Why the CMA Must Break with the AMA
If the CMA follows AMA’s lead, it is only a matter of time before convoy-aligned doctors in Canada are positioned as “experts” inside Ottawa.
This week, Florida’s Surgeon General, Dr. Joseph Ladapo—an original member of America’s Frontline Doctors and a powerful purveyor of COVID-19 disinformation—announced that Florida would eliminate all school vaccine mandates stating, “Every last one of the them is wrong and drips with disdain and slavery.”
It’s not an exaggeration: Ladapo equated vaccine mandates to slavery at a press event in Tampa, framing the repeal as a moral and religious liberation from state coercion.
In response, the Canadian Medical Association (CMA) joined the American Medical Association (AMA) in condemning Florida’s decision. On the surface, that looks like the right move: a united stand for science, however, by choosing the AMA as its partner, the CMA is tethering itself to an institution whose record on disinformation is one of complicity, not leadership.
The AMA Is a Lobby, Not a Scientific Authority
The AMA is not a licensing body. It does not grant or revoke medical licenses. What it is—by dollar figures—is one of the most powerful lobbies in Washington, consistently ranking at the top of federal lobbying disclosures. According to OpenSecrets.org between 1998-2025, the AMA spent over $542 million lobbying congress and influencing government policy.
While the AMA does not have direct regulatory authority over licensure, its influence runs through its closely affiliated state medical societies, which wield strict control over state licensing boards.
A Smoking Gun: The FMA 2023 Delegate Handbook
And while the AMA issues statements condemning disinformation, its state affiliates have actively entertained it. In 2023, the Florida Medical Association delegate handbook included Resolution 23-112, called for banning all COVID-19 vaccines in Florida. The resolution is riddled with well-documented COVID-19 disinformation, including false claims that vaccines cause COVID-19, that PCR tests are not diagnostic, and that the pandemic was a U.S. military operation involving biological weapons. The resolution also cites discredited sources like The Epoch Times, a known hub for conspiracy theories, and Rumble, a platform associated with right-wing extremist content.
This document is a smoking gun for proving how deeply entrenched politicized COVID-19 disinformation has become within medical institutions, and how the AMA’s refusal to act enabled this reality. If the AMA were actually committed to protecting public health, physicians pushing this level of disinformation would have been stripped of their licenses years ago.
The AMA did not intervene. It did not sanction members who brought this forward. It looked away . That silence helped normalize the very climate in which Ladapo’s “vaccines are slavery” rhetoric could flourish into law.
This is the organization the CMA now says Canadians should stand with?
The AMA Wrote a Plan — and Buried It
In November 2021, the AMA’s Young Physicians Section introduced Resolution 411, explicitly warning that disinformation spread by physicians “undermines public health efforts and sows distrust in medicine and toward health care professionals.” The resolution urged the AMA to take decisive action against those fueling the crisis.
By May 2022, the AMA Board of Trustees produced Report 15: Addressing Public Health Disinformation. It outlined a sweeping strategy:
Treat all credential-linked public speech as professional conduct, subject to discipline.
Empower state boards and specialty boards to revoke licenses and certifications.
Require physicians to disclose how they profit from disinformation platforms.
Target monetization models on social media.
Work with publishers to curb misuse of preprints and paywalls.
Educate professionals and the public on recognizing disinformation.
The appendix was explicit: “all speech in which a health professional is utilizing their credentials is professional conduct and can be scrutinized by their licensing entity.”1
It was a blueprint. And then? Nothing. No implementation. No enforcement. The AMA shelved its own plan.
From “Enough Is Enough” to “Avoid Reactive Activism”
AMA leadership has oscillated between fiery words and strategic retreat. In late 2022, President Jack Resneck thundered “Enough is enough,” condemning lies that endangered physicians and co-signing a DOJ letter demanding action against threats of personal violence against children’s hospitals and physicians across the U.S.
But in January 2025, the AMA Board cautioned members against “reactive activism” as federal policies rolled back science-based protections. Physicians were urged to be “strategic” and avoid partisan “flare-ups” .
This is the pattern: bold statements when safe, hedged silence when it matters. That’s not leadership. It’s institutional self-preservation.
Canada’s Risk
Canadian medicine does not need to inherit this duplicity. In fact, it has already chosen independence once: the July 2025 split of undergraduate medical education from the U.S.-dominated LCME. That was a recognition that Canada requires its own standards.
The same applies here. Canada has its own disinformation doctors—Hoff, Trozzi, Kilian—who spread lies during COVID. Regulators stumbled in disciplining them. If CMA models itself on AMA, it risks importing the same cycle: strong rhetoric paired with weak enforcement, until fringe views sit on federal health committees.
That’s not hypothetical. In the U.S., America’s Frontline Doctors alumni like Ladapo now run state health agencies. Physicians who once spread conspiracy theories from the steps of the Supreme Court now sit inside state and federal institutions .
If the CMA follows AMA’s lead, it is only a matter of time before convoy-aligned doctors in Canada are positioned as “experts” inside Ottawa.
The Geopolitical Backdrop
At the same time, Canada is resisting U.S. overreach on multiple fronts—from tariff wars to annexation rhetoric. In that climate, the CMA’s choice to tie its credibility to an American lobby that has failed to defend science is baffling.
Solidarity with American physicians who uphold evidence is welcome. But solidarity with the AMA as an institution is reputationally toxic. It sends the wrong signal at the wrong moment.
The Choice
The CMA must decide whether it wants to anchor Canadian medicine to an American lobby that has shown itself unwilling to police disinformation—or whether it wants to stand independently, set Canadian standards, and enforce them.
By standing with the AMA, the CMA isn’t condemning Florida so much as undercutting its own credibility. Canadians deserve better than borrowed outrage from an ally that has already failed to act.
In Kory v. Bonta (2024), Dr. Pierre Kory, Brian Tyson, and others—represented by now HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—filed a federal lawsuit against the California Medical Board. They sought to strip the Board of its authority to discipline physicians under California’s longstanding unprofessional conduct statute, arguing that enforcing any professional standard—even for gross negligence or medical fraud—violated their First Amendment rights.
In effect, they argued that there is no enforceable standard of care.
The judge rejected their claim: “The statute regulates conduct, not speech. It provides for enforcement of the standard of care, which is the standard for physicians’ treatment of patients.” The Ninth Circuit affirmed, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined review. The ruling now stands as binding precedent and a rebuke to any claim that professional accountability is unconstitutional.
Free speech for citizens is not the same as free speech for medical licensees. A license is not a right. It is a privilege. If we abandon professional standards, there should be no professional licensure at all. [Canada Healthwatch, July 28, 2025].