Oct 1 2026 | By: Amy Thornton
On Monday, September 28, 2026, U.S. Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin) hosted a roundtable discussion titled Covid-19 Hospital Protocols: Real Stories from Real People. The purpose of the event was to bring awareness to the rigid and detrimental hospital protocols used during the pandemic through testimonies and discussion from twenty-one panelists including patients, families, nurses and doctors.
Senator Johnson said during his opening remarks, “Rigid adherence to hospital protocols – rarely questioned – became the norm, which many doctors saw as violating the Hippocratic Oath’s core duty: patients first, not protocols. Far too often, the stories of COVID-19 hospitalizations were horrific … Patients lost their freedom. Family members could not visit and comfort their dying loved ones … In many of the testimonies received for this event, the callous comments by doctors and nurses to unvaccinated patients and their families are almost unbelievable...”
As chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Sen. Johnson leads reviews and hearings on the nation's pandemic response, vaccine safety signals and health agency protocols. He indicated that the panel for this roundtable was selected as a cross-section of repeated scenarios that occurred during the pandemic. According to his website, he has received 583 testimonies across 46 states to date.
Every panelist touched on common experiences that echoed around the nation: a breach of medical ethics unprecedented in history, the denial of off-label medications as alternative therapies for the first time ever, the cruel shaming and discrimination of unvaccinated patients, the demonization of medical professionals who questioned government protocol, the desperation of family members seeking help while watching loved ones' health decline in the hospital...often from a distance, when they were denied the opportunity to be with them in person.
They also discussed the consequences when patient advocates are removed, the critical need for informed consent, and what patients went through in days of isolation, often being deprived of basic necessities such as food and water.
One panelist, Brad Seiler, a registered nurse and U.S. Army Veteran, described an almost unbelievable experience with his wife, Gail, who had been hospitalized for covid-19:
"Gail was denied food for 12 days, water for 7 days. ..she was left naked and uncovered for extended periods of time while staff observed her through a window. ... I entered the ICU to bring my wife home. Gail was conscious, mentally coherent, repeatedly stated that she wanted to leave with me. Hospital administrators called law enforcement. And what should have been a discharge became an approximately six hour standoff. I wouldn't abandon her. At one point, Gail asked the police sergeant.."Am I a patient or am I a prisoner?" " - Brad Seiler
Gail Macrae, RN, BSN, an acute care nurse, worked in the covid unit of a hospital in the Bay Area of California during the pandemic. During the roundtable, she spoke about being fired in October of 2021 after filing a complaint against her hospital, in her words: "for being forced to participate in unethical covid protocols and for being required to take an experimental injection to maintain my employment."
During her opening comments, she said: "First, I want to publicly apologize for the nursing field's failure to uphold our code of ethics during covid. Had we always put patients first instead of policy, this would not have happened. Covid was an ethics failure and until we restore the foundations of our profession, trust in medical practitioners will continue to decline."
Macrae went on to describe the fraudulent activity she witnessed in the hospital such as misleading vaccination status in patient charts and falsified death certificates which enabled fear mongering propaganda that "distorted the judgement of my colleagues" she said.
Since 2020, public trust in health care has declined sharply, from 71.5% to 40.1% from a study by JAMA Network, one of the most comprehensive studies that surveyed over 400,000 people.
Other panelists highlighted issues of fraud, media capture, criminal behavior and loss of compassion by medical professionals, such as recounted by Dr. James P. Miller, MD and former trauma surgeon. He shared instances of hospital misconduct, patient mistreatment, retaliation and targeting of physicians who challenged the government protocol.
In May of 2024, he filed a sworn attestation for criminal investigation into covid wrongdoings. He said this attestation has subsequently been sent to attorney generals and governors of all fifty states. He recounted caring for hundreds of covid patients and also contracted independently to perform ICU quality reviews at the hospital in addition to his surgical duties.
During his testimony he shared a litany of startling first-hand accounts of unethical practices, fraud and mistreatment such as:
"My reviews uncover fraud extending to senior hospital leadership... there were protocols put in place that caused demonstrable harm and increased mortality. After our hospital was given Remdesivir by federal authorities, we were provided misleading and inaccurate information about the drug by medical leadership. ... Any physician honestly reviewing the real world data at that time could have recognized early that Remdisivir caused more harm than good. " Dr. James Miller, MD
"I observed messaging by the hospital to falsely inflate covid infections and deaths contributing to public fear and generating misleading headlines. ... I watched previously compassionate and devoted doctors and nurses become cruel and ambivalent about the wellbeing of patients as the covid experience evolved." - Dr. James Miller, MD
When he realized the hospital's commitment to discrimination toward a subset of people, he was inspired to find solutions through innovation.
Dr. Miller said he witnessed "..hospital leadership, including the chief medical officer of our medical group endorsed the local medical establishment's refusal to provide healthcare to unvaccinated patients."
In response to that unethical, anti-western protocol, Dr. Miller opened a free clinic through his church in order to provide care for these patients. The church became a licensed clinic through this experience he said.
Dr. Pierre Kory, critical care physician and the Chief Scientific Officer of Rebuild Medicine, was instrumental during the pandemic in helping doctors on the frontlines who maintained the ethics of their profession.
He served to treat all patients regardless of vaccination status and helped to formulate the highly effective COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC) treatments to administer alternative therapies and drugs against government protocols. He spoke about doctors being too trusting of the institutions of science and not being aware of how they serve to accommodate and promote the interests of pharmaceutical companies.
Dr. Kory also spoke about his research into Epic (an electronic program hospitals use for health records), and how the vaccination tab disappeared from hospital records during covid and then one day, quietly, without memo or announcement, reappeared after the pandemic.
Senator Johnson encouraged the panel and all watching to spread the word and work toward solutions through grass-roots efforts and not to look to government to solve all problems. He said that while he would like to investigate every detail of wrongdoing during covid, realistically, his resources of investigators are very limited.
Panelists suggested solutions such as ethics training for medical professionals, classes for law enforcement to understand patients' rights, education on informed consent, criminal charges against violations of civil rights and unethical actions, and scrutinizing lawmakers by making decisions at the ballot box that ensure a vote for medical freedom and protecting patient autonomy.
It was also discussed during the roundtable the lack of mainstream media coverage for the event, citing the multibillion dollar advertising Big Pharma spends with networks such as ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX. Financial Times reports a deep relationship between pharmaceutical spending and American mainstream media.
The full three hour+ roundtable may be viewed below: