not ask me any questions. That’s the only thing that I came up with for myself.
“The current administration prohibited all communications of the CDC and other agencies with the public. Now, the public and physicians are left with no information on food recalls or disease outbreaks.“
On AMA’s silence around the government’s lack of action on bird flu: We are closely monitoring situations with viral illnesses, and we are particularly concerned over H5N1. As you know, the current administration prohibited all communications of the CDC and other agencies with the public. Now, the public and physicians are left with no information on food recalls or disease outbreaks. Doctors receive some information from state departments of health where they are licensed. However, it only provides information about one state and doesn’t provide a comprehensive picture. Individual physicians are searching through information released by departments of health of different states and post it on substack. But the AMA could have said something about it. While we are not in the pandemic yet, a reckless approach to H5N1 may bring us there. The AMA has a policy about pandemic preparedness that shows the importance of communication and various connections between CDC, NIH, and state departments of health.
On physician burnout: A lot of people feel demoralized. In medicine, for several years, we have discussed that physicians are burned out. There was a new term several years ago—called “moral injury”—when you work for an organization and your values do not align with the values of your organization. That’s when you feel demoralized. In terms of advocacy, this is the same kind of situation. Many physicians feel that our values do not align with the values of our advocacy organization, that the AMA does not necessarily represent us.
