0:00

Dr. Scott Jensen has practiced family medicine in Carver

0:03

County, Minnesota for 35 years.

0:23

This is also where he and his wife, Mary, a

0:25

small animal veterinarian, raised

0:28

their three children, Kristi,

0:30

an anesthesiologist, Matt, an

0:32

estate attorney, and Jackie, a

0:34

family doctor. Dr. Jensen

0:37

also served in the Minnesota Senate from 2017

0:39

to 2021, and he was vice chair of the

0:45

Health and Human Services Committee.

0:47

Good morning, Dr. Jensen. Good

0:50

morning. It's good to see you, Dr. Peterson. Good

0:53

to see you. I understand it's three in the morning

0:55

there. I'm in Rome right now. So I

0:57

guess this is the best we could do in terms of scheduling.

1:00

So thank you very much for agreeing to do this

1:03

today.

1:04

Well, you're very welcome. I'm actually

1:06

in Shaskam, Minnesota, and I'm right across the street

1:08

from the Catholic Church. So we do have something

1:10

in common.

1:12

Right, right, right. You're

1:15

symbolically near Rome. Amen.

1:18

Yeah. Okay. So

1:20

let's get into this. Let's first of all start

1:23

by letting everybody know who

1:25

you are, and then we'll move into

1:27

what has happened to you

1:29

right from the beginning in

1:32

relationship to your

1:34

entanglement, let's say, with

1:36

what's supposed to be your professional governing

1:38

body, and it's supposed to be professional

1:41

governing body. And so

1:46

let's walk through the details of your

1:48

employment first. So well,

1:52

Dr. Peterson, again, thank you for having me on.

1:54

I'm a small town kid. I grew up in southern Minnesota

1:57

in a town named Sleepy Eye, pretty

1:59

typical.

1:59

upbringing. It takes a village to raise a

2:02

child. My mom was my best friend.

2:04

My dad was my hero. I had three brothers

2:06

and a sister. I went to the public school

2:09

and graduated as valedictorian of the class,

2:11

but that's not such a big deal when you only have 65 kids

2:13

in your class. I went to the University

2:16

of Minnesota and was going to be an orthodontist,

2:19

but when I got into dental school, I found out

2:21

that I did not have a love affair with teeth. So

2:23

I left dental school and went to the seminary for a

2:25

year. And at the time, I'd been dating

2:28

this really wonderful lady. And

2:30

so that year in the seminary, I made the decision

2:32

to ask her to marry me. And we've been together for 45 years.

2:35

I also made the decision to go into medicine.

2:37

So I went into family practice, went to the University

2:39

of Minnesota med school, did my residency.

2:43

And my wife is a veterinarian. We have three wonderful

2:45

children,

2:46

our two daughters, our physicians. We're

2:48

not exactly sure what happened to our son, but he's an

2:50

attorney, but we love him just as much. And

2:53

we've had a wonderful- Well, there's four physicians

2:56

probably need one attorney. He

2:58

says that he has to keep the rest of us out of trouble.

3:01

So that's where we're landing on him. So

3:03

then I've been practicing medicine

3:05

for about 37 years in the

3:08

Chaska Watertown area.

3:10

And about eight years ago, I was encouraged

3:12

to run for the Senate in Minnesota. This

3:15

had not been one of my bucket list items.

3:18

So I was leery about it. But after a couple

3:20

of months of being recruited, I made the decision to

3:22

run for Senate. I ended up

3:24

winning and receiving more votes than any

3:27

other Republican Senate candidate

3:29

in Minnesota. During the

3:31

first three years of my Senate career,

3:33

I

3:34

have to confess that I was disillusioned

3:37

with the process. I was surprised

3:40

at how easily

3:41

gridlock was the order of the day. I felt

3:44

like really genuine

3:47

fired up intellectual curiosity just

3:49

wasn't a part of the equation. And that

3:51

frustrated me quite a bit. At the same

3:53

time, my wife was having some health issues and she

3:56

was going to have a need for multiple surgeries.

3:58

So I made the decision to not run for Senate.

3:59

for reelection. A

4:02

few months later, COVID hit. COVID

4:05

hit hard. It hit everybody hard. But

4:08

I think I, like so many

4:10

other people, suffered from certain

4:13

personality traits. I'm somewhat

4:16

skeptical, and medical school taught

4:18

us to be skeptical. I've always been

4:20

sort of addicted to context, and I've always

4:22

thought that if we don't have the

4:24

context of what we're seeing, we

4:27

can't really digest what we're dealing with. And

4:29

I had access to more information than many people

4:32

did because I was vice chair of the Health

4:34

and Human Services Committee in the Senate.

4:37

And so I was aware of much of what was going

4:39

on. And then in the early days

4:41

of April of 2020, when I received

4:43

an

4:45

email from the Department of Health with a

4:47

link to the CDC, advising

4:50

me as a physician that they were

4:52

going to adjust the

4:54

way death certificates were completed,

4:57

skeptically at that. And I said, what's going on

4:59

here? And

5:02

without meaning to be any kind of grand whistleblower,

5:05

I ended up making comment about this

5:08

on a local TV program that I'd been on

5:10

the news for. And that

5:12

traveled. What did it just, what did it just

5:15

death certificates mean?

5:17

Basically, in the Minnesota

5:19

Department of Health communication to the physicians,

5:23

they said, if you believe that

5:25

COVID-19 may

5:28

have contributed to the cause of death,

5:30

you can go ahead and put it down as

5:32

the cause of death. And that's not

5:35

right. The CDC for decades

5:39

has said that

5:41

our job as physicians when we complete

5:43

a death certificate is to try to identify

5:46

the initiating event

5:48

that started the process of

5:50

demise for the patient. So

5:53

for example, if I have a heart attack

5:56

tomorrow and a month later, I

5:58

have congestive heart failure and we find

5:59

that the heart attack was so substantial that

6:02

I've lost the ability to effectively pump blood.

6:05

And we learned that I'm not a candidate for transplant

6:07

and there's no remedies

6:09

for my situation. And over time

6:12

I falter and become more

6:14

and more frail.

6:15

And perhaps I go on hospice knowing

6:18

that I have end stage heart disease.

6:21

If on my last 48 hours

6:23

of life on earth, I get

6:25

exposed to COVID-19 without

6:29

ever being tested or even having

6:31

any symptoms of it.

6:33

When I die, I died

6:35

of

6:36

a heart attack. The underlying

6:38

cause of death would be coronary artery disease.

6:41

And that led to a heart attack, which led

6:44

to congestive heart failure. But it

6:46

should not say that COVID-19 was the

6:48

cause of my death. We were being encouraged

6:51

to go ahead and they said

6:53

in this document, if you think

6:55

that COVID-19 was

6:57

a contributing condition, you can put it down as the cause

6:59

of death. And I said, no,

7:01

there's a box two on a death certificate

7:04

called contributing conditions. That's

7:06

where you put contributing conditions. If

7:08

it's emphysema, if it's asthma,

7:11

influenza, we put it in

7:13

the contributing conditions box. We were

7:15

being told with this disease,

7:18

we could put it as the cause of death. I

7:20

raised a ruckus and said, this isn't right. I

7:23

did not get any response from the Department of Health. Instead,

7:26

I was asked to be on numerous

7:28

national TV programs. I was asked to be

7:30

on the anger mangle and subsequently rush

7:32

limbo came to my defense and

7:35

we had Tucker Carlson show on

7:37

inviting me. But the bottom line is,

7:40

this was April of 2020. And

7:43

in June of 2020, I received a

7:46

letter with

7:47

red letters stamped confidential

7:50

from the board of medical practice advising me that

7:52

for the first time in my career, my license

7:54

was under investigation.

7:57

So the CDC suggested that the

7:59

CDC just to physicians that they alter

8:02

their death notification

8:04

practice in the case of COVID.

8:07

Listing, as you

8:10

pointed out, contributory cause

8:12

of death as a primary

8:14

cause of death. And so

8:17

this begs three questions. The

8:20

CDC reconstruction

8:23

of the guidelines. First of all, why

8:25

in the world would they do that in the case of COVID?

8:28

Second, who would do that? And

8:31

third, what does that do to the

8:33

reliability of the death statistics

8:37

that are used to calculate the virality

8:40

and lethality of COVID? Those

8:43

three questions are frankly the

8:46

critical ones and they're interrelated. The

8:48

first one is to why the CDC would

8:51

do this. It felt to

8:53

me like there was a movement or

8:55

a strong motivation to, if

8:58

you will, elevate

9:02

the seriousness of the

9:04

COVID pandemic. I

9:07

think that it was already elevated

9:09

substantially and that troubled me deeply.

9:11

I raised that question early on. I said,

9:14

I think we're making an epidemic

9:17

of fear as much as

9:19

we're responding from a public policy perspective.

9:22

So when the CDC did that, it felt

9:24

to me like they wanted to ensure

9:26

that they got our attention and that there would

9:28

be numbers to support that. As

9:31

to who would do that, I think later

9:34

on, we found out that some of the major characters

9:36

were people that were indeed in charge

9:38

of the public policies that were gonna govern

9:41

the world, if you will, for the next three years.

9:44

Specifically, you had people like Dr.

9:47

Tony Fauci, you had Dr. Deborah Birx,

9:49

you had some of these people who had, if

9:51

you will, high-placed positions

9:53

from which to speak. They literally had

9:56

absolute power. And I'm a big believer

9:58

that absolute power.

9:59

and

10:02

I think the third question is probably the most

10:04

important one, Dr. Peterson. What

10:08

impact would this have on the reliability

10:10

of our federal registrar in terms of

10:13

cause of death? For instance, every

10:15

year in America, the

10:16

United States, we have approximately 650,000 people

10:19

die of heart disease. We have

10:22

approximately 600,000 people die

10:24

of cancer.

10:25

If those deaths are recorded

10:28

instead of cardiac causes, and

10:30

putting it down as COVID, numerous

10:32

things happen.

10:33

One is we might get a false impression

10:36

that we're making headway on heart disease when

10:38

we're really not. You might see pharmaceutical

10:41

companies coming to the fore saying,

10:43

see, we told you if

10:45

you take our drugs, if you prescribe

10:48

our drugs, put more people on Lipitor,

10:51

we will reduce the heart cause

10:53

of deaths. And that would be not true.

10:55

That would be a corruption of the actual data.

10:58

There would be all kinds of

11:00

nefarious opportunities for

11:02

people to grab a hold of corrupted data

11:05

and make a case for something that wasn't real.

11:07

And when I raised that point,

11:10

I didn't get a legitimate

11:14

discussion. There was no robust

11:16

questioning. It was you're

11:18

spreading conspiracy theories and

11:21

you're having the audacity to

11:23

cause or to compare

11:25

COVID to influenza. And those

11:28

were a couple of the first allegations.

11:30

So let me ask you a nasty

11:33

question then, to

11:35

play the devil's advocate.

11:37

So we walked through

11:40

your career and really

11:42

very, very briefly your life. And it's a real

11:45

American fairy tale life, small-town American

11:47

fairy tale life. And

11:50

so a skeptic would say,

11:52

especially a skeptic who's arguing

11:54

from the other side, let's say, would say, well,

11:59

you, You missed the limelight,

12:01

there we go, because you were no longer involved

12:04

in the political scene and you got a little

12:06

bit of attention because you complained

12:09

about a perfectly reasonable request from the

12:11

CDC to be,

12:12

what would you say, hyper careful

12:15

in relationship to the lethality

12:18

of COVID. Then a bunch

12:21

of right-wing conspiratorialists like Rush

12:23

Limbaugh and Tucker Carlson rushed

12:25

in and you got some attention on the national

12:28

stage and that went to your head.

12:30

And so it was in your best interest

12:33

to cast aspersions on

12:35

the motivations of people who were only

12:37

trying to benefit public health and

12:40

this

12:41

is on you, which I presume

12:43

is the tack that the

12:45

governing board of your profession

12:47

essentially took when they came after you

12:49

with this confidential letter. So how

12:52

do you,

12:53

what sort of soul searching did you do

12:55

when this first came up and how do you protect

12:58

yourself against those sorts of insinuations

13:01

and allegations and even doubts?

13:04

That's a good question. I

13:06

think it's important to look a little bit at the

13:08

timeline. It was in the summer of 2019, which

13:12

was well in advance of the COVID

13:14

pandemic, that I had made the announcement that

13:16

I was done with politics. My wife's

13:19

health was at an issue and she

13:21

was gonna have multiple surgeries. So I had already

13:23

announced that I was not running for reelection.

13:27

So in 2020, when the COVID hit,

13:29

I was serving my last year as a Senator. I

13:32

was vice chair of the Health and Human Services

13:34

Committee. I carried a large insulin

13:37

bill through and worked

13:39

with Democrats to get it done and Governor Walz

13:41

signed that. At that point in

13:43

my life, I had made it pretty clear that I

13:46

was not interested in being in the limelight. I

13:48

was interested in stepping away from politics

13:51

and being there for my family. My

13:53

wife's health was an issue, but I'd

13:55

also been blessed with five

13:57

grandchildren within the span of about.

14:01

two or three years and they were all

14:03

under the age of, I believe four

14:05

at the time, or perhaps even under three. So

14:08

it was time for me to continue to practice

14:10

medicine, take care of my wife and be a grandpa.

14:13

And I was very content with that. So

14:16

in terms of some underlying deep seated

14:18

desire for

14:21

fame and infamy, I would say

14:24

that that's almost

14:26

ridiculous because the slings and arrows,

14:30

I ended up taking were

14:32

hurtful. I had never been in a situation

14:34

like this. Right, well, you also had

14:36

some

14:37

limelight, politically speaking

14:39

already, the fact that you'd, you know, run a

14:41

political campaign, you'd been out in public and

14:44

you had your,

14:45

a reasonable share of public attention, but

14:48

you're also interestingly well situated because

14:50

you are a physician of long standing.

14:53

And also you were a Senator

14:56

and was it vice chairman of the health services

14:59

committee? Yes. And

15:01

the other thing. So you'd think that you would have demonstrated,

15:05

you'd think that all of that would have demonstrated

15:08

your qualifications to speak

15:10

on such matters.

15:13

Dr. Peterson, when I was a

15:15

resident, I was named one

15:17

of the 15 top residents in the

15:19

country through a me Johnson award

15:22

program. In the late 1990s,

15:24

I was awarded a

15:25

Bush fellowship to study leadership,

15:28

computers, and plastic

15:30

surgery techniques. In 2016,

15:33

I'd been named the family physician of

15:35

the year in Minnesota. I've had

15:37

a wonderful career. I

15:39

feel at times a little bit like Jimmy Stewart

15:41

in It's a Wonderful Life. There

15:44

was no reason for me to

15:47

put all of that at risk and

15:49

put myself in a position where people would

15:51

ridicule me, literally

15:54

monitor every word I said in

15:57

order to try to play that gotcha game

15:59

and.

15:59

hit me with something. It

16:02

was tough on my wife. During that

16:05

last year in the Senate, the first

16:07

year of the pandemic 2020, it

16:09

was a painful year. I'm not gonna deny

16:11

it. We had schisms within

16:13

my own family. We had plenty

16:16

of tears and an axed. And

16:19

it

16:20

would have been fun to not have

16:22

to go through that. People have asked me,

16:24

they said, they've said, Dr. Jensen,

16:27

what was that like? How did you know

16:30

all this was gonna happen? And I've told people, I

16:32

didn't know. Quite frankly, I

16:35

feel a little bit like Jonah in the Old Testament,

16:38

where he was asked to do some tough duty in Nineveh.

16:41

And he said, no, thanks. I'm gonna take a cruise on

16:43

the Mediterranean. That's what

16:45

I feel like. But then this whale got in the way,

16:48

swallowed me up and spit me out on

16:50

this pathway of ridicule.

16:53

And

16:54

if you will, focus on

16:56

everything about my background. It

16:58

was tough to go through. Yeah.

17:00

But when I spoke with Jay

17:02

Bhattacharya recently,

17:05

he went through a similar experience

17:07

at Stanford, very similar.

17:10

He's an outstanding physician and

17:13

an extremely reputable person.

17:16

And he expressed

17:18

some extreme skepticism about

17:21

the COVID hysteria. And

17:23

Stanford basically turned its back

17:26

on him. And he lost 35 pounds

17:28

in three months and it just about killed

17:31

him. I mean, I've talked to probably a hundred

17:33

people now

17:34

who've been in the situation that you

17:37

were in, the situation that I've been

17:39

in a number of times. And

17:41

virtually all of them

17:45

were pushed to the limits of their psychological

17:48

and physical tolerance by that process

17:51

of cancellation and mobbing

17:53

and exclusion. And some of

17:55

the people I know quite well who are as

17:58

stable a personal. personalities,

18:01

as you'd ever hoped to encounter, were

18:04

driven right to the edge of madness by

18:07

this insane mob-inspired

18:10

persecution. You know, and I actually think

18:13

that the degree to which that affects you

18:16

is proportionate to

18:18

some degree to your moral integrity in

18:21

that a person who's highly conscientious

18:24

and hardworking, diligent, detail-oriented,

18:27

all of that, is

18:29

also tends

18:31

to be somewhat guilt-prone

18:35

in that any accusation

18:37

of abdication of duty strikes

18:40

a person like that to the heart because

18:42

they are in fact dutiful. Now, if you're incompetent

18:45

and unconscious and parasitic

18:48

in your fundamental orientation towards others

18:51

and someone accuses you of not doing your duty,

18:53

you don't ever, you have never

18:55

regarded that as a necessity or a virtue

18:57

in the first place. And so those

19:00

criticisms fall on deaf ears. But

19:03

if you've been gone after,

19:06

after having checked off all the proper

19:08

boxes, let's say, both practically

19:10

and morally, then it can be incredibly

19:13

damaging. And it also does produce

19:16

this internal schism in family because,

19:19

of course, it's easy for people to think, well, you

19:21

know,

19:22

if you, or at least for people to fight

19:24

about the issue of, well, maybe

19:27

it would have been better had you just never

19:29

said anything rather than have,

19:31

having exposed yourself

19:34

and others within the family to risk. And

19:37

you know, there is an argument

19:39

to be had about that because it's

19:41

not obvious

19:43

what you should just shut the hell up and

19:45

keep on struggling

19:48

forward because, you know, every bureaucracy

19:50

and has its inadequacies

19:53

and you can't complain about everything. And

19:55

when you finally have to stand up and say something,

19:57

and of course that is going to.

20:01

cause tensions within

20:03

families, especially if you're also

20:05

under other forms of stress. By

20:07

this time, had

20:08

your wife recovered

20:11

from her medical trouble?

20:13

Mary had gone through two surgeries

20:16

and then had a third surgery. She'd had her

20:18

neck fused, she'd had a new joint put in.

20:21

And so she was recovering, but

20:24

while she was recovering, unfortunately,

20:26

a lot of the conversations the two of us would

20:29

have at home while she's convalescing

20:31

seemed to always come back to COVID-19. So

20:35

that was, it was a challenge. And you're exactly right,

20:37

Dr. Peterson. There

20:39

was a

20:41

real underlying question

20:43

for me is, why didn't I just

20:46

keep my mouth shut?

20:47

And ultimately, I think what

20:49

happened was

20:51

through the recurrent investigations

20:54

that I was put through,

20:56

I think that

20:57

I became somewhat

21:00

morally protected. I

21:03

felt like

21:05

the words of Esther 4.14, have

21:07

you considered you're in the position you're in for

21:10

such a time as this? They really rang

21:12

true in my life. And I felt

21:14

a little bit like a pit bull with a pork

21:16

chop in my mouth. And I wasn't going

21:18

to let anybody take that pork

21:21

chop of truth out of my mouth. I

21:23

had access to information people didn't have.

21:26

I absolutely was doing my responsible

21:28

duties. I was doing my due diligence. I

21:30

was reading two, three, four hours a

21:32

day, trying to keep current on all the issues

21:35

going on with the Minnesota Senate, the

21:37

COVID pandemic worldwide, and trying

21:39

to hold my family together as well. And

21:42

in the end, I felt that I was absolutely

21:44

entrusted to be a voice, to

21:47

watch out for those encroachments on our

21:49

liberties, to say, no, we're

21:51

not gonna let government expand willy-nilly

21:54

just because they can. And I

21:56

found myself getting

21:59

tenacious. I remember someone

22:01

very close to me said, well, why is it so

22:03

important to be right? And

22:05

I said, I

22:06

don't think it's about being right. I

22:08

think it's about being

22:11

fearful of what I was seeing. When a

22:13

rubber band is stretched beyond its capacity,

22:16

it never returns to its normal shape

22:18

and configuration. That's what I'm

22:20

worried about with the United States, Canada,

22:23

nations across the globe. We've

22:25

seen something happen over a three-year

22:28

period that prior to those

22:30

three years, most of us would say

22:32

couldn't happen. If it had been put in a movie,

22:35

we would have said, someone's been watching too much

22:37

grade B fiction. But the bottom

22:39

line, it was happening right in front of us and

22:41

we were stunned.

22:43

All right, so you picked up this letter. It

22:46

had

22:46

red confidential written over it.

22:49

And well, so here's a couple of questions about

22:51

that damn letter. So the first is,

22:54

you'd think that if, and

22:57

what's the precise name of the board

23:00

that sent you the letter? And this is the governing

23:02

board of physicians in Minnesota.

23:04

This is the physician's regulatory

23:06

agency regarding licensure and it's called the

23:08

Minnesota Board of Medical Practice.

23:11

The Minnesota Board of Medical Practice, MBMP.

23:16

Board of Medical Practice.

23:18

Okay, so you get a letter from the Minnesota Board

23:20

of Medical Practice. Now, here's

23:22

some mysteries about that. So

23:25

the first mystery is,

23:28

why in the world did they think that you

23:30

were gonna be a credible target? I mean, look,

23:33

you've got a stellar reputation

23:36

on the educational front

23:37

and you have a stellar reputation as a physician

23:40

as attested to by multiple forms

23:43

of achievement and recognition.

23:45

Plus you'd been a senator.

23:48

And so you'd think that just procedurally,

23:51

the people who were sitting

23:53

on this board

23:55

would have been wise enough to think that

23:58

barring. self-evident

24:01

malfeasance,

24:03

you were probably someone best left alone.

24:06

So that's an interesting question,

24:08

why they would actually be

24:10

clueless enough to target you without

24:12

a smoking pistol.

24:14

And so, and then the next

24:17

question is, what exactly

24:19

did they claim in their

24:22

first attempt to discipline

24:25

you?

24:26

I think in fairness to the

24:28

Minnesota Board of Medical Practice individuals

24:30

who serve on that board,

24:33

their collective perception

24:36

of what they're to do is that their

24:38

mission is to investigate all

24:41

complaints that come forward. So

24:43

in Minnesota, you can go on the Minnesota

24:45

Board of Medical Practice webpage, scribble

24:49

out a complaint. You have

24:51

no obligation to do any due diligence,

24:54

your personality, your

24:56

vital information about who you are will

24:59

remain anonymous. The person you

25:01

accuse has no way of getting your

25:03

name. You will be protected by

25:05

anonymity. You will not be identified.

25:08

So it's relatively easy to

25:10

make a complaint. You don't have to know the

25:13

person you're complaining about. You don't have

25:15

to ever have received a healthcare service from

25:17

them. But the Minnesota Board of Medical Practice

25:19

has taken the position, if there's a complaint,

25:22

we'll investigate it. Right,

25:24

but that doesn't mean, but in Canada,

25:26

tell me if it's the same in the

25:28

United States. So it's exactly the

25:30

same situation that you just described

25:33

with regards to the regulating

25:35

board of psychologists in Ontario. Anyone

25:38

anywhere in the world can submit a complaint

25:40

for any reason. Now,

25:42

the Ontario Board of

25:44

Psychologists, College

25:48

of Psychologists is legally

25:50

obliged to

25:54

investigate every complaint,

25:56

which means at least to consider

25:58

the complaint. But they are...

25:59

not obligated to pursue

26:02

the investigation if they

26:04

believe that the complaint

26:06

was frivolous or vexatious.

26:09

And that's obviously a necessary

26:11

corollary when the

26:13

accuser is

26:15

given the protections that you just described,

26:17

which is that there is

26:19

no pressure

26:23

incumbent upon them to even

26:25

provide documentation of the validity

26:27

of their complaint, nor any requirement

26:30

to have had any even second-person

26:33

contact with you. So

26:36

it may be the case that the board members

26:39

felt

26:41

that it was necessary for them to consider

26:43

the complaint, but that does not

26:45

mean that it was necessary for them to pursue

26:48

you. They decided to pursue

26:50

you, and that doesn't follow logically

26:52

from the mere fact of the complaint, especially

26:55

because you had practiced for,

26:58

you said, 37 years

27:01

without any complaints and also

27:03

in an obviously stellar manner.

27:05

So there's something more going on than

27:08

the mere proclivity of

27:10

the Minnesota Board of Medical

27:13

Practice members to do

27:15

their duty.

27:17

The Minnesota Board of Medical Practice, in

27:19

their first investigation of me, pointed

27:21

out that there had been allegations

27:23

that I had spread conspiracy theories

27:26

and I was providing reckless advice by comparing

27:29

influenza to COVID,

27:30

which, by the way,

27:33

is exactly what Dr. Fauci

27:35

and other

27:36

leading speakers to the

27:38

narrative had done. But I

27:40

think the pattern of behavior by the

27:42

Minnesota Board of Medical Practice attests

27:45

to your concerns, Dr. Jordan. Investigation

27:48

number one came at me with allegations

27:51

and I responded and received a letter

27:53

it was dismissed. Investigation

27:55

two was similar. Investigation

27:58

three, I was never a victim. advised that there

28:00

was a pending investigation or that there

28:02

were allegations on the table, I was

28:04

simply sent a letter by the Minnesota

28:07

Board of Medical Practice indicating, oh,

28:09

by the way,

28:10

further allegations have come in, they

28:12

have been dismissed. I was not even

28:15

provided an opportunity to respond.

28:17

Investigation four went back to the

28:19

first two where they investigated

28:21

me, I responded, they dismissed

28:24

them. But investigation number five is

28:26

where it gets interesting. That came

28:28

into being- Okay, so how many over what

28:30

span of time

28:34

did these five investigations

28:36

occur and what that mean

28:38

in terms of disruption to your

28:41

practical life,

28:43

your psychological state and the stability

28:45

of your family and your practice?

28:49

The recurrent Minnesota Board of Medical Practice

28:51

investigations had a devastating effect on my

28:54

life. While I was in the Senate,

28:56

I felt hamstrung.

28:58

In my personal life with my family, I

29:00

felt the tension of differing

29:02

viewpoints. And as I mentioned

29:05

earlier, people wondering,

29:07

why is it so important to Scott Jensen

29:09

to be right when I was trying to

29:11

advocate, this isn't about being right, this

29:14

is about something being terribly wrong and

29:16

that we cannot stand for it. I

29:18

think this took place from June of 2020 to

29:23

November of 2021.

29:26

So that's a 15 to 18 month

29:28

span of time. By then-

29:31

Do you have any idea how many allegations

29:33

had been, how many allegations

29:36

were levied against you that you had to respond

29:38

individually to? And did you require

29:41

legal counsel

29:42

during that entire time? And what sort

29:44

of expense was that?

29:47

The first four investigations,

29:49

I elected to treat them like any

29:51

regular family doctor and the trenches would

29:53

do so. So I read the allegations,

29:56

I responded to the best of my ability, I

29:58

provided a narrative explanation.

29:59

and I, if you will,

30:02

substantiated what I had to say with articles

30:05

and references. So I did that myself,

30:07

and that took

30:08

literally hundreds and hundreds of hours with

30:11

each investigation. The

30:13

fifth investigation was put forth

30:15

in November of 2021. I

30:17

was in the middle of a governor's election

30:20

race. I was one

30:22

of the leading candidates for the Republican party.

30:25

And when I received that investigation, I

30:27

was asked to respond. I

30:30

did. And that time was the

30:32

first time I was asked to

30:34

provide patient records. That

30:37

made me very nervous, violating patient

30:39

confidentiality. So I was meticulous

30:42

to making certain that

30:44

I de-identified whatever

30:46

I sent to them. The other thing that went with

30:49

that was I made the

30:51

comment that I had used off-label

30:54

medications for a handful

30:57

of patients when asked to do

30:59

so in exceptional situations.

31:02

That really seemed to change

31:05

the nature of what was going on. At

31:07

that point in time, the board of medical

31:09

practice came back to me and said, OK,

31:12

we're not sure

31:14

that we like where you're at here. We

31:16

asked for a response. You gave it to

31:18

us.

31:20

We've asked for more information as well as

31:22

patient records. I submitted those. They

31:24

said to me,

31:26

we've received your records. And that's where

31:28

it stopped. And it stopped there

31:30

for a full year. All the

31:32

other investigations have been handled. I want to interject

31:35

here for a minute for any professionals, medical

31:37

professionals who are listening.

31:40

So one of the reasons that you do

31:42

get a lawyer very quickly in these

31:44

circumstances, despite the expense

31:47

and the potential

31:50

self-admission, perhaps,

31:53

or the

31:55

risk of apparent admission of wrongdoing is

31:57

that once an investigation

31:59

is done,

31:59

investigation of this

32:02

sort commences,

32:03

and you provide additional information,

32:06

you open up a whole rat's nest

32:09

of additional potential avenues for

32:11

persecution.

32:12

And so the first time the

32:15

College of Psychologists came after me,

32:17

the

32:18

allegation they ended up nailing

32:21

me for, this was back

32:23

in 2017, had virtually no resemblance

32:25

to

32:27

the initial complaint. It

32:30

emerged as a consequence of the

32:32

need for boards of this type,

32:34

especially once they've started to go

32:36

down a particular rabbit hole repeatedly

32:39

to

32:40

convince themselves that they were justified

32:43

in their initial inquisition by

32:45

any means whatsoever. And so,

32:48

you know, if you hadn't done the wrong

32:50

thing that you were accused of, well,

32:52

obviously the fact that you'd been subject to

32:54

four investigations and multiple

32:57

allegations means that

32:59

there's fire where there's smoke, and

33:02

if we can't get you on,

33:04

you know, the fire on the left side of the furnace

33:06

will get you on the fire of the right side of the furnace.

33:08

And a good lawyer can

33:10

help you provide minimal

33:12

information to boards of

33:14

investigation of that sort, so that you're

33:17

less likely to

33:18

lay out traps for yourself

33:21

to step in. And then there's this

33:23

issue of turning over patient records,

33:25

you know, by the end of my private

33:27

practice

33:30

as a clinical psychologist,

33:33

I was taking at

33:36

best extraordinary minimal

33:38

formal notes,

33:40

because I knew that the

33:42

probability that I would be

33:44

required

33:46

at some point to break

33:48

client confidentiality,

33:50

which might even be more important for psychologists

33:53

than for physicians, although it's a toss up,

33:56

was virtually certain I could no longer

33:58

trust

33:59

the... the inviolability

34:01

of my records to inappropriate

34:03

and

34:06

paranoid board

34:09

of governance screening. And so

34:11

that's also an awful situation for professionals

34:13

to find themselves in where

34:15

the notes they take to ensure that they're

34:17

on top of their patient's health

34:20

can now be used as a means of,

34:23

what would you say, breaking the privacy

34:25

walls surrounding the patient, which is the

34:28

issue of critical importance, but also

34:30

as endless fodder

34:33

for the continuation of

34:35

Kafkaesque, expensive,

34:38

punitive, pointless and punishing

34:41

investigations, especially those that

34:43

are politically motivated.

34:45

So if this happens

34:47

to you professionals who are watching,

34:50

I would recommend, and maybe Dr. Jensen

34:52

can give his opinion on this,

34:55

you should get yourself a lawyer damn quick. And

34:58

then I've got a couple of things to say about

35:00

lawyers too, is that there is nothing

35:02

more expensive than a bad, cheap

35:04

lawyer.

35:05

So don't just get a good lawyer,

35:07

or don't just get a lawyer,

35:10

get a good lawyer because a good

35:12

lawyer who will be expensive is

35:15

way less expensive than a bad lawyer

35:17

who makes mistakes.

35:19

So. To your point,

35:22

Dr. Peterson, you're spot

35:24

on. I think the first four investigations,

35:28

I had to deal with that

35:30

age old question, do I stuff

35:32

it to the side and try to keep it private, or

35:34

do I come public with it? And I made

35:36

the decision on the first investigation

35:39

at the recommendation of several close

35:42

friends and colleagues to go public.

35:45

I was told that if I don't go public with it,

35:48

literally, I would at some

35:50

point in time be placed on defense, and

35:52

I would never be able to get around that. They said, you've

35:54

got to go on offense. And that's what

35:56

I did. But I did make, I

35:58

probably made a mistake.

35:59

with the first four investigations

36:02

by believing that if I was just responsive,

36:06

thoughtful, measured, balanced, that

36:08

they would dismiss these allegations, which is what

36:11

happened the first four times. But

36:14

at some point,

36:15

it changed. And at that point

36:17

in time, I think I had to give up

36:20

my normalcy bias. I, in my

36:22

brain, I thought, this can't be happening

36:24

to me. This happens to other people.

36:26

You read about it in the newspaper, but this doesn't

36:28

happen to this small-town kid from Sleepy

36:30

Eye, Minnesota, who's had the life

36:32

of Jimmy Stewart in, It's a Wonderful Life.

36:35

And I kept, I think I was

36:38

unable to really get my arms around

36:40

that this was happening to me in

36:42

real life, real time. In my license,

36:45

each investigation was more

36:48

and more at risk. So with the

36:50

fifth investigation, when it

36:52

went on for a full year,

36:54

then the election took place and

36:57

I lost. And two months later,

37:00

I got a letter from the board of medical practice

37:03

providing additional allegations

37:06

based on exactly what you said, based

37:08

on my response to the fifth investigation,

37:11

including patient records. Now I was

37:13

being accused of having handwriting

37:16

that wasn't always as legible as

37:18

some reviewers would have liked. Now

37:20

I was being accused of, well, you also

37:23

did this and you did this. And

37:25

by the way, you did this. And at that point

37:27

in time, they said, we're

37:30

not accepting your written responses

37:32

as good. We're now

37:35

asking for

37:36

a notice of conference. That meant

37:39

we're gonna meet with you.

37:40

And at that point in time, I said, I

37:43

probably need to get an attorney. And I got a good

37:45

attorney out. Mr. Greg Joseph

37:47

is an attorney in Minnesota who's done

37:49

a

37:50

lot of different kinds of law, but has

37:52

really landed on understanding,

37:55

I think

37:56

the nature of that

37:59

law. between

38:02

professional conduct as it relates to

38:04

patient care versus free speech.

38:07

Now in the United States, I

38:10

don't believe that that line has been determined

38:12

with precision. And that's one of

38:14

the remaining questions regarding

38:17

my situation, is

38:20

recently we did have that conference

38:23

with the Minnesota Board of Medical Practice.

38:26

And I don't mean to get ahead of myself, but 18

38:30

allegations were being addressed at one time. They

38:33

were from soup to nuts. It had to deal with

38:35

masks. It had to

38:37

deal with vaccines. It had to deal with

38:39

comparisons of COVID and influenza.

38:42

It had to do with how we complete

38:44

death certificates, how we remunerate

38:47

hospitals and doctors based on diagnosis

38:49

codes used. It ran the gamut. But

38:52

in the end, when the Minnesota

38:53

Board of Medical Practice says

38:56

we're dismissing all of the allegations, at

38:58

that point in time,

39:00

we still don't know that critical

39:02

question. Where's the line between

39:05

professional conduct and

39:06

free speech? Because I

39:08

would submit that

39:11

physicians get to be wrong. If

39:14

we say on a Monday

39:16

that this is what we think, perhaps we say

39:18

something like this, eggs have

39:21

cholesterol, you have high cholesterol, you

39:23

should not eat eggs. And maybe

39:26

four days later, we come across material that

39:28

says, gee, eggs aren't so bad.

39:31

So I tell my patient, you know what? You

39:34

can eat eggs. Now,

39:36

is that misinformation?

39:37

Perhaps. Is it disinformation?

39:39

Certainly not. But the bottom line

39:42

is, as a physician, if I make those

39:44

comments in the exam room or

39:46

if I make those comments on stage

39:48

at a meeting, a rally, or perhaps a

39:50

church event, either way,

39:53

I get to make those comments.

39:56

There's a more ominous element to

39:58

your story as well, that...

40:00

is still implicit in what

40:02

we've discussed. So I'm going to

40:05

pull some of that out now. Now,

40:07

you had been in the Senate and you decided

40:10

to pull out of the political life, but now

40:12

you're running for governor. And while

40:14

you're running for governor, these investigations are happening.

40:17

So the first thing we should

40:19

clear up for everyone is that given

40:21

that you had decided to make an exit from the

40:23

political stage, why did you decide

40:26

to return?

40:27

The next issue is, were you credible

40:29

as a candidate for governor? And

40:31

then the third question is,

40:34

why the hell did the Minnesota

40:37

Board of Medical Practice presume

40:40

that it was appropriate

40:43

ethically

40:44

to conduct an investigation

40:46

into the conduct of a physician in

40:49

the middle of a political campaign? Because

40:52

if you can't see how that raises

40:55

evil specters of possibility, you're

40:57

not thinking, because what it means is that

40:59

the

41:00

investigative

41:02

process, which puts all

41:04

the power in the hands of the accuser,

41:07

can obviously be weaponized

41:09

for political purposes. Now, it

41:12

is being, and it has been in many cases,

41:14

and that's going to get much worse before it gets

41:16

better. But in your situation, it's particularly

41:19

egregious because you were a physician

41:22

with an actual credible political

41:24

career, and you were running for the highest

41:26

office in your state. So

41:29

what do you think about the fact that the investigations

41:32

ramped up while you were running

41:35

for governor?

41:36

What do you think that implies

41:38

for the stability and

41:41

sanctity of the political process?

41:44

And

41:45

what effect do you think the investigations

41:48

into your conduct and the public

41:50

element of that had on the outcome

41:53

of the

41:54

gubernatorial race? 2020, my

41:58

last year in the Senate.

41:59

was obviously the first year of the COVID pandemic.

42:03

The pandemic and the public

42:05

policies that came with it really

42:08

were like this powerful magnetic

42:11

pole for me to not leave

42:13

the political,

42:14

if you will,

42:16

field. I had

42:19

thousands of people reach out to me and say,

42:21

Dr. Jensen,

42:23

you've been a courageous voice, offering

42:25

hope and reasonable analysis

42:28

of what's going on. You've been

42:30

deeply embedded in context. You've

42:33

been a skeptic. You've accessed information.

42:35

You've done your due diligence. You've taken

42:37

seriously that you've been entrusted

42:40

with a voice to speak for thousands

42:42

and thousands of Minnesotans and people across

42:45

the globe. That collectively

42:47

is what really pulled me into the race.

42:50

I think, again, I'm a faith-based

42:52

individual, and the words of Esther 4.14,

42:55

for such a time as this,

42:57

joined with the words of Hebrews 4.14, hold

43:00

fast to the beliefs you profess, just

43:03

did not seem to give me an out

43:06

from politics. So

43:07

I stepped into that arena with

43:10

my wife's blessing. Was

43:12

I a credible candidate?

43:15

We accomplished more as

43:17

a conservative candidate running in Minnesota

43:20

than had been accomplished in decades,

43:22

in some situations ever. We

43:25

receive more votes than any Republican

43:27

governor candidate has ever received in

43:29

Minnesota. We raised

43:31

more money than any Republican governor

43:34

has ever raised

43:36

in the campaign committee itself.

43:39

We had over 100,000 people join

43:41

our email team. We had 40,000 unique donations. We

43:45

had approximately the same percentage of voters

43:48

in the election that Governor Tim

43:50

Polenti had in 2002, when he

43:52

won. We went against six

43:55

other candidates and prevailed in

43:57

getting the endorsement and then going to

43:59

the...

43:59

So from

44:02

that perspective, we created a movement, and that movement

44:04

was born of energy, conviction, and

44:07

Americans, everyday Americans, that

44:10

were horrifically concerned about

44:13

what is going on in our world.

44:16

So then the question is, okay, you've

44:18

got the Minnesota Board of Medical Practice

44:20

holding this

44:22

gray cloud over his head,

44:24

over the campaign

44:27

for

44:28

literally the majority of Americans of the campaign.

44:31

It had a devastating effect. I knew

44:33

that everywhere I went, I was

44:35

being tracked and recorded. I

44:37

knew every word I said didn't

44:40

just enter the political speech.

44:42

It was gonna be filed and

44:45

indexed and forwarded to the Minnesota

44:47

Board of Medical Practice. There was

44:49

no relief from the Minnesota Board of

44:51

Medical Practice. I reached out to them in 2022

44:54

asking a question. I

44:57

don't wanna do something that's not

45:00

up to the standard of care. If I prescribe

45:02

certain off-label drugs, is

45:04

that problematic for you or not? Is

45:07

that the standard of care or not? And I

45:09

was given a short answer from an administrative

45:12

staffer that said,

45:13

we don't create the standard of care. We

45:15

can't tell you that, but if you do it and

45:18

we get a complaint, we're gonna investigate you.

45:20

They were basically saying, you wanna

45:22

know the standard of care? You wanna know

45:24

what the standard of care is? We're not telling

45:27

you, but if someone says you didn't meet

45:29

the standard of care, we're coming after you for that.

45:32

This was a definite- The standard of care for these investigative

45:35

boards is, well,

45:37

we don't really know what we're doing, but we'll

45:39

sure whack you if we have any suspicions

45:41

that you do something wrong post-Hawk.

45:44

I mean, I've had exactly the same experience with

45:46

the

45:47

College of Psychologists in Ontario

45:50

trying to get them to clarify their policies around

45:54

certification of new practising

45:57

psychologists, for example, and there

45:59

isn't a-

45:59

chance in the world that they'll clarify their

46:02

stance a priori. This is part of the reason you

46:04

need a lawyer when they come after you. It's

46:06

because it's not as if the standards are well

46:08

defined and it's certainly not as if

46:11

the practitioners on these boards

46:13

are sufficiently credible either

46:16

professionally or ethically to be doing what

46:18

they're doing. The rules are basically

46:21

watch yourself

46:22

and if you make a mistake look the hell out

46:25

and the mistakes are defined after the

46:27

act.

46:28

And so I'm

46:31

stressing that for the professionals who

46:33

are listening is do not make

46:35

the mistake

46:36

that Dr. Jensen made

46:38

of assuming

46:40

that you are dealing with a process

46:42

that's going to treat you reasonably.

46:44

That is not the situation you're in. You're

46:47

in a little bit of Kafka hell and

46:49

you'll be lucky if you escape from it with your skin

46:51

intact. And so

46:53

you can dispense with any

46:55

niceties about your presumption

46:58

that

46:58

this is going to be mere rational

47:00

discourse between merely rational

47:03

people. If you're innocent

47:05

and you have had a stellar reputation

47:07

and you're being investigated

47:10

for fundamentally political reasons, you're

47:13

way outside the rubric of anything

47:15

that you might have regarded as Jimmy Stewart

47:18

normality. And the faster you realize

47:20

that the easier it's going to be for you.

47:23

Well said. I think that without question

47:26

that tendency for me to say this

47:28

can't be happening. That power

47:31

of what is my bias towards what's

47:33

normal sort of dictated

47:36

my behavior until it didn't.

47:38

And it was the fifth investigation. No, that's

47:40

a trauma response. Say,

47:42

just you may know this as a

47:44

physician. One of the

47:47

hallmarks of

47:49

traumatic experience

47:52

is the sense of derealization

47:55

that accompanies the experience and

47:57

derealization is the recurrent

47:59

sense, partly thought,

48:02

partly perception, that

48:04

there's no way this can

48:06

be happening. In fact, the

48:09

more intense that sense

48:12

and the longer its duration, the

48:15

better the chance that post-event

48:17

there will be post-traumatic symptoms.

48:21

That makes a lot of sense, it does. And I honestly

48:23

think that while

48:25

perhaps Scott Jensen was a microcosm

48:27

of that phenomenon occurring, I

48:30

think that from a population

48:32

standpoint, on a macro level, we're seeing the same

48:34

thing. We're seeing a derealization

48:37

for Americans across the

48:40

land saying, well,

48:42

no, that couldn't be happening. I

48:44

mean, we're seeing it with physicians. I think physicians

48:46

over the last three months have come

48:48

out and said to me, Dr. Jensen, we

48:51

feel so bad that we haven't stood with you

48:53

more strongly. We should have been

48:55

there for you, but we were scared

48:58

for our jobs. We were scared for our livelihoods. We

49:00

knew that there would be hell to pay. And

49:02

so I think there's been a lot

49:05

of that where you literally have to

49:07

dispense with your own strong

49:09

internal sense of what's normal, what's

49:11

gonna happen, what would reasonable people do.

49:14

And as you said, you've gotta say, all

49:16

bets are off. This is a different place

49:18

than I've ever been before. I'm

49:20

not gonna be able to do it. I'm not gonna

49:22

be able to navigate my way through it by simply

49:24

being reasonable, providing resources

49:27

and justification for what I was thinking, because

49:30

that isn't going to carry the day.

49:32

One of the things my attorney shared with me, Greg

49:34

Joseph, Dr. Peterson

49:36

was, when we first met,

49:39

and this was to deal with the fifth and the sixth

49:41

investigations, he said, Scott,

49:43

you didn't hire me to be a yes man, and

49:46

I'm not going to be. I'm gonna tell you

49:48

what you've been doing, and I'm gonna tell you why it

49:50

was wrong. And I was all

49:52

ears. And he said, Scott,

49:54

you're trying to make a perfect snowball.

49:57

You're in a snowball fight, and you're

49:59

trying to make...

49:59

the perfect snowball so that you

50:02

can win the snowball fight.

50:03

But let me tell you two things. One,

50:06

there should be no snowball fight. Two,

50:09

there is no perfect snowball. You're not

50:11

gonna find the perfect article that's gonna

50:13

convince the medical board that ah,

50:15

Dr. Jensen was sane and reasonable

50:18

and rational and right, you're not gonna find

50:20

that snowball. So quit trying to make

50:22

it. We should not be in this snowball fight

50:25

and we're gonna tell the Minnesota Board of Medical Practice

50:27

exactly that. They don't have jurisdiction

50:30

over your speech.

50:33

Yeah, yeah, well that's good. It does sound like you

50:35

got a good lawyer. And I mean, one of the advantages,

50:38

and this is also for the professionals who

50:40

are listening, if you're an agreeable

50:42

person,

50:44

and that means you're fundamentally compassionate

50:46

and caring, you don't like conflict,

50:49

you like to put other people at ease, you're

50:51

likely to go along to get along. Well,

50:54

that might've been one of the reasons that you entered, especially

50:57

family medicine, because that's

50:59

a

51:00

branch of the profession that tends to attract

51:02

caring people. Now, the problem

51:04

with being a caring person is that,

51:07

of that sort, an agreeable person, is

51:09

that

51:10

you don't like conflict, you're going to always

51:13

assume the best of others, and it's

51:15

going to be difficult for you to say no when

51:17

you need to say no. And what

51:19

no means, by the way, just so that everyone

51:22

who is listening is clear, no,

51:25

when you say it to someone, means

51:27

if you don't stop doing that, something

51:31

you do not like will

51:33

happen to you with 100% certainty. That's

51:38

what no means if you dare

51:40

utter it. And so if

51:42

you're an agreeable person, that's difficult. And

51:44

so if you're an agreeable physician,

51:48

and you want people to like you, and you don't

51:50

like conflict, and you're caring, you

51:52

need a disagreeable lawyer.

51:54

Because a disagreeable lawyer

51:56

has been through this sort of thing many, many

51:58

times. and has the thick

52:01

skin for it, but is also perfectly

52:03

capable, willing, and might even

52:05

enjoy saying no when the circumstances

52:07

demand it.

52:08

And a good litigator in

52:11

particular, litigators tend to be quite

52:13

disagreeable, but a defense

52:15

attorney can, and attorneys in general

52:17

tend to be relatively disagreeable, especially

52:20

if they're effective. So there's

52:22

definitely a time

52:24

when you need someone

52:26

of the temperament that your

52:29

lawyer appears to

52:31

be.

52:31

And it's useful to develop

52:33

that side of your character too, that

52:36

part that can bite back when

52:38

bitten. You know,

52:41

not more than necessary, but certainly not

52:43

less than necessary. And so

52:46

what, you have to dispense with your

52:48

presumption that you're in a territory

52:51

where rationality

52:53

prevails, and you have to dispense with the

52:55

presumption that the

52:57

people who are

52:58

coming after you or the forces that are

53:01

arrayed against you

53:02

are of the sort

53:05

that's aiming up, let's

53:07

say. Okay, so you have physicians.

53:09

Now, physicians are what? Coming to you behind

53:11

the scenes and saying that

53:13

they wish they would support you? Are these friends?

53:15

These are colleagues? And did

53:18

anybody actually

53:19

speak out from the medical community

53:21

in your

53:24

support?

53:26

The great majority of the

53:28

voices of the medical community were opposed

53:30

to me. I was roundly criticized.

53:33

There were ad hoc groups of physicians

53:35

getting together, holding press conferences,

53:38

ridiculing me. The Minnesota Medical

53:40

Association has been not

53:43

friendly to my position, but quietly,

53:46

behind the scenes, physicians have reached out

53:48

to me, and these are not friends. These are colleagues,

53:51

many of whom I've never met. I've

53:53

received numerous letters, even in

53:55

the last two weeks,

53:56

from physicians saying,

53:59

we've been watching.

53:59

from afar, we have got

54:02

to stay quiet. We don't dare come

54:04

out, but we so appreciate

54:06

what you've done. We respect your

54:09

character, your integrity, the

54:11

thoughtful, measured manner in which you've dealt with

54:13

these slings and arrows, and we want you

54:15

to know, we appreciate it and respect it. Oftentimes

54:19

within the notes, there's almost an

54:21

underlying sense of confession,

54:25

almost an effort

54:27

to

54:28

seek absolution. And I've

54:30

oftentimes responded to my colleagues and said,

54:33

I get where you're at.

54:34

I was in a different place. I'm not young,

54:36

I'm 68. I think these partisan

54:39

activists who decided

54:41

to weaponize the Minnesota Board of Medical Practice

54:44

to shut me up, they didn't know me.

54:47

They may have seen me as that person who was

54:49

always going to be approval seeking and that, but

54:51

I think I do have the ability, perhaps

54:53

I'm a little slow on the draw, but I do

54:55

have the ability to say, no, that's

54:58

the line in the sand, we'll go no further.

55:01

And I did do that. And I think when

55:03

I did that, I did it

55:04

in part because

55:06

I have a

55:08

shield of success

55:10

in my career. I'm 68. I'm

55:13

not dependent on their approval, nor

55:16

am I dependent on the Minnesota

55:18

Board of Medical Practice for my raison

55:20

de trois, my reason for being, I know exactly

55:23

why I'm here. And that's not gonna stop

55:25

or change. I'm not gonna flinch. And

55:27

so I found it rewarding to have so

55:29

many colleagues, nurses, first responders

55:32

reach out and say, hey doc, thanks,

55:34

appreciate it very much. Would have loved to have

55:36

been there standing right by your side,

55:38

but I just couldn't do it. And I

55:40

get that.

55:41

So this, okay,

55:43

so this fifth investigation

55:47

is occurring while you're running for governor and

55:50

you think it had a devastating effect, well

55:52

it had a devastating effect on you as part

55:55

and parcel of this ongoing process.

55:57

Do you think it had a determining effect?

55:59

on the election.

56:03

That's an interesting question. Whether

56:05

or not

56:06

the investigation had not been going on,

56:10

let me say that again.

56:12

I think

56:14

the deep seated nature of

56:17

being investigated by the Minnesota

56:19

Board of Medical Practice was utilized

56:22

by my opponents repeatedly.

56:25

I was accused of participating in the

56:27

big lie by some

56:30

journal nationally. This

56:32

was used against me over and over again,

56:35

and it forced me to

56:38

take positions on issues in

56:40

a way that I would have

56:42

liked to have not had to. It made me,

56:45

in some situations, go farther

56:47

right in order to convince

56:50

a certain group of people that know I'm

56:53

not some whack job. I'm

56:55

a credible, thoughtful physician who's

56:57

had a wonderful career, and you should ignore

56:59

these slings and arrows. Last

57:02

night, I got an email just

57:04

before

57:06

midnight that was

57:08

from a journalist who was gonna be interviewing

57:10

me, and she said, what

57:12

do you think about

57:14

these kinds of documents that are

57:16

circulating on social media

57:18

that just denigrate your character? And

57:20

so I looked at some of the documents, and

57:23

there's a two-page index

57:25

document,

57:27

totally eviscerating me,

57:29

saying that this is a quack doctor,

57:32

and it's from

57:33

the opposing party, and it was boom, boom, boom,

57:35

boom, boom. And this was used during

57:38

the campaign, and some of the

57:40

substance of it

57:42

did relate back to the fact that

57:44

I was being investigated by the Minnesota Board

57:46

of Medical Practice on some of these same

57:48

issues. So did it have a determining

57:51

back? Well, so it's also,

57:52

you know, even when I, and

57:55

this has happened to me repeatedly, you know, because I've

57:57

interviewed a lot of people.

57:59

who've been pilloried and cancelled.

58:03

You know, and when

58:05

I was ill a while back and when I

58:07

sort of reemerged into the podcast

58:10

sphere after a couple of years, the

58:12

first person I interviewed was Abigail

58:14

Schreier.

58:15

And she'd just written a book called Irreversible

58:17

Damage about this absolutely

58:20

godawful catastrophe on

58:22

the trans front that physicians

58:24

and psychologists are collaborating

58:26

and producing. And much

58:28

to our shame, let's

58:31

say. And

58:33

Abigail had been pilloried

58:36

by all the usual suspects

58:38

and tarred and feathered

58:40

and with the brush

58:42

of disgust and contempt. And even

58:46

though I've been through this and known many people

58:48

who've been through it, every time

58:50

I pick another one of the deplorable

58:52

people to interview like you,

58:55

there's a part of me that

58:56

goes along with that

58:59

unthinking mob mentality

59:02

such that once the accusation

59:05

has been made, I'm

59:07

forced to confront my suspicion

59:09

that, well,

59:10

where there's smoke, there must be fire.

59:12

You know, that,

59:14

well, Dr. Jensen, I mean, you

59:16

haven't been investigated just once

59:18

and not even twice. You've been investigated,

59:20

what is it, seven times now?

59:23

Six times. Is it seven? Six

59:25

times. Six. And so you're really

59:28

telling me that you're

59:32

guilty of all charges in six

59:35

separate investigations over multiple

59:37

years? Well, it's a hell of a lot easier

59:40

to believe that, no, you know, even

59:43

though

59:44

maybe you're technically innocent on some

59:46

of the charges, there's something you're up to. And

59:48

it's easy to put you in the basket of people

59:50

who

59:52

shouldn't be validated at least.

59:55

And, you know, it's partly because there's a lot of people

59:57

and if anyone is...

1:00:01

It's easy

1:00:03

to put them in the basket of people you shouldn't interact

1:00:06

with. And that means this accusatory

1:00:09

power that we've put in the hands of anonymous

1:00:12

trolls and

1:00:16

allowing them to take the grip of

1:00:19

the controls of boards with as much power

1:00:21

as the Minnesota Board of Medical

1:00:23

Practice is a

1:00:25

what? It's

1:00:28

a power that's extraordinarily

1:00:34

deep and far-reaching and

1:00:37

can easily destroy people's lives.

1:00:40

And there's something that's

1:00:42

truly awful about that and

1:00:44

it's not surprising that people move

1:00:46

away from you once you've been

1:00:48

tarred by that brush. During

1:00:51

the course of the campaign, a

1:00:54

large thrust of my opponent's

1:00:56

strategy was to paint me as extreme.

1:00:59

And you're spotlighting that

1:01:02

exactly correctly. I think

1:01:04

that human nature is such that

1:01:07

when something adverse happens to

1:01:09

someone else,

1:01:11

the human mind looks for

1:01:13

some justification. Well,

1:01:15

that person maybe did this or

1:01:18

maybe that person could have done this

1:01:20

and didn't or maybe that person had

1:01:22

it coming. That

1:01:24

kind of

1:01:26

underlying subconscious

1:01:30

part of all of us does

1:01:33

color the way we look at that person.

1:01:35

So I had that. Now we'll even do that

1:01:38

to ourselves. We do.

1:01:40

We do it to our loved ones. We do it to friends.

1:01:44

We look for that justification

1:01:46

because when we find it or if we can conjure

1:01:49

it up, then we can say that's

1:01:51

why it didn't happen to me.

1:01:54

And so when I was running

1:01:56

for governor, I think there was a

1:01:58

tremendous skepticism.

1:02:01

thrown around my character,

1:02:03

could that have been determining in terms of the outcome? Absolutely. One

1:02:07

of the things I've heard from people after the governor's race

1:02:10

was they said, Doc, the real you never got

1:02:12

transmitted

1:02:13

to

1:02:16

the everyday masses of

1:02:18

voters who never

1:02:20

had a chance to meet you. They

1:02:23

don't really know who you are. They

1:02:25

see you as this demonized villain

1:02:28

that the Democrats had

1:02:30

said, he's a part of the big

1:02:33

lie. And I think you're absolutely

1:02:35

right. Human nature is to look for the justification

1:02:38

as to why someone else is suffering

1:02:40

and you're not. And generally there'll

1:02:42

be some overhanging residue

1:02:46

that even as we try to thoughtfully

1:02:48

look at the situation, we

1:02:51

cannot escape that residual,

1:02:53

well, maybe he or she had

1:02:56

it coming.

1:02:57

Yeah, yeah, in some manner. Yeah, yeah,

1:02:59

well, it's an easy default position.

1:03:01

It's very difficult to fight over that and

1:03:03

to, well, that's why the presumption of

1:03:06

innocence in the legal

1:03:08

systems in civilized countries is such a complete

1:03:10

bloody miracle. Because I also

1:03:13

noticed as a clinician, you know that I

1:03:15

was often dealing with people who had

1:03:17

been accused in one way or another, often

1:03:20

by themselves of some malfeasance.

1:03:22

And I always took the case

1:03:24

that my role as a counselor

1:03:26

was to

1:03:28

begin with the presumption of innocence

1:03:31

and to

1:03:32

investigate

1:03:34

based on that presumption, but also to

1:03:36

help my client

1:03:38

even

1:03:39

in regards to themselves to start

1:03:41

with the presumption of innocence. So

1:03:43

if someone was feeling very guilty and was depressed,

1:03:46

for example, which is a very,

1:03:48

that's a situation where the adversary

1:03:50

is within and is eating you, eating

1:03:53

your soul, so to speak, you

1:03:55

have to mount a strong defense.

1:03:58

And, you know, that means that. that you

1:04:01

should take

1:04:02

a very careful look at your weaknesses

1:04:04

and your transgressions, but you should

1:04:06

do that from the presumption, from the

1:04:08

initial presumption of innocence.

1:04:11

And so,

1:04:12

and that's a hard thing to learn too, when you're being

1:04:15

prosecuted in the manner that you've been prosecuted,

1:04:18

because in order to withstand that without

1:04:20

falling prey

1:04:21

to the trauma associated

1:04:23

with derealization,

1:04:25

you have to get your

1:04:28

ducks in order

1:04:29

so that you

1:04:31

can justify to yourself your

1:04:33

own claims of innocence.

1:04:35

And that means you also have to learn to do

1:04:37

that without a kind of careless self-righteousness,

1:04:40

and also without that

1:04:42

proclivity to move toward

1:04:44

more extreme views, which does also

1:04:46

lurk as a temptation under such circumstances.

1:04:51

I recall vividly,

1:04:54

when I used to do work with chemical dependency

1:04:56

patients, one of the steps of

1:04:59

the AA, Alcoholics Anonymous,

1:05:02

was to take that ruthless inventory

1:05:04

of

1:05:05

ourselves. And I think

1:05:08

you're absolutely right, that ability

1:05:11

to take a ruthless inventory of your shortcomings

1:05:15

comes in conflict

1:05:17

with the need

1:05:18

to presume that you yourself are

1:05:20

innocent. So oftentimes, the

1:05:23

guilt is deep, it's

1:05:25

hard to remove. And I think when

1:05:27

I went through the

1:05:29

trauma of my 30-year-old

1:05:31

brother committing suicide, one

1:05:34

of the things that troubled me most

1:05:37

in the aftermath was that

1:05:39

as a physician, I

1:05:42

wasn't evidently able to help

1:05:45

him navigate a path through

1:05:47

that

1:05:49

guilt inventory

1:05:51

kind of process that his

1:05:54

life was taking him on. And so

1:05:56

in the end, some...

1:05:59

of justification within

1:06:02

him said,

1:06:03

it's okay for me to end this because

1:06:06

I'm not making my way. And

1:06:09

the world would be better, I would be better,

1:06:11

not here. And I'll never forget

1:06:13

that,

1:06:14

that that indeed is the case. That we

1:06:17

don't always presume that we're innocent. We're

1:06:19

doing that ruthless inventory, even if

1:06:21

we want to cut ourselves some slack. It's tough.

1:06:25

Yeah, yeah. It's a very, it's a very,

1:06:28

and that's especially, I would say true again

1:06:30

for a conscientious person because you're

1:06:32

gonna take yourself, there's gonna be

1:06:34

a tendency to take yourself to task

1:06:37

very harshly.

1:06:38

And that can easily be weaponized

1:06:41

by people who don't have that proclivity and

1:06:43

would like to use it against you. The woke

1:06:45

guilt mongering left have become absolutely

1:06:48

expert at this.

1:06:50

Much to the chagrin and danger of competent

1:06:53

and hardworking people everywhere. Okay,

1:06:56

so now you're in your fifth

1:06:58

set of investigations with 18 allegations

1:07:02

in the middle of a gubernatorial race. And

1:07:04

despite the fact that there's 18,

1:07:07

they're all dismissed.

1:07:10

And yet,

1:07:12

they investigate you a sixth time. So

1:07:15

let's go to the sixth time.

1:07:17

The fifth investigation started

1:07:20

in November of 2021 and

1:07:22

was literally put on hold during

1:07:25

the course of the campaign. So that was present

1:07:27

for about 12 months of the campaign. When

1:07:30

it was resurrected in January

1:07:32

of this year,

1:07:34

a sixth

1:07:36

investigation was initiated with

1:07:38

additional allegations being put forward.

1:07:41

That was literally

1:07:43

combined into a fifth and

1:07:45

sixth investigation together, which

1:07:48

culminated in our meeting

1:07:50

last week with the Minnesota Board of Medical Practice.

1:07:53

And it was at that meeting where the fifth

1:07:55

and sixth combined investigations

1:07:57

with its commensurate 18 allegations.

1:07:59

were completely dismissed. It

1:08:02

was very brief. The letter I just received

1:08:05

a couple of days ago was

1:08:07

these allegations have all been dismissed. This

1:08:09

case is closed. Okay,

1:08:12

so let me ask you some questions about

1:08:14

that. So now,

1:08:16

how many allegations in total

1:08:18

do you suppose have been levied

1:08:21

against you by the Minnesota

1:08:23

Board of Medical Practice?

1:08:26

It was difficult to tell. They've

1:08:29

said there were eight,

1:08:30

now because one, two, three, four,

1:08:32

five, and six, and it seemed that with

1:08:35

the sixth investigative letter,

1:08:37

they were

1:08:39

dredging up

1:08:40

allegations that had already been addressed and

1:08:42

dismissed. So as I read

1:08:45

through the document, it says there's 18

1:08:47

allegations. I could find

1:08:50

nine real clearly. Then I could

1:08:52

find some other

1:08:54

comments that may have represented an allegation,

1:08:58

but I never saw a list of these

1:09:00

are the 18 allegations that

1:09:03

Dr. Jensen has been accused of. So

1:09:05

it was a little bit like- So that makes the Kafkaesque

1:09:08

nightmare perfect, because now you don't

1:09:10

even know

1:09:11

what precisely it is that you're

1:09:13

accused of. That makes defense

1:09:15

a lot more difficult. So,

1:09:17

and of course that's the point.

1:09:20

During our conference, I

1:09:22

was asked something about

1:09:24

a conspiracy theory. And

1:09:27

I said,

1:09:27

could I please know what conspiracy

1:09:30

theory I am purported to have

1:09:32

advanced? Someone would ask

1:09:34

me a question about

1:09:37

an off-label medication. And I can say, can

1:09:39

I please know which medication we're

1:09:41

talking about? Someone would say that, well, your

1:09:43

writing wasn't very legible on this chart

1:09:45

note.

1:09:46

Can you please show me which word you

1:09:49

couldn't read? It was extremely

1:09:51

difficult. In fact, during the course of the

1:09:53

conference, I did at one point in time

1:09:56

say, this feels like

1:09:58

goulash.

1:09:59

I don't know what to respond to

1:10:02

because the generalities

1:10:04

are so vague. How can I possibly

1:10:07

know what you want me to say? I said, I've

1:10:09

given thousands and thousands of speeches,

1:10:11

comments on the Senate floor, during

1:10:14

the campaign, in podcasts,

1:10:17

on videos, and someone

1:10:19

says, you did this.

1:10:21

Show me, just show me. Perhaps

1:10:24

one of the most compelling things I did at the end

1:10:26

of the board of medical practice conference, I

1:10:29

looked at my accusers,

1:10:32

and I just sort of shrugged

1:10:34

my shoulders and I said, I

1:10:37

did nothing wrong.

1:10:40

And I stopped.

1:10:42

Why do you think that was effective?

1:10:45

Well, my attorney was nervous

1:10:47

about it because he felt that

1:10:49

the tenor of the meeting

1:10:52

was moving towards a desire

1:10:54

to resolve the issue and

1:10:57

not have it be

1:10:58

disagreeable or contentious. And

1:11:01

when I made that comment, he told me later on, he

1:11:03

said, Scott, he said, you made me flinch.

1:11:06

I was concerned that that was going to be too

1:11:08

bold a statement, too in your

1:11:11

face,

1:11:11

I did nothing wrong. But he said, I think

1:11:14

it worked out perfectly because I think it

1:11:16

did give the board of medical practice

1:11:19

members a clear sense that

1:11:22

I do care about

1:11:23

the standard of care. I

1:11:26

do care about not doing things

1:11:28

wrong. And I don't think I did

1:11:30

anything wrong. Earlier in the meeting, I

1:11:32

had made the challenge to the board. I said, I

1:11:35

think it's critically important that people understand

1:11:37

the difference between misinformation and

1:11:39

disinformation. I said, disinformation

1:11:42

is the deliberate attempt to mislead

1:11:45

with false or deceptive

1:11:48

information. Misinformation is simply

1:11:50

someone's truth on a Monday being

1:11:52

demonstrated on a Friday

1:11:53

that it's not the situation.

1:11:57

Well, I think that the

1:11:59

terms missing. disinformation and disinformation

1:12:03

are unerring markers that

1:12:05

the person who is using them

1:12:07

has already become entirely confused

1:12:09

about what constitutes

1:12:11

the manner in which the world operates.

1:12:14

I mean, first of all,

1:12:17

who's to say who's wrong about what

1:12:19

when the issues are contentious?

1:12:22

There's not some board of overseers

1:12:24

that has unerring insight into what

1:12:26

constitutes the appropriate facts at hand.

1:12:29

The world would be a very straightforward place if

1:12:31

it was that simple. And I've seen

1:12:34

the rise of these terms, misinformation

1:12:36

and disinformation over the last

1:12:38

two or three years and watched that with dawning

1:12:41

horror because

1:12:43

the whole

1:12:44

semantic substructure of

1:12:46

that classification system is based

1:12:49

on the presupposition that the dividing

1:12:51

line between fact and fiction

1:12:54

or fact fiction and lie is

1:12:57

obvious to anyone with the proper objective

1:12:59

stance.

1:13:00

And

1:13:02

the question is always begged. Well,

1:13:04

just who is this wizard that can see so

1:13:06

clearly through all the Merc,

1:13:09

especially not post hoc. And

1:13:12

as soon as you even allow those terms to exist,

1:13:15

misinformation and disinformation, you're

1:13:17

already going to find yourself in an extraordinarily

1:13:19

dark place.

1:13:21

And so, so do

1:13:24

you think,

1:13:27

have you received anything approximating an apology?

1:13:30

And do you think that or

1:13:33

a hint of culpability on the part

1:13:35

of the people who are sitting on this board?

1:13:39

And do you think that

1:13:41

there's any chance that they'll leave you alone?

1:13:45

I've not received any kind of

1:13:47

apologetic overture from the

1:13:49

board and I don't expect to. I

1:13:52

believe that those members believe

1:13:54

that they are carrying out the mission of

1:13:56

their regulatory agency to the

1:13:58

best of their ability. as you

1:14:00

indicated earlier, oftentimes,

1:14:02

members of... Why do you believe that? Look, man,

1:14:04

they've gone after you. Look,

1:14:07

if they'd gone after you once

1:14:09

and

1:14:10

you defended yourself,

1:14:12

and then they came after you again and

1:14:14

you defended yourself, and that was all cleared

1:14:17

up, I would say, hey,

1:14:20

they might have been a little on the

1:14:22

overzealous side, but

1:14:24

twice that's within the realm

1:14:27

of forgivable, willful

1:14:29

blindness. Three

1:14:32

times, that's a pattern. Six

1:14:36

times, that's not a pattern.

1:14:39

That's absolute 100% proof.

1:14:42

And so if they're still believing

1:14:44

that what they were doing was

1:14:47

undertaking their sworn

1:14:49

duties as appropriately

1:14:51

behaving members of the Minnesota Board of Medical

1:14:54

Practice, they have their heads in the sand.

1:14:57

Because six, man,

1:14:59

six is too many. Three

1:15:01

is too many,

1:15:03

but six is definitely too many.

1:15:05

So that's why I was wondering also

1:15:07

about any nature of public statement, because

1:15:10

you would presume, if you still

1:15:12

thought you were in the domain of the vaguely rational,

1:15:15

that what the Minnesota Board

1:15:18

of Medical Practice would do,

1:15:21

would

1:15:22

put out a press release saying,

1:15:25

Dr. Jensen has been the subject of numerous

1:15:27

investigations, now extending over

1:15:30

numerous years, including a variety

1:15:33

of allegations.

1:15:35

Some uncountable number, apparently,

1:15:38

but let's say 18. He

1:15:41

has demonstrated his innocence

1:15:43

in all cases, and we would

1:15:45

like to ensure that

1:15:47

everyone knows that and the case

1:15:49

is closed. Now that's minimally

1:15:52

professional responsible,

1:15:54

as far as I'm concerned, minimally, because

1:15:56

you've been dragged through quite a lovely

1:15:59

form of hell.

1:16:00

Maybe you lost an election because of

1:16:02

it. And, you know, in some sense, that's too

1:16:04

bad for you. But in a much deeper

1:16:07

sense, that's too bad for the citizens

1:16:09

of Minnesota, whose electoral

1:16:11

process was hijacked by an inappropriate

1:16:14

investigation. And that's not forgivable.

1:16:16

And as far as I'm concerned, that's

1:16:19

on them. And so I don't

1:16:21

think

1:16:22

that it's reasonable to

1:16:24

presume that after the sixth failed

1:16:27

investigation, especially in a high-stakes

1:16:29

situation like this, that

1:16:32

what the board members were doing was

1:16:34

just within the realm of their

1:16:37

appropriate,

1:16:39

what would you say, domain of professional

1:16:41

responsibility.

1:16:43

It's like three times, guys, you're

1:16:45

pushing it. Six times, you're

1:16:48

way beyond the pale, especially when there's

1:16:50

as much political

1:16:52

context muddying up

1:16:54

the circumstance as there is in your

1:16:56

specific case.

1:16:59

So I would love to

1:17:01

receive a letter, as you just mentioned, but

1:17:03

I think that through this process, I

1:17:05

perhaps moved a little bit from a naive

1:17:08

optimist into somewhat

1:17:10

more of a cynic when it comes to regulatory

1:17:13

agencies. I think that what

1:17:15

I went through is

1:17:16

something that virtually

1:17:19

anybody could go through. If it

1:17:21

happened to me, it could happen to you. If you're

1:17:23

subject to any regulatory agency, I don't

1:17:25

care if you own a hair salon, a restaurant,

1:17:28

a pub, a dental clinic. If

1:17:31

you're subject to a regulatory agency, what

1:17:33

we have seen is they are able

1:17:35

to be weaponized. The

1:17:37

board of medical practice does not believe that

1:17:39

they were weaponized.

1:17:41

I indicated to them, I don't think the

1:17:43

individuals were, but I think the agency

1:17:45

collectively was. I think

1:17:48

that,

1:17:48

frankly, how did they justify

1:17:51

their claim that they weren't weaponized? How

1:17:53

in the world could they be wrong 18 times?

1:17:57

18 is a lot of times to be wrong.

1:18:00

You know, that's a pattern too.

1:18:02

So how did they claim that they weren't

1:18:04

weaponized?

1:18:06

I think there's an underlying sense

1:18:09

within many regulatory agencies,

1:18:12

and perhaps the Minnesota Board of Medical Practices,

1:18:14

one, is that, as you

1:18:16

said earlier, anybody that has 18 allegations

1:18:19

against him,

1:18:20

there's gotta be some element

1:18:23

of he should

1:18:25

be discredited. And during the course

1:18:27

of our meeting,

1:18:29

there was a point in time where I was uncomfortable,

1:18:31

where I said, are you going

1:18:34

to discredit anybody

1:18:36

that doesn't

1:18:37

perceive the situation as yourself?

1:18:39

And I mentioned people like Dr. Peter

1:18:42

McCullough and Dr. Budichara and

1:18:44

Dr. Harvey Reesch, and

1:18:47

there was an absolute willingness

1:18:49

to dismiss those people as either

1:18:53

discredited and irrelevant or

1:18:55

whatever. I mean, I remember

1:18:57

that first time- There's nothing, no one less

1:18:59

credible than J. Boudicheria, after

1:19:01

all. I mean, all you have to do is look at his record

1:19:04

as an academic to understand very

1:19:06

deeply how much credibility

1:19:08

he lacks. I

1:19:10

was proud of the fact that I believe

1:19:13

I was one of the first physicians

1:19:15

to sign on to the Great Barrington Declaration

1:19:18

way back in 2020.

1:19:21

I believe it was. I thought

1:19:23

that it was a brilliant document identifying

1:19:27

the strengths and weaknesses of what public

1:19:29

health could do.

1:19:30

The lockdowns weren't working, the

1:19:32

locking in of the nursing home patients to

1:19:34

die horrific lonely deaths, the

1:19:36

locking out of students. All of this was

1:19:39

problematic at a deep level.

1:19:41

So when we saw this document

1:19:43

come out and say, listen,

1:19:45

we know where this virus

1:19:47

wants to hit. We know who's

1:19:49

particularly vulnerable. Let's provide

1:19:52

laser-focused protection for those people

1:19:55

and recognize that we have

1:19:57

an economy to maintain. We have

1:19:59

a mental health.

1:19:59

health, responsibility. We

1:20:02

cannot damage our children for

1:20:04

decades to come. And yet all

1:20:06

of that was thrown aside in part

1:20:09

because there's this contest going on where

1:20:12

my experts are more important

1:20:14

than yours. My champions are

1:20:16

more soundly rational

1:20:19

than yours. There's this constant

1:20:21

victory. So with

1:20:23

the Great Barrington Declaration, which

1:20:25

is something that Bhattacharyya

1:20:27

initiated, we now have

1:20:30

a total signature volume

1:20:33

of a million people. It's 936,000.

1:20:41

47,000 of those are medical

1:20:43

practitioners.

1:20:44

So when you go in front of the Minnesota Board

1:20:47

of Medical

1:20:50

Practice, you can say, well, 47,000

1:20:52

medical

1:20:54

practitioners worldwide

1:20:59

tend to agree that my

1:21:02

misinformation was accurate.

1:21:04

And so on

1:21:07

what grounds do you stand?

1:21:09

And the answer is, well, the answer I get

1:21:12

from places like the Ontario College of Psychologists

1:21:14

is we don't have to answer questions like that.

1:21:17

Which is, so at the moment, as

1:21:19

you know, I'm in a situation that's pretty

1:21:21

similar to yours.

1:21:23

Although it

1:21:24

didn't destroy my political career, it

1:21:27

certainly did in my clinical career,

1:21:30

that's for sure. Much to

1:21:32

the chagrin and damage of my clients,

1:21:34

by the way, some of whom I'd had, what?

1:21:40

I had a relationship with, that

1:21:43

spanned years and sometimes decades,

1:21:45

which all burned up in an instant. And

1:21:49

they're hauling me in front of their,

1:21:52

they've threatened to haul me in front of an

1:21:54

interview because I told them to go to

1:21:56

hell with their

1:21:58

insistence that I be.

1:21:59

be re-educated interminably

1:22:04

by their experts according to their

1:22:06

standards for a duration they choose.

1:22:09

And so now I'm supposed to face the same

1:22:11

sort of

1:22:12

in-person examining board that

1:22:15

just

1:22:16

grilled you over the coals, but

1:22:19

they're delaying and delaying and delaying

1:22:22

because, well, why not, I

1:22:24

suppose.

1:22:26

I think they're suffering from

1:22:28

the extreme delusion that

1:22:32

if they leave this hornet's nest alone, the hornets

1:22:34

will leave, but

1:22:36

that's definitely not

1:22:39

going to happen. So I've been calling on them publicly in

1:22:41

Canada rather repeatedly

1:22:43

to

1:22:44

get on with the inquisition, but

1:22:46

at the moment they're hiding behind a variety

1:22:49

of bureaucratic idiocies

1:22:51

to make the case

1:22:54

that

1:22:56

they have the right to delay the investigation

1:22:58

beyond the

1:23:00

statutory limitations for

1:23:02

it that they've even imposed upon themselves,

1:23:04

right? Because there's 150 day

1:23:06

period within which, if I understand

1:23:09

correctly, within which these are supposed to be

1:23:12

brought to something approximating a conclusion

1:23:15

once they've been initiated so that you're

1:23:17

not hung out to dry forever,

1:23:19

but there's always a reason for bureaucrats

1:23:22

to get around their own

1:23:23

bureaucratic limitations, and

1:23:25

that's certainly happening in the Canadian situation.

1:23:28

But did they give you

1:23:30

the sense

1:23:31

that you better continue

1:23:34

to step lightly,

1:23:36

Dr. Jensen, because with your

1:23:39

reprehensible history of six investigations,

1:23:41

it's only a matter of time until you

1:23:44

say something else cataclysmically

1:23:46

inappropriate and we haul you in front of

1:23:48

ourselves again? Or do you think maybe

1:23:51

they've gone back into their lair

1:23:54

to

1:23:55

find someone else to torment?

1:23:59

I think there was

1:24:01

a clear understanding that

1:24:04

there were a couple things that were really problematic

1:24:06

for them and that

1:24:09

if I

1:24:11

would

1:24:12

once again engage in that kind of

1:24:14

activity,

1:24:16

I would very likely appear before them

1:24:18

again.

1:24:19

I think specifically… So what would those

1:24:21

be? Yeah. I think

1:24:23

specifically

1:24:25

utilizing off-label

1:24:27

medications

1:24:28

for the treatment of COVID-19… Physicians

1:24:31

do that all the time. Physicians do that all the

1:24:33

time.

1:24:34

I pointed that out to them. I pointed that out

1:24:36

that many pediatricians would have

1:24:38

more than 50% of their prescriptions would be off-label.

1:24:41

But specifically the off-label use of ivermectin

1:24:44

was very problematic for them. And

1:24:47

how dangerous is ivermectin if you

1:24:49

look at the various reports?

1:24:52

If you look at the history of the medication,

1:24:55

the FDA data, and

1:24:57

the VAERS data, I think ivermectin

1:25:00

for a five-day course is

1:25:03

extremely safe. Now whether

1:25:05

or not… It looks like it's about as safe as water,

1:25:08

right? I don't think you'd

1:25:10

have to scour the medical literature

1:25:12

long and hard before you found

1:25:14

a drug

1:25:15

with as low a proportion

1:25:17

of side effects to benefit as

1:25:19

ivermectin. There's been millions

1:25:21

of doses given

1:25:23

and the side effect reporting

1:25:26

is so

1:25:27

remarkably low that it's a

1:25:29

kind of miracle. So if you're going

1:25:31

to

1:25:32

administer agent

1:25:35

off-label,

1:25:36

it's hard for me to see how you could do something

1:25:39

that would

1:25:40

bring about less likely harm

1:25:42

than ivermectin. Do you think that's a reasonable

1:25:45

position?

1:25:46

I think ivermectin is very safe. I think

1:25:48

a lot of people don't realize that it's available

1:25:51

over the counter in topical forms. I

1:25:53

think there's a medicine called Sclice that people

1:25:56

could purchase on their own. But

1:25:58

I think that the board of medical… practice made

1:26:00

it clear that this was a big deal. I

1:26:02

think they also made it very clear that what they

1:26:05

perceive the standard of care to be, they

1:26:08

often talked about the minimum standard of care.

1:26:10

They asked me, what do you think the

1:26:12

minimum standard of care is? And I said, I've

1:26:15

never really thought about the minimum standard of

1:26:17

care because that's never what I've aspired to provide.

1:26:20

I've always thought that I wanted to provide the best

1:26:22

quality of care. And I think that

1:26:24

that's what I've done. So

1:26:27

in terms of going forward,

1:26:30

your question is extremely pertinent. Is

1:26:32

there going to be a seventh investigation?

1:26:34

Is someone from the

1:26:37

public going to say, we're going to keep

1:26:39

making Dr. Scott Jensen's life a

1:26:41

living hell until he shuts up?

1:26:44

I'm going to guess that's going to happen. That's

1:26:47

why I keep coming back to the point.

1:26:51

We do not have a clearly defined

1:26:53

line. That we need

1:26:56

to have

1:26:57

between my rights of

1:26:58

First Amendment speech and

1:27:01

the Minnesota Board's

1:27:03

obligation to

1:27:06

make certain that my

1:27:08

professional conduct as it pertains

1:27:10

to the practice of medicine is

1:27:13

above the minimum standard of care.

1:27:15

To me, that's what needs to happen

1:27:17

yet. And so I don't think

1:27:19

we could possibly be done with

1:27:21

this issue in America. I think

1:27:24

we need the courts to weigh

1:27:26

in and say, listen, if states

1:27:28

have put together statute

1:27:31

language

1:27:32

that violates the Constitution,

1:27:35

it's

1:27:36

unconstitutional. If

1:27:39

regulatory agencies are

1:27:41

stepping beyond their bounds, thinking

1:27:43

that they get to do this and this and

1:27:45

this, and it's unconstitutional, it

1:27:48

needs to be declared that. Because if

1:27:50

there's one thing that COVID-19 has done, it

1:27:52

has put a spotlight on regulatory

1:27:55

agencies that can go after you, me,

1:27:58

the hair salon person, the...

1:27:59

the pub owner, the restaurant runner,

1:28:03

everybody. We are all at risk. Frankly,

1:28:06

Dr. Peterson, that's why I wrote my book. We've

1:28:08

been played because I said, we

1:28:11

need to make certain that we're seeing what's going

1:28:13

on in our world. The world of big

1:28:16

tech and big pharma and big government

1:28:19

colluding and having a similar mission,

1:28:22

it's happening right in front of our eyes. And

1:28:25

I'm saying that people like you and me, we

1:28:27

have an obligation to expose that. We

1:28:30

saw big government protect big pharma.

1:28:32

We saw big pharma and big tech

1:28:35

scratching each other's back. We

1:28:38

saw the DOD in the United

1:28:40

States provided more money to

1:28:42

Pfizer in 2022 than they did to

1:28:44

Boeing.

1:28:47

The Department of

1:28:49

Defense spends more money paying Pfizer

1:28:51

than they spend Boeing, which

1:28:54

is going to make weaponry

1:28:56

and aircraft that will protect

1:28:58

our nation. We've gone upside

1:29:01

down and we need to stop

1:29:03

this.

1:29:04

Well,

1:29:06

Dr. Jensen, that's a pretty good place to

1:29:08

end, I would say.

1:29:09

Yeah, well, and for all of you professionals

1:29:11

who are listening,

1:29:14

you're living in a fool's paradise if you don't think

1:29:16

this is coming down the pikes for you.

1:29:19

And what do I mean by that? It's like,

1:29:21

you know, you might not be investigated, although

1:29:24

I

1:29:24

wouldn't

1:29:26

rule that out. I would say, if

1:29:28

I was advising a young professional

1:29:31

now, I would say, you

1:29:34

better make the presumption

1:29:36

and prepare for the likelihood

1:29:39

that at some point, someone

1:29:43

with the delightful

1:29:45

intrinsic nature of an Eastern

1:29:48

European KGB and former

1:29:50

of the 1970s,

1:29:52

is gonna

1:29:54

target you for some resentful

1:29:57

reason. And

1:29:58

the board of... regulators

1:30:02

of your profession is gonna make your life

1:30:04

hell. So you better bloody well prepare

1:30:07

for that, for that because that's coming along.

1:30:09

But I would also say that even

1:30:12

if you're not unfortunate enough to

1:30:14

have that happen, and you will

1:30:16

be,

1:30:17

but even if you're not,

1:30:19

you're in a situation now where

1:30:21

as a licensed professional, you're

1:30:24

gonna have to live in a certain amount

1:30:26

of fear with regards to the freedom of

1:30:29

your tongue. And that's going to make

1:30:31

you much less

1:30:33

secure and happy person publicly,

1:30:36

it's gonna make you a much worse professional. Because

1:30:39

if you can no longer say what you

1:30:41

think as a professional

1:30:44

with the attendant risk of being wrong,

1:30:46

you're no longer of any use to your

1:30:49

patients or clients or

1:30:52

customers.

1:30:53

And so that's a pretty damn dismal

1:30:56

outcome. The right

1:30:58

outcome here is for the weaponized

1:31:01

boards of regulatory

1:31:04

practice to be

1:31:06

scuttled because

1:31:08

they've been corrupted beyond repair.

1:31:13

They've been weaponized partly by easy

1:31:15

access to the complaint process electronically.

1:31:18

They've failed to update themselves

1:31:21

with the times. They put all the hands

1:31:23

in the power of idiot vengeful

1:31:25

accusers, and

1:31:28

they pose a far greater threat to the public

1:31:31

than they do a defense.

1:31:34

And the legislators who are listening, especially

1:31:37

on the Republican side, the more conservative

1:31:39

side, should wake up and understand

1:31:41

that this is a catastrophe.

1:31:43

Because it's not

1:31:45

just Dr. Jensen, it's all physicians,

1:31:47

it's all psychologists, it's all teachers,

1:31:50

it's all lawyers even more ominously

1:31:53

because the

1:31:54

equivalent boards that regulate legal practice

1:31:57

are perhaps even worse. And

1:31:59

that's...

1:31:59

really saying something.

1:32:01

And so

1:32:02

we're not in Kansas anymore.

1:32:05

And it's 1947 with Jimmy Stewart.

1:32:09

I don't know where the hell we are, but that's

1:32:12

not it. And

1:32:14

all of you professionals who are listening,

1:32:17

it

1:32:18

would be better for you

1:32:20

in the medium and long run

1:32:22

that you wake up and smell the coffee. And

1:32:25

that when someone like Dr. Jensen with

1:32:27

his stellar record is being

1:32:29

attacked by

1:32:30

your idiot boards of regulation, that

1:32:33

silence is not in your best interest.

1:32:37

And so, well, one

1:32:39

of the things I've shared with many audiences is

1:32:42

I've said the words of Martin Emolar

1:32:45

in the mid 1940s when he wrote,

1:32:47

when they came for the trade unionists, I didn't speak

1:32:50

up because I wasn't a trade unionist. When

1:32:52

they came for the communists, I didn't speak up because

1:32:54

I wasn't a communist. When they came for the

1:32:56

Jews, I didn't speak up because I wasn't a

1:32:58

Jew. And when they came for me, there was

1:33:01

nobody left to speak up. I

1:33:03

don't know that there's any essay

1:33:06

or poem written that could be more

1:33:08

compelling than that is we

1:33:10

have to speak up. We have to stand

1:33:13

at your side. We have to stand

1:33:15

at my side. We have to recognize

1:33:17

that we're not in Kansas anymore,

1:33:20

that we should not

1:33:22

be threatened with the idea

1:33:25

of being sent to a reeducation camp

1:33:27

simply because we express our

1:33:30

heartfelt perspective on a given situation.

1:33:33

Amen to that. So, well,

1:33:37

we'll see how the

1:33:38

college inquisition in Ontario

1:33:41

rolls itself out. They

1:33:44

came after me with 13 allegations

1:33:46

in the last round. And,

1:33:50

you know, I mounted my defense,

1:33:53

which has been an extraordinarily expensive

1:33:55

undertaking and has all the complexities

1:33:57

that you described,

1:33:58

but they seem to be at a...

1:33:59

a little bit of a stalemate at the moment

1:34:02

in relationship to their continued persecution.

1:34:05

And

1:34:05

as far as I'm concerned,

1:34:07

this is a no holds barred all

1:34:10

out war. And so I'm actually

1:34:12

looking forward to being brought in front

1:34:14

of the disciplinary committee, because

1:34:17

as I understand it,

1:34:18

they videotape it. And I'm going

1:34:21

to put the videotape on YouTube after

1:34:23

I'm done. And we'll

1:34:25

see who inquires into

1:34:27

the conduct of who.

1:34:29

So Dr. Peterson, to that point,

1:34:32

when the Minnesota Board

1:34:34

of Medical Practice introduced themselves

1:34:36

at our meeting last week, they

1:34:39

advised me that it was going to be recorded.

1:34:41

So I asked if I could have a copy of the recording.

1:34:43

And I was told I would not be able to have a copy

1:34:46

of the recording unless our

1:34:48

proceedings advanced along a pathway

1:34:51

whereby legal

1:34:52

statute would

1:34:54

allow me to have

1:34:56

a copy. But otherwise I would not have

1:34:58

a copy of that. And I thought that was

1:35:00

interesting. I thought that it was interesting that they

1:35:02

were going to record it. I would not get a copy

1:35:05

unless potentially we went to another

1:35:07

step where I would formally and

1:35:09

make a legal request for that. So

1:35:11

I did find that interesting as well.

1:35:14

Yeah, yeah. Well, it should be the case

1:35:17

that these,

1:35:18

it's necessary, it's necessary

1:35:21

now for these to be these, especially

1:35:24

the final stages of these inquisitions

1:35:26

to be a matter of public record.

1:35:28

And in my case, one way or another,

1:35:31

they're going to be a matter of public record.

1:35:34

So- I requested

1:35:36

that- Anyways-

1:35:38

I requested that our meeting not be Zoom.

1:35:40

I wanted it face-to-face. I wanted

1:35:42

it Facebook live streamed, and I

1:35:44

wanted it open to the public, and I wanted

1:35:47

a copy of the recording. And the only one

1:35:49

I got was I did get a

1:35:51

face-to-face meeting.

1:35:53

Right, right, right. Well, congratulations

1:35:56

on your newfound freedom, so

1:35:59

to speak.

1:36:01

It's good to see that you've

1:36:04

managed to come through this

1:36:05

more or less intact and that you're

1:36:07

not,

1:36:09

you know, down for the count because

1:36:13

plenty of people,

1:36:15

I've really been struck to my soul, I would

1:36:17

say,

1:36:18

watching

1:36:19

what this has done to people,

1:36:22

the people that I've encountered who've been

1:36:24

dragged through the mud in this manner.

1:36:26

There's

1:36:27

almost nothing you can do to someone who's

1:36:31

strived hard to put forward

1:36:34

a credible professional

1:36:36

career and made the sacrifices necessary

1:36:39

to ensure that that occurs, then

1:36:41

to denigrate their reputation and

1:36:44

to accuse them of professional

1:36:46

malfeasance. It's an unbelievably

1:36:48

effective weapon. And when

1:36:50

wielded properly, it wreaks tremendous

1:36:53

havoc on people's lives. Of course, including

1:36:56

the lives of the people who are being served by

1:36:58

that professional

1:37:00

upon whose reputation

1:37:03

at minimum, a pall has now been cast

1:37:06

and faith,

1:37:08

what shaken even under

1:37:10

the best circumstances. And so it's

1:37:13

good to see that

1:37:14

you're bloody but unbowed, so to speak,

1:37:17

and I hope the bastards leave you

1:37:19

the hell alone from here on in, but

1:37:21

they probably won't.

1:37:23

So, forearmed

1:37:25

is, what is it? Forewarned is

1:37:28

forearmed. And so I guess you've been through

1:37:30

this enough now to know what to do the next

1:37:32

time the snake comes around to

1:37:35

inject some more venom.

1:37:37

Good talking to you today, sir.

1:37:40

Thank you, I appreciate it very much, I do.

1:37:42

Hello,

1:37:45

everyone. I would encourage you to continue

1:37:48

listening to my conversation with my guests

1:37:50

on dailywireplus.com. Thank

1:37:53

you.