Skip to content
Search AI Powered

Latest Stories

Dr. Phil Under Fire For Questioning U.S Lockdown Efforts By Comparing Virus Deaths To Swimming Pool Accidents

Dr. Phil Under Fire For Questioning U.S Lockdown Efforts By Comparing Virus Deaths To Swimming Pool Accidents
Albert L. Ortega / Contributor / Getty Images

Dr. Phil McGraw—who has a PhD in psychology but is not licensed to practice in any state and is certainly not a medical doctor—is receiving major backlash online for comments he made during a Fox News interview.


During that interview, he incorrectly quoted statistics about annual causes of death in the United States in an attempt to argue stay-at-home orders are unnecessary and may be causing more harm than good.

McGraw told Laura Ingraham he was worried the isolation is seriously effecting Americans' mental health, which is certainly true.

But then he asserted the isolation itself might cause more deaths than the virus.

"The longer this lockdown goes on, the more vulnerable people get. It's like there's a tipping point where people start having enough problems in lockdown that it will actually create more destruction and actually more deaths across time than the actual virus will itself.

He also quoted false statistics in support of his argument.

"We have 45,000 people a year die from automobile accidents, 480,000 from cigarettes, 360,000 a year from swimming pools but we don't shut the country down for that. But yet we're doing it for this? And the fall out is going to last for years because people's lives are being destroyed."

Ignoring the fact the country isn't shut down for swimming pool or automobile deaths because those aren't caused by a highly contagious pathogen—making quarantine and social distancing ineffective at combating them—the CDC says there were only around 3,600 pool deaths on average per year from 2005-2014. The number of yearly deaths due to car accidents was only 32,000.

And those were spread over 12 months, not just 3-4 months.

Dr. Frank Ulrich Montgomery, Chair of Council of the World Medical Association, told Newsweek:

"It is cynical to weigh up one source of death against another. If there is a chance of prevention and treatment you have to take it—in the interest of humanity."

And he cautioned against that cynicism in decision making.

"We have to weigh up the consequences for health care against sociopsychological factors and the detrimental effects of lockdowns to economy. And we have to be aware that we cannot afford a backlash. A 'second wave' would be a terrible disaster, economically, for health and for society, "

Folks on Twitter were also quick to point out the ridiculousness of McGraw's comparisons.

Many pointed out car crash and pool deaths led to sensible regulations to decrease them, just like stay-at-home orders are doing to decrease virus inclfection and death.




Many also brought up McGraw's lack of qualifications to speak on the issue at all.

He is not a medical doctor and has not even been licensed to practice clinical psychology in over a decade.




Some people also pointed out the vastly inaccurate statistics McGraw used to make his point.

The health organizations of the world made the recommendation for social distancing, stay-at-home orders, lockdowns and quarantines for good reason.

Slowing the spread of the disease by avoiding unnecessary human contact is our best chance to keep the most people alive and not overwhelm the healthcare system.

The book Quackery: A Brief History of the Worst Ways to Cure Everything is available here.

More from Trending

A dark haired woman looks into her phone in disbelief. She is sitting at a wooden table in a dimly lit room.
Photo by Michael Heise on Unsplash

Events That Divided People's Lives into 'Before' And 'After'

Life can be so cruel sometimes.

Everything you know and depend on can change in a matter of seconds.

Keep ReadingShow less

People Divulge The Most Insulting 'Benefit' Their Job Offered Them

Finding a job seems to be harder than ever, but even with our struggles to find a job, we still have to have some standards.

While purusing job descriptions, we have to take into consideration how our skills and work history will contribute to the position, but we also have to think about what the company has to offer us, including benefits.

Keep ReadingShow less
Duolingo owl mascot; RedNote logo on a smartphone screen against TikTok logo on computer screen
@duolingo/Instagram, Photo Illustration by Nikolas Kokovlis/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Duolingo Has Hilarious Reaction To TikTok Users Learning Mandarin To Join Chinese App

Duolingo shaded social media users when the language app saw a spike in TikTok users' sudden interest in learning Mandarin to maximize their engagement on RedNote, a newer short-form video app from China natively known as Xiaohongshu.

The mass exodus to RedNote, China's answer to Instagram, comes in advance of the potential ban of TikTok in the U.S. prompted by increased national security concerns about users' data being compromised and vulnerable to cyber-attacks.

Keep ReadingShow less
Coca-Cola logo; Donald Trump
Coca Cola; Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Coca-Cola Blasted After Honoring Trump With Personalized Diet Coke Bottle For His Inauguration

The Coca-Cola company was widely criticized after James Quincey, its Chairman and CEO, presented President-elect Donald Trump with a Diet Coke bottle commemorating his upcoming inauguration.

The label on the bottle displayed Trump’s name, the date of his anticipated second inauguration, and an image of the White House. Trump is known to be a big fan of Diet Coke—he reportedly drinks 12 bottles per day—and he had an Oval Office button that aided in the delivery of the soda during his first presidency.

Keep ReadingShow less
Shot of a live action Elsa from "Frozen" dancing and singing with her eyes closed.
Photo by Lydia Turner on Unsplash

The Absolute Stupidest Things Disney Princesses Have Done In Their Films

Nobody is perfect, especially a movie princess.

In fact, most movie Princesses are a hot HOT mess.

Keep ReadingShow less