Yes, actually, we do accommodate them. We recruit rural physicians for rural communities all the time because people are more likely to trust and stay connected to healthcare systems when clinicians understand their culture, language, geography, and lived experience. That is why we have rural tracks in medical schools, Native health pathways, Black maternal health initiatives, Spanish-speaking clinics, VA systems, tribal health systems, and community-based recruitment programs. This is not “woke.” It is how public health works. The difference is that nobody calls it “identity politics” when medicine bends over backward to accommodate rural White populations because that has long been viewed as normal. The outrage only seems to appear when minority communities ask for the same recognition. Patients are human beings, not interchangeable widgets in a bureaucratic sorting machine.

This is a fine example of how to turn routine quality metrics into a conspiracy. What he calls a “bribe” is a performance incentive tied to public health benchmarks—the same structure used across medicine for things like cancer screening, blood pressure control, and diabetes management. The goal is not to “pay doctors to inject babies.” The goal is to ensure children actually receive recommended preventive care—care that prevents measles, meningitis, and hospitalizations. In other words, outcomes. If this is corruption, then so is: Paying doctors more when fewer of their patients have uncontrolled diabetes Rewarding clinics that improve cancer screening rates Incentivizing hospitals to reduce infections Apparently, in this worldview, the only ethical system is one where no one is rewarded for doing things that work. But notice the sleight of hand. He lists programs—many of which include patient rewards, population health targets, and broad quality measures—and rebrands them all as “bribes,” as though a pediatrician is twirling a mustache while cashing a check for each syringe. That is not how this works. Pediatricians don’t get rich off vaccines. In many cases, after storage, staffing, and reimbursement headaches, vaccines are barely profitable or even a net burden. What these incentives do is offset the friction of delivering preventive care in a system that otherwise rewards treating disease more than preventing it. And then comes the darker insinuation—that this somehow corrupts the doctor-parent relationship. No. What actually corrupts that relationship is telling parents that decades of data, millions of lives saved, and global consensus are all a façade maintained by a $2,500 bonus. That is not skepticism. That is narrative-building. Yes—question incentives. You should. Yes—ask what benefits your child. You must. But if your argument requires redefining preventing disease as profiteering, then you are no longer analyzing the system—you are attacking the very idea of prevention itself.