Doctor Who Wrote Op-Ed on Coronavirus Infection Parties Says Federalist Made Unwanted Edits to Piece
Douglas Perednia says he never thought his opinion piece on “controlled infection” of the coronavirus, published in The Federalist, would draw such a heated backlash.
The piece, which proposed the deliberate spread of the coronavirus in order to boost immunity to the disease, drew heated criticism when it ran on the conservative website on Wednesday. A tweet linking to the op-ed was even flagged as dangerous and deleted by Twitter.
In an exclusive interview with Mediaite, the dermatologist said the Federalist made a series of edits to his story without alerting him, which included changing the headline to focus on “chickenpox parties.”
The draft that Perednia submitted to the Federalist — which he provided to Mediaite — only mentioned such “chickenpox parties” in a footnote. In the published version, they were in the headline and the body of the story.
What’s more, editors at the Federalist apparently changed references to COVID-19 in the piece to “The Wuhan Virus.”
“Controlled Voluntary Infection Could Help Counter COVID-19 and Revive the Economy,” was the headline of the piece Perednia submitted. The published story had the headline: “How Medical ‘Chickenpox Parties’ Could Turn The Tide Of The Wuhan Virus.”
“The article had footnotes,” Perednia told Mediaite. “And the thing about the measles and chickenpox party, that was a historical footnote. And they put that actually into the text of the article.”
Perednia said he was not told about the edits before the piece was published.
The Oregon-based dermatologist also said he emailed the outlet after the story was published over misleading section headlines, which were then fixed. (The edits were not disclosed anywhere on the page.) Vice News reported that while Perednia was described by the Federalist as a physician, his medical license is lapsed.
Perednia also told Mediaite he submitted the piece to the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, before the Federalist picked it up. “I tried to get it published in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Medscape, which is a physician website,” he said.
“I finally decided to send it to the Federalist, which I guess is conservative,” Perednia said. “But I didn’t realize that that would create a firestorm of controversy. So I sent it to them, and they read it, and then they published it, but they changed the title. So that was, I think that’s the main problem. And the minute they changed it to mention chickenpox parties, and I don’t know why they did that.”
“But they did that. And I think that probably caused 90 percent of the problems,” Perednia added.
When asked if he received any word back from the Federalist regarding fact checking, he replied told Mediaite, “No, I don’t know if they fact check things or not, they didn’t with me.”
Perednia also defended his position on curbing the spread of coronavirus in comments to Mediaite, sharing similar proposals printed in the Wall Street Journal.
“Also, just for the record, I never said, suggested, or implied that anyone just go and hold their own ‘coronavirus party.’ Nothing could be further from the truth,” Perednia added in an email.
Federalist co-founders Sean Davis and Ben Domenech did not respond to Mediaite’s request for comment.
Perednia says he is now unfairly being cast as a “homicidal maniac” and a “right-wing Trump fanatic.”
UPDATE: Perednia told Mediaite he is no longer a licensed doctor: “I dropped my medical license because I retired at the end of 2019.” This post has been updated to reflect that.
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