BOISE, Idaho — On Wednesday, KTVB learned that the Washington Medical Commission received a complaint about the comments made by Doctor Ryan Cole, a board member of the Central District Health Board and an outspoken COVID-19 vaccine critic.
The doctor is a licensed physician in Idaho, Washington and other Northwest states. Cole has garnered much attention following strong remarks about the COVID-19 vaccines, including calling them "needle rape."
On Friday, KTVB learned that Cole received at least five formal complaints in Washington.
Dr. Cole is the owner of a Garden City testing laboratory, Cole Diagnostics, and was ratified as a board member of Central District Health in September.
KTVB obtained documents from the Washington Medical Commission through a public records request. In the summaries for the complaints, nearly all of them claim that Dr. Cole was spreading misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccines, either on social media or to his patients.
In one complaint, Dr. Cole allegedly said the vaccines cause cancer, while another complaint claimed that Cole prescribed Ivermectin to treat COVID-19, something he himself stated that he had done for hundreds of patients.
The 208 previously spoke with Dr. Cole about prescribing Ivermectin to patients. At the time, he said, "When somebody is acutely ill, I do help people when they need it."
He added that he's prescribed it to "a couple hundred" patients.
"I have the data from around the world. Tens of thousands of patients in studies, randomized control like our government wants, what you need to do is ask the 80-year-old who had 80% oxygen who 18 hours later had 99% oxygen, you can ask him if it worked," Cole also claimed.
Earlier in October, two of Idaho's top two medical experts requested the Idaho State Board of Health to investigate Dr. Cole for his reported refusal "to use accepted and documented medical practices and vaccination and instead prescribing Ivermectin" to treat COVID-19.
The request was made by Doctor Steven Kohtz, the president of the Idaho Medical Association Board of Trustees, and Susie Keller, the CEO of the Idaho Medical Association. The IMA is a union representing more than 3,500 physicians in Idaho.
In a statement, the two wrote, "Dr. Cole has made numerous public statements in 2020 and 2021 concerning COVID-19 that are at significant odds with commonly understood medical treatment of COVID-19 and fail to meet the community standard of care."
The board told KTVB that they anticipate the Board of Medicine to take up the complaint in a meeting in November.
At KTVB, we’re focusing our news coverage on the facts and not the fear around the virus. To see our full coverage, visit our coronavirus section, here: www.ktvb.com/coronavirus.
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