A group of conspiracy theorists associated with former President Donald Trump's one-time national security adviser Michael Flynn is trying to seize control of a renowned public hospital in Sarasota, Florida through a local election.
According to The Daily Beast, the group involved in the scheme "includes Mary Flynn O’Neill, who directs her brother’s nonprofit and routinely appears on right-wing shows with QAnon conspiracy theorists; Tanya Parus, the president of Moms For America’s Sarasota chapter and co-owner of a 'freedom-based' health clinic, and Tamzin Rosenwasser, a dermatologist who once railed against the Federation of State Medical Boards’ warning to doctors who spread COVID vaccine misinformation, comparing the organization to Stalin’s secret police."
Also among their number is Dr. Stephen Guffanti, who has previously accused the hospital of battery and false imprisonment and has proclaimed COVID a "bioweapon."
They are standing in an election to fill positions on the Sarasota Memorial Hospital's board. If they win, "Health Freedom Candidates" will control a majority on the nine-person panel.
SMHl is renowned as one of the most prestigious medical centers in Florida, and experts warn that if this group, which also has ties to the Proud Boys, successfully elects representation to the board, it could damage the administration and messaging of the institution.
According to one retired doctor, their takeover would mean that “what is considered a very good hospital will be guided by a bunch of conspiracy theorists who do not believe that COVID-19 was dangerous.”
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Flynn, a former Defense Intelligence Agency director who was forced out of the Trump administration just weeks after his appointment over his involvement in the Russia scandal, has since fallen in with figures in the QAnon movement, which holds that America is secretly controlled by cannibalistic Satanists and often views Trump as a messianic savior who will defeat them.
Among other things, he has participated in MAGA "doomsday gatherings," and at one point suggested, before walking it back, that the United States needed to have a military coup.
In recent years, several extremist groups have sought to win local elections around Florida, or sometimes to take administrative positions. In 2022, members of the Proud Boys were hired to poll worker positions in Miami-Dade County; one was dismissed after their activities on January 6 were exposed.