Association of American Physicians and Surgeons

The AAPS opposes gun control and does not recognize handgun violence as a public health problem. Instead, the AAPS insists that handguns save lives, and that gun research sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is politically motivated "junk science".[11][12][13][14]

AAPS went to court to block enforcement of a Social Security amendment that would monitor the treatment given to Medicare and Medicaid patients; in November 1975 the Supreme Court let stand a lower-court decision upholding the Social Security legislation.[15]

With several other groups, AAPS filed a lawsuit in 1993 against Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala over closed-door meetings related to the 1993 Clinton health care plan. The AAPS sued to gain access to the list of members of President Bill Clinton's health care taskforce. Judge Royce C. Lamberth initially found in favor of the plaintiffs and awarded $285,864 to the AAPS for legal costs; Lamberth also harshly criticized the Clinton administration and Clinton aide Ira Magaziner in his ruling.[16] Subsequently, a federal appeals court overturned the award and the initial findings on the basis that Magaziner and the administration had not acted in bad faith.[17]

The AAPS was involved in litigation in 2001 against the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), arguing that it violated the Fourth Amendment by allowing government access to certain medical data without a warrant.[18] (Title II of HIPAA, known as the Administrative Simplification (AS) provisions, requires the establishment of national standards for electronic health care transactions and national identifiers for providers, health insurance plans, and employers, and is intended to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the US's health care system by encouraging the widespread use of electronic data interchange in the health care system.)

An AAPS lawsuit opposing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, and seeking to invalidate it, was dismissed in March 2014 for lack of standing and failure to state a valid cause of action.[19][20]

In 2004, AAPS filed a brief on behalf of conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh in Florida's Fourth District Court of Appeal, opposing the seizure of his medical files in an investigation of drug charges for Limbaugh's alleged misuse of prescription drugs. The AAPS stated the seizure was a violation of state law and that "It is not a crime for a patient to be in pain and repeatedly seek relief, and doctors should not be turned against patients they tried to help."[21]

In 2007, AAPS assisted in the appeal against the conviction of Virginia internist William Hurwitz, who was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison for prescribing excessive quantities of narcotic drugs after 16 former patients testified against him.[22] Hurwitz was granted a retrial in 2006, and his 25-year prison sentence was reduced to 4 years and 9 months.[23]

Articles and commentaries published in the journal have argued a number of non-mainstream or scientifically discredited claims,[24] including:

• that human activity has not contributed to climate change, and that global warming will be beneficial and thus is not a cause for concern.[30][31]
• that HIV does not cause AIDS.[32]
• that the "gay male lifestyle" shortens life expectancy by 20 years.[33]
• that there is a link between abortion and the risk of breast cancer.[3]
• that there are possible links between autism and vaccinations.[3]
• that government efforts to encourage smoking cessation and emphasize the addictiveness of nicotine are misguided.[34]
• that masks are not an effective means of preventing the spread of coronavirus[35]

A series of articles by anti-abortion authors published in the journal argued for a link between abortion and breast cancer.[36][37] Such a link has been rejected by the scientific community, including the U.S. National Cancer Institute,[38] the American Cancer Society,[39] and the World Health Organization,[40] among other major medical bodies.[41]

A 2003 paper published in the journal, claiming that vaccination was harmful, was criticized for poor methodology, lack of scientific rigor, and outright errors by the World Health Organization[42] and the American Academy of Pediatrics.[43] A National Public Radio piece mentioned inaccurate information published in the Journal and said: "The journal itself is not considered a leading publication, as it's put out by an advocacy group that opposes most government involvement in medical care."[44]

The journal has also published articles advocating politically and socially conservative policy positions, including:

• that the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services are unconstitutional;[45]
• that "humanists" have conspired to replace the "creation religion of Jehovah" with evolution;[46]
• that "anchor babies" are valuable to undocumented immigrants, particularly if the babies are disabled.[24]

The organization published on its website an article claiming that Obama hypnotized audiences with his speeches, using "extra slow speech, rhythm, tonalities, vagueness, visual imagery, metaphor, and raising of emotion." The "O" in Obama's logo was compared to a crystal ball used as a "point of visual fixation".[34]

In a 2005 article published in the journal, Madeleine Cosman argued that illegal immigrants were carriers of disease, and that immigrants and "anchor babies" were launching a "stealthy assault on [American] medicine."[47] In the article, Cosman claimed that "Suddenly, in the past 3 years America has more than 7,000 cases of leprosy" because of illegal aliens.[47] The journal's leprosy claim was cited and repeated by Lou Dobbs as evidence of the dangers of illegal immigration.[44][48]

Publicly available statistics show that the 7,000 cases of leprosy occurred during the past 30 years, not the past three as Cosman claimed.[49] James L. Krahenbuhl, director of the U.S. government's leprosy program, stated that there had been no significant increase in leprosy cases, and that "It [leprosy] is not a public health problem—that’s the bottom line."[48] National Public Radio reported that the Journal article "had footnotes that did not readily support allegations linking a recent rise in leprosy rates to illegal immigrants."[44] The article's erroneous leprosy claim was pointed out by 60 Minutes,[50] National Public Radio,[44] and The New York Times.[48] As of 2020, the article remains on the journal's website without having been corrected.[47]